Originally developed as a file serving and networking platform for the print and prepress industry, WebShare technology developed by Germany’s Helios is being exploited for a range of new products aimed at enterprise search and iPad publishing.

One of the new products is a cross-platform enterprise search platform, HELIOS Spotlight Search, which is compatible with Apple’s  Spotlight Search technology used for desktop search in the OS X operating system.

HELIOS Spotlight Search  extends the capacity of Spotlight to search server-based content across Mac, Windows and the Web, with the ability to index full-text content of PDF and Office documents as well as metadata.

It also supports gallery mode previews of images, multi-page PDFs, and Office documents, as well as automatic remote synchronisation and backups of project files.

The HELIOS Spotlight-compatible indexing and search system was developed to meet the growth in demand for cross-platform networking in business environments. This has created a related need for cross-platform file indexing and searching of server volumes.

“The demise of the Xserve, and the increased usage of Macs and mobile devices in businesses, has revealed the shortcomings of the Mac-only Spotlight search from Apple, and the Windows-only Windows Search for Windows. The HELIOS Spotlight-compatible indexing and search system solves that problem.,” said Tom Hallinan, Strategic Partner Manager, HELIOS Software.

HELIOS Spotlight Search has introduced a Gallery view which presents scalable previews of images, and multi-page PDFs and Microsoft Office files within the web browser.

The WebShare Manager component enables automatic two-way remote synchronisation of files, with customisable synchronisation plans.

Mac, Windows, and UNIX/Linux users can drag & drop project files from the web browser or local workstation into the WebShare Manager window to enable synchronisation of files between the remote WebShare server and the local workstation. Automatic file versioning can also be enabled.

WebShare Manager lets teams quickly find and use files scattered in various locations on a file server without the need to move or collect those files into a single folder.

WebShare Manager also offers a Resume Transfer capability that supports resumption of interrupted uploads, to ensure high file synchronisation reliability even for low quality Internet connections.

HELIOS WebShare UB2 incorporates a server search platform, enables remote proofing, and serves as the foundation of a new document hub to present server hosted documents and images on iPads. It can also interact with web-to-print or digital asset management (DAM) solutions.

HELIOS WebShare UB2 offers support for per-user customisable brandings and JavaScript client API support, for advanced customisation. Additionally, WebShare supports files larger than 4GB, SSL file transfer security.

WebShare integrates into all major server operating systems, including Windows Server, Mac OS X, Oracle Solaris, IBM AIX, and Linux.

DataBasics