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Muse CC 2015.2: Our Favorite New Features

Muse 2015.2 is Here

The 2015.2 release of Adobe Muse CC marks the first major feature release since the introduction of responsive Muse in February 2016. And it is truly loaded with some big-time additions: workflow improvements, all new tools, and even the re-introduction of a popular feature missing from the last release. So let's jump in and take a look at our favorite features!


 

 

 

 

Responsive Width and Height Elements

Rectangles (and Adobe's YouTube & Vimeo widgets) have received a new option for resizing: responsive width and height. This will make breakpoint layout arrangement easier, and enable smoother performance of stacked image-filled rectangles on published pages.


 

 

 

 

Vertical Movement Handle

This new feature is a huge benefit for page layout workflow. Anytime any object is selected, a handle appears, allowing easy movement of all objects below (including the selected object).

This means no more moving objects one at a time, or even having to drag to select multiple objects in order to move groupings of objects. When arranging objects on breakpoints meant for specific devices - such as phones or tablets, this is a huge time saver.


 

 

 

 

Native Support for Adobe Illustrator Files

Drop Illustrator files directly into Muse! As changes are made and saved within illustrator, matching files in your Muse site can be updated through the simple "Update Asset" option in the Assets panel. When the site is published, SVG's are automatically generated.


 

 

 

 

Ellipses and Placeholder Image Frames

We're no longer limited to just rectangles for object shapes. While using radius settings allowed for alternate shapes in previous releases of Muse, The new Ellipse tool allows for instant creation of ellipses and circles (hold shift to create perfect circles). 

Another brand new tool in Muse 2015.2 is the Image Frame Tool. This tool draws rectangles (or ellipses) just as the regular rectangle tool, though acts as a placeholder that can be filled later when the content is ready. This is super handy for building quick page layouts and creating wireframes. When the image frames are ready to be filled, simply drag and drop images directly into the image frame.

Both the Ellipse and Rectangle Image Frame tools are found within the same button. Long-click, or Alt/Option-click the button to reveal the choice of shape. 


 

 

 

Collect Assets

For those of us that move and backup asset files routinely, here's some great news. It's now possible to easily gather all asset files used in site, and save to a single location on your computer. This makes creating complete "site packages" easy to build and move from machine to machine. To collect assets, open your assets panel and select all of the assets you would like to collect, then right-click and select "Collect Assets".


 

 

 

 

Vertical Plan View

In addition to the familiar horizontal arrangement we're used to in Plan Mode, we now have a vertical option. This makes sites with lots of pages and complex hierarchies easier to navigate.


 

 

 

In-Browser Editing Improvements

Adobe’s In-Browser Editing has received several new updates. Expanded linking options are available, as well as undo and redo functionality. Also, users will now be able to select individual breakpoints to make and verify edits.


 

 

 

Scroll Effects in Fixed Width Breakpoints

They're back! If you've been missing scroll effects, it's time to rejoice. While limited to fixed breakpoints, scroll effects are back. Select "fixed width" in the new breakpoint options dropdown, or right-click/double-click existing breakpoints to access the option to switch them to fixed width. 


 

 

 

Extras

Google Page Speed Improvements: Adobe has made several changes which could improve your site's Google Page Speed rankings. An option now exists to choose whether to load pages faster using fallback fonts. Browser caching for CSS, images, and JavaScript files have been enabled for sites uploaded via FTP to an Apache web server. Also, Muse now loads all JavaScript asynchronously.

Minimum Page Width Direct Editing: Minimum page width can now be easily edited manually via the breakpoint bar by hovering over the edges of the minimum page size area with the smallest breakpoint selected. Just click and drag!

CC Library Color Improvements: You can now add custom-named swatches to CC Libraries panel. CC Library colors can be applied to strokes, text, page fill and browser fill.

New Preview IP Address Preference: For some, Muse Preview and Preview in Browser did not function due to firewall settings. A new option in the Muse Preference dialog allows for multiple connection settings to eliminate local IP preview issues.

Sticky Footer Now with CSS: The Sticky Footer feature has been rewritten using CSS and JavaScript to allow short pages using this feature to load faster


 

Brandon Wallace
Brandon Wallace / Boise, ID

Brandon Wallace, esteemed Widget Master, started with MuseThemes in 2014. He manages all of our widgets – new and old – all while maintaining an unflinching commitment to food, music, and craft beer.

