No More Missing Books

You may have created a lot of books on Creative Book Builder app. Previously, if you delete the books accidentally, the books cannot be recovered unless you have backups on google drive or dropbox.

Sometimes, you would like to edit books on both iPad and iPhone at the same time. Previously, you need to export book from one device and import book into another device manually.

From version 3.7, we have a better solution: iCloud Synchronization & Deleted Books:

1. If you have signed in to iCloud on the device, you can create new book by turning on Synchronized with iCloud. You can edit the synchronized books on every device that you have signed in to iCloud using the same account. (iCloud Drive is a different thing)

2. In order to avoid the heavy network traffic, all synchronized book will be updated to iCloud only when new version is being generated. Make sure that you have generated book by tapping Generate Book or Re-generate Book.

3. Synchronization with iCloud can be turned on or off in Publish Book interface. Turning off synchronization with iCloud will delete the book from iCloud.

4. When you delete books in Device section, those books are moved to Deleted Books first. You can tap the title on top navigation bar and select delete icon to view the deleted books. You can delete books permanently, restore books or even empty Deleted Books.

5. When you delete books in Cloud section, you can choose to delete books everywhere or or from iCloud only. When synchronization happens in other device, the books that deleted from iCloud will be moved to Deleted Books.

6. No books are deleted permanently during iCloud Synchronization. All books that are deleted from iCloud will appear in Deleted Books.

Creative Book Builder v3.7

New features:

1. Quick add multiple footnotes at one time

2. Quick add multiple glossary items at one time

3. Synchronize books with iCloud

4. Deleted books can be restored until the books are deleted permanently

5. Import multiple HTML5 book zip files

6. Keep cover image's structure when exporting and importing EPUB

7. Support more fonts

8. Bug fix

Add more fun to your books

Creative Book Builder supports book widgets that make your book more fun.

Creative Widget Builder (CWB) is a powerful book widget generation tool. CWB adds 5 more widgets to new version. Now CWB contains 15 types of widgets.

Here are some examples of new widgets:

Timeline

Wikipedia Article

Pair Matching

Guess The Word

Arithmetic Question

Here is the full list of widgets:
https://getcwb.blogspot.com/p/widgets.html

New Image Editor

Creative Book Builder now integrates with new version of image editor supported by Adobe Creative Cloud.

More effects, frames, stickers, and overlays can be downloaded within the app for free.

More detail is here.

Creative Book Builder v3.6

New features:

1. Upload HTML5 book to FTP Server for hosting purpose

2. Move and copy group

3. Support external widgets for Fixed Layout Books

4. View trash of books in one interface

5. Upload & batch upload books to Box

6. Insert subscript and superscript

7. Convert Table To Rich Table

8. Convert List To Rich Table

9. New version of image editor

10. UI enhancement for photo picker

11. UI enhancement of resource library

12. Bug fix

Add interactive video widgets to your books

Embedded video in book can help us understand the content better. If people can interact with video, it brings more fun. How can we enrich the video ?

Creative Widget Builder v1.1 supports video related widgets: Video Slide, Video Question and Video Playlist.

Video Slide

When you record lesson in class, the presentation slide is not usually viewed clearly in video. Video slide widget can make video and presentation slide display side by side. Slide will be triggered at the proper time.

Here is the demo:

Video Question

Do you want to challenge others when they are watching your video? Video Question can insert multiple choice question at different time. Video will be stopped when question is about to display. After answering the question, video will be resumed.

Here is the demo:

Video Playlist

You can group a series of videos into one widget using Video Playlist. People can select video in the playlist.

Here is the demo:

Creative Book Builder v3.5

New features:

1. Share photos, video, audio or text from other apps into CBB using Share Extension

2. Fix the problem of external keyboard

3. Support iOS 9 multi-tasking (Split view and slide over)

4. Bug fix

Add your own games to your books

When your readers are reading your book for a long time, they may feel tired sometimes. If you add some games to the book, they can play the game to relax themselves. For students, learning game can help them understand the content easily.

So, is it possible to add games to your books? Creative Widget Builder (CWB) v1.1 makes it happen.

CWB v1.1 supports 2 games now:
1. Puzzle Game

2. Memory Matching Game

Puzzle Game

Puzzle Game splits photo into some parts and sorts parts in random order.

1. Tap + button and then select "Puzzle Game"

2. In "Add Puzzle Game" interface, type title and tap "Select Image"  to pick one image

3. Finally tap "Save" button

4. Tap settings icon to change style

5. View sample

Memory Matching Game

Memory Matching Game contains some pairs of photos and sorts them in random order. Player matches one pair at each time by selecting 2 photos until all the pairs are matched.

1. Tap + button and then select "Memory Matching Game"

2. In "Add Memory Matching Game" interface, type title and tap "Select Images" to pick some images

3. Finally tap "Save" button

4. Tap settings icon to change style

5. View sample

Please download Creative Widget Builder today.

Creative Book Builder Family

Creative Book Builder Family includes 5 apps: Creative Book Builder, Creative Widget Builder, Creative Book Reader, TouchAppCreator and TouchAppViewer.

The following diagram explains the relationship among Creative Book Builder Family's apps:

Creative Widget Builder generates widgets based on iBooks Widget format. Those widgets can be applied to iBooks Author, Creative Book Builder and TouchAppCreator as well.

