Integrating AEM Assets with InDesign Server

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Assets uses:

• A proxy to distribute the load of certain processing tasks. A proxy is an AEM instance that communicates with a proxy worker to fulfil a specific task, and other AEM instances to deliver the results.
  
• A proxy worker to define and manage a specific task.
  These can cover a wide variety of tasks; for example, using an InDesign Server to process files.
  

To fully upload files to AEM Assets that you have created with Adobe InDesign a CQ DAM Proxy is used. This uses a proxy worker to communicate with the Adobe InDesign Server, where scripts are run to extract metadata and generate various renditions for AEM Assets. The proxy worker enables the two-way communication between the InDesign Server and the AEM instance(s) in a cloud configuration.

The InDesign Server can be integrated with AEM Assets so that files created with InDesign (.indd) can be uploaded, renditions generated, all media extracted (for example, video) and stored as assets:

To integrate the InDesign Server for use with AEM Assets and after configuring your CQ DAM proxy, you need to:

1. Install the InDesign Server.
2. If required, configure the AEM Assets Workflow.
   This is only necessary if the default values are not appropriate for your instance.
3. Configure a proxy worker for the InDesign Server.

To install and start the InDesign Server for use with AEM:

AEM Assets has a preconfigured workflow DAM Update Asset, that has several process steps specifically for InDesign:

• Media Extraction
• Page Extraction

This workflow is setup with default values that can be adapted for your setup on the various author instances (this is a standard workflow, so further information is available under Editing a Workflow).  If you are using the default values (including the SOAP port), then no configuration is needed.

After the setup, uploading InDesign files into AEM Assets (by any of the usual methods) will trigger the workflow required to process the asset and prepare the various renditions. Test your configuration by uploading an .indd file into AEM Assets to confirm that you see the different renditions created by IDS under <your_asset>.indd/Renditions

This step controls the extraction of media from the .indd file.

To customize, you can edit Arguments tab of the Media Extraction step.

• ExtendScript library
  This is a simple http get/post method library, needed by other scripts.
  
• Extend Scripts
  You can specify different script combinations here. If you want your own scripts to be executed on the InDesign Server, save them under:
      /etc/dam/indesign/scripts
  For information about Indesign scripts see:
      http://www.adobe.com/devnet/indesign/documentation.html#idscripting
  

The ThumbnailExport.jsx script run by the Media Extraction workflow step generates a thumbnail rendition in .jpg format. This rendition is used by the Process Thumbnails workflow step to generate the static renditions required by AEM. 

You can configure the Process Thumbnails workflow step to generate static renditions at different sizes. Ensure that you do not remove the defaults, because they are required by the AEM Assets UI. Finally, the Delete Image Preview Rendition workflow step removes the .jpg thumbnail rendition, as it is no longer needed.

This creates an AEM page from the extracted elements. An extraction handler is used to extract data from a rendition (currently HTML or IDML). This data is then used to create a page using the PageBuilder.

To customize, you can edit the Arguments tab of the Page Extraction step.

• Page Extraction Handler
  From the drop down list, select the handler that you want to use. An extraction handler operates on a specific rendition, chosen by a related RenditionPicker (see the ExtractionHandler API).
  In a standard AEM installation the following is available:
  • IDML Export Extraction Handler
    Operates on the IDML rendition generated in the MediaExtract step.
    
• Page Name
  Specify the name you want to have assigned to the resulting page. If left blank then the name is "page" (or a derivative if "page" already exists).
• Page Title
  Specify the title you want to have assigned to the resulting page.
• Page Root Path
  The path to the root location of the resulting page.
  If left blank the node holding the asset's renditions will be used.
  
• Page Template
  The template to use when generating the resulting page.
• Page Design
  The page design to be used when generating the resulting page.
  

If the InDesign server and AEM run on different hosts or either or both these applications do not run on default ports, configure Day CQ Link Externalizer to set the host name, port, and content path for the InDesign server.

You can now enable parallel job processing for IDS.

First you need to determine the maximum number of parallel jobs (x) an InDesign Server can process:

• On a single multiprocessor machine, the maximum number of parallel jobs (x) that an InDesign Server can process is one less than the number of processors running IDS.
• When you are running IDS on multiple machines you need to count the total number of processors available (ie on all machines) then subtract the total number of machines.

To configure the number of parallel IDS jobs:

For InDesign server 10.0 or higher, perform the following steps to enable multi-session support.