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Scriptura
I spent some time looking at Scriptura yesterday. Scriptura is a VDP solution from Inventive Designers, a Belgium-based company. If you haven't heard of Scriptura before, you'll be forgiven. They've kept a fairly low profile to-date, in fact I've only recently come across them. Despite their quiet presence, they have a growing number of distributors across Europe, US, Canada and Australia. Their Scriptura solution comprises of two core products; Scriptura Designer and Scriptura Server. Both products are Java-based which means they can run in a cross-platform environment through the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). To my knowledge, this is the only VDP solution that runs exclusively in a Java environment. In this entry, I'll take a close look at Scriptura and explain some key differences between this solution and other VDP products.
Scriptura Designer
At first glance, Scriptura Designer's user interface looks similar to comparable products like GMC PrintNet, XLPrint Paris and Lytrod Proform Designer, however Scriptura has a number of key differences. The first being the design tools. In addition to having a tools panel, Scriptura also has a contextual properties panel where you can define property elements for the selected object, for example character and paragraph attributes. You can also assign business rules to each individual property, which is very useful. You really don't have this discrete level of control for individual elements in other VDP solutions.
Using the text tool in Scriptura Designer
Scriptura can use a variety of data and database formats including XML, Lotus Notes, JDBC, ODBC, together with legacy line data from mainframe enviroments. If you're working with legacy line data, Scriptura Designer allows you to define the areas on the form (i.e. row and character positions) of the existing data (similar to Lytrod and PlanetPress), then the data can be combined with data from other sources and inserted into a new form design.
Page design is relatively straightforward, the tools are easy to use and behave in a similar fashion to standard document layout software. Creating business rules is also straightforward—conditions are created through a step-through wizard and you can jump into an advanced mode and write custom functions in JavaScript or XPath (XML Path Language) if required.
While Scriptura's conditional rules gives you a high amount of flexibility in controlling objects, one limitation is copyfitting. Several other VDP products provide dynamic copyfitting control and will adjust character attributes (size, tracking or leading) to fit the text inside a given frame. There's no easy way of doing this in Scriptura, which may be an issue for applications that require copyfitting control.
In addition to the standard drawing, image and text tools, Scriptura Designer also features barcode tools and charts which appear fairly straightforward to use and are highly configurable. One unique feature is reusable objects. Scriptura has the ability to create an object which can contain text, images and even nested variables and reusable objects can be placed in various locations within the same document. I'm not aware of any other products that can achieve this to the same level. XMPie can achieve a similar effect through placing tagged text files which can include nested variables, but this is only for text and can't include images.
Scriptura also includes a tables feature that can dynamically build tables which add rows depending on the amount repeating data for each recipient. Scriptura provides formatting control for tables which includes alternating fills, strokes, headers and more. You can even include a nested table inside a table cell, which is quite unique for VDP design software.
Creating a table in Scriptura Designer
In addition to document/form design for print, Scriptura also offers tools for creating e-forms. In Scriptura Designer, you can create forms with input fields, data fields, check boxes and buttons, and Scriptura generates an XML-based e-form where the data and presentation information are completely separated. This architecture allows integration with practically any web application framework. Furthermore, e-forms can include conditional form objects to enable variable pull-down menus based on previous selections. Typical applications would be online forms for banks, insurance companies, credit cards and more, which use existing customer data to provide relevant selections in the online form.
Scriptura Server
Like Scriptura Designer, Scriptura Server is also built entirely on Java and can be run on the same local workstation as Designer, or separately in a server environment. Scriptura's composition engine is based on XSL-FO and as a result it can compose pages quickly. Very quickly. While the composition speed will vary depending on the type of application and hardware configuration, speeds of up to 300 pages per second (18,000 pages per minute) are achievable when processing a "regular business document" using high-spec (quad core) hardware. Scriptura Server is scalable and can be run across multiple CPU's or across a server cluster for improved performance and redundancy.
The Scriptura Server architecture is very open and offers a number of different APIs including SOAP, C++, Java, command line, among others. In addition to APIs, the server also includes a wizard-based client for sending templates to the server and defining composition settings. Scriptura Server supports a wide variety of output types, including PostScript, PDF, PCL, AFP, along with numerous image and text-based formats.
Scriptura Server also offers a Post-Processor option which is used to process output from Scriptura Server. This is useful for splitting up data and sending across different printers, or even sorting records based on postcode. Other Post-Processor features include adding static or dynamic content to create cover letters and separator pages and barcode insertion.
Scriptura Architecture
Pricing
Like many VDP solutions, pricing will vary considerably depending on what what functionality you require. Most of Scriptura's product features are optional modules, so you only need to pay for what you're going to use. For example, Post-Processor, e-form support, data sources and output formats are all individually priced. On top of their modular pricing structure, Scriptura also has a unique pricing method for volume which is based on 'pages per annum'. While controlling production volume through 'units' or printer speed is common, this is the first solution that I've come across that caps production based on annual volume. An interesting model.
While pricing will vary depending on the solution, a typical entry-level investment for the core functionality will cost around €25k, while the upper-end of the pricing scale will be in the €800k region. While Scriptura's pricing may seem steep, it's considerably more affordable than some enterprise solutions such as EMC Document Sciences or Exstream Dialogue.
Summary
Scriptura's open architecture is impressive. The product is developed entirely on open standards including XForms, XSL-FO, WebDAV and others. In fact Scriptura is built on the Java-based OSGi Framework which is the same framework used by the open-source Eclipse IDE. As a result, Scriptura can use Eclipse plug-ins to enable other add-on features such as version control and can be tightly integrated into existing data centre and bureau environments.
It's obvious that Scriptura's strength lies in transactional statements and form-based applications. Its design environment has obviously been developed with these applications in mind, and while it's possible to create other documents such as direct marketing pieces, you probably wouldn't want to. But that's fine, as there's no single VDP solution that is suitable for every application type—each product has it's strength, and for Scriptura, it's strength definitely lies in transactional applications.
With a continuing migration to online forms and electronic bill presentment, Scriptura is an ideal platform for generating both online and offline forms from a single architecture. I've yet to come across a solution that is as open and productive as Scriptura. It's certainly got a lot to offer.
Posted on Friday, 27 June 2008 at 9:46 AM | TrackBack: http://www.veedeepee.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/158