Creative Book Builder is a powerful and professional tool to generate EPUB that can be read through any EPUB readers. Also, CBB can export book into HTML5 books that can be read through any web browsers. HTML5 books can include some widgets that cannot be used in EPUB, e.g. iframe, and embed html code. 

Creative Book Reader is an free app to read HTML5 books. It helps you distribute your HTML5 books easily.

TouchAppCreator allows everyone to create mobile optimized and content centric web app. The published web app can be added to Home Screen. It can import EPUB generated by CBB. On the other hand, CBB can import apps created by TouchAppCreator.

TouchAppViewer is also an free app to browse web app offline. It helps you distribute your web app easily.

Build Your Own Widgets

We are so excited to launch Creative Widget Builder app to let anyone build amazing widgets. All the generated widgets are easily imported into EPUB (Reflowable / Classic Book), iBooks, and HTML5 books. CWB also works with iBooks Author and Creative Book Builder.

At the first launch, CWB supports 5 types of widgets: Flash Card, Fill In The Blank, Matching Question, Sorting Question, and Interactive Image. Each widgets can be customizable in many ways. For more details, please visit CWB home page: https://getcwb.blogspot.com.

Why Creative Widget Builder?

CWB generates widget file with extension "wdgt" that is based on iBooks Widgets. It makes your widgets portable and reusable. You can focus on widget building on CWB and reuse widgets within books no matter you are using iBooks Author or CBB or other apps that support iBooks Widgets. You can also play widgets within CWB directly by switching to play mode.

It is just beginning. We will add more widgets in the future release. Please suggest us your favorite widgets on our forum.

How to insert widget into iBooks Author?

1. Open widget in CWB
2. Tap action button to select Export
3. Select one of cloud services, e.g. iCloud, Google Drive, etc.
4. On Mac, create new book or open existing book using iBooks Author
5. Unzip the widget zip file
6. Tap widget file (with extension ".wdgt"), say flash_card.wdgt
7. Drag and drop widget file into iBooks Author

How to insert widget into Creative Book Builder? (Please update the latest version of CBB)

1. Open widget in CWB
2. Tap action button to select Open In...
3. Select Creative Book Builder
4. Go to CBB, widget is saved to Resources Library
5. Go to the page, tap Resources Library, select the widget
OR
1. Go to the page in CBB
2. Tap + button and then select External Widget
3. Select one of the cloud services
4. Select widget zip file
5. Tap import button to import the file

Better Layout of Content Using Rich Table

From version 3.4, we create new element called Rich Table to present your content in better table format.

1. Add image to each cell: tap the cell and select Image tab

2. Add rich text for cell content: tap the cell and select Text tab

3. Change background color to each row, column or cell: tap settings icon on the column or row, or tap the cell and select Settings

4. Configure the column width: tap settings icon on the bottom toolbar

5. Change vertical alignment of cell: tap settings icon on the column or row, or tap the cell and select Settings

Create Beautiful Diagram Using Shapes Element

From version 3.4, you can create a beautiful diagram to illustrate your idea using new Shapes element.

The following shapes are supported:

• Rectangle
• Circle
• Triangle
• Ellipse
• Star
• Arrow
• Line
• Polygon
• Text box
• Image box

In element list or page, tap + button, select Widget, then select Shapes to launch Shapes editor.
Tap shape icon to add new shape.

When select the shape, top navigation bar is changed, and then you can edit the properties of the selected shape.

Tap T icon to add text or tap image icon to insert image.

Moreover, tap settings icon to change the size, background image or color of the whole canva.

Finally, shapes will be saved as image.

How to record your screen within CBB

From version 3.4, you can now add screen recording to explain anythings within the app, for example:

• Record the process of creating diagram using shapes (using Shapes Element)
• Record the process of drawing somethings (using Drawing Element)
• Create demo video to explain how to use CBB

Here are the steps:

1. For classic book, in element list, tap + button and then select Screen Recording. For fixed layout book, tap + button on the bottom of the page and then select Screen Recording.

2. When the confirmation message is prompted, tap Start Now.

3. If it is the first time to use screen recording, system will ask you if you allow screen recording in Creative Book Builder. You can just tap Record Screen & Microphone.

4. You can now start to record your screen and voice. There are red timer and red stop button in the top navigation bar.

5. When you finish your recording, just tap stop button or use 2 fingers tap to stop the recording. Video preview screen will be launched.

6. Finally, tap Save button to save the video to CBB.

7. New video element will be created.

Some points to be noted:

• We strongly recommend that you should not trim video in video preview screen after you finish recording. You just save video and then edit video later. You can also trim video using CBB function.
• Screen recording is using iOS 9 system feature so that video will be also saved to Photo Library as well.
• You can record the screen within CBB only. If you quit CBB during recording process, nothing will be recorded.

Creative Book Builder v3.4

New features:

1. New Element: Shapes (rectangle, circle, ellipse, star, etc.)

2. New Element: Checklist (list item with checkbox)

3. New Element: Rich Table (more customized table with images)

4. New Element: Table Of Contents

5. Add screen recording to explain everything within the app (for iOS 9 only)

6. Embed Google Forms easier (for HTML5 book only)

7. Add embed html by url for all sites that support oEmbed (for HTML5 book only)

8. Batch upload HTML5 book files

9. Export book to photo album for sharing (for fixed layout books only)

10. Trim video

11. Speed up the process of updating HTML5 book to Google Drive (only upload modified files)

12. Fix image editor issues