Comments

Marshall Gisser
Marshall Gisser

What about slideshows? When will we see responsive height and width slideshows?

gestyle
gestyle

Hi, why do they call it 2015.2 instead of 2016.2 ?

Martin Ribé
Martin Ribé

Absolutely wonderful! A video tutorial from you would be even more helpful! You rule guys!

Nenad
Nenad

Nice! They are making progress on it faster then I expected. Very pleased!

Mark Bailey
Mark Bailey

Look forward to downloading it.
So re scroll effects – are you saying that you can apply scroll effects to specific breakpoints within a fluid design? Otherwise I don’t see what’s changed on that. Don’t see any detail on this on the Adobe site (although it mentioned ‘improved support for scroll effects using fixed breakpoints’).

Brian de la Cruz
Brian de la Cruz

Great summaries Brandon! Thanks for compiling these — i’m stoked to get into Muse to start utilizing these new features.

Nam Nguyen
Nam Nguyen

These look like great addition to responsive design. Thanks Muse Team!

Daniel Hammon
Daniel Hammon

I have my Partner Site and I cannot use the Publish to catalyst option I have to FTP it. It takes away all the options I put in place for my other sites to work, Is there a fix for that as well?

Sean Malloy
Sean Malloy

The scroll effects part…AWESOME!!!

Greg Gruenwald
Greg Gruenwald

Thank you, Dani and Adobe!! The vertical Master Page view is an answer to prayer right now.

Alain
Alain

ellipse form is great but it would be great to have gradient for circle too.

Victoria
Victoria

This is pretty awesome! Thanks for the heads up muse themes. I do wish adobe we’re rolling out more updates per month but as long as they continue i know Muse will be getting better and better over the years.

vincent
vincent

Not bad at all :) i’m very happy with each adobe muse update. Adobe Muse still missing the pen tool its very helpful and some more animations tool. Hope they will be available in later versions.

Stewart
Stewart

Already loving the Vertical Movement Handle. So simple but so effective.

Rebecca
Rebecca

These are awesome, looking forward to some video tutorials around them. BUT… What about blog functionality – this continues to be the biggest gripe when recommending Muse to my clients… there is no real great blogging solution as yet.

J Kirby Inwood
J Kirby Inwood

More nice stuff. … Muse keeps getting better…. if only I did too

Kim Williams
Kim Williams

Collect assets – that’s what I’ve been waiting for! Now if you could just add Cmd-Spacebar for selective zoom it would be perfect.

Hedda
Hedda

Thanks for the update!

Jo
Jo

Thank you so much. As always, you guys are the best!! : )

Tim Visterin
Tim Visterin

Well, it seems Adobe Muse is going full blast…!
love the collect Assets function. Packaging is a wonderful item added to there menu.

Shashidhar K
Shashidhar K

Great team, great MUSE and great updates… but I am waiting for Great CMS from your side…

alex
alex

indeed i’ll stay with Muse and Muse-themes forever)))

Andrew
Andrew

Another good feature would have been to sync the widgets library via creative cloud too, I work regularly between laptop and desktop and have to keep updating the one or the other library with new goodies.

corey mines
corey mines

These are so warranted changes, great news! Not being able to gather assets before really, really killed me, haha.

Kwacy Koranteng
Kwacy Koranteng

Wow. Great new features. I never expected the Muse team to release another update so fast. Great work on the Scroll Effects thing. I pray my wish for an in-built Search engine widget to be added soon. Cudos Adobe.

Mike Woodcock
Mike Woodcock

Thanks for the summary Brandon.
Clearly some progress made with this new release but still painfully slow.
Do you know whether the YouTube widget now allows display over https or I still have to embed code from YouTube?
Also regarding placing content from Illustrator direct is the SVG minified?
Cheers
Mike

Leah DeLange
Leah DeLange

This is in answer to Daniel Hammon’s question about publishing to Adobe’s Partner Portal. The BC Gurus guys found this video for me and it might help you out. (It’s not just for e-commerce either, it works for all features in Partner Portal.)

http://www.businesscatalyst.com/bc-blog/EcommerceinMuse

Nit
Nit

You’ve already nailed it. Designing beautiful responsive website without writing a single line of code is already epic! Now with all the features you are adding….Muse is going Ballistic! Thanks Dani and Muse Team!

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