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

Creative Book Reader for iOS

You can now read HTML5 books easier on iOS since Creative Book Reader for iOS is just released.

Creative Book Reader is a new way to read HTML5 books generated by Creative Book Builder. 

Features

• Manage a list of HTML5 books 
• Read HTML5 books offline 
• Search HTML5 books 
• Sort HTML5 books by book title or modified date

Here is the download link:
https://itunes.apple.com/app/creative-book-reader-read/id1053050111