Finding the dongle serial number is very easy (providing the server is running). On version 3 of Serendipity Blackmagic (version 4 Serendipity Megarip) the dongle serial number is displayed on the front of the server window.

For version 2 you have to choose about from the server window.

The Dongle serial number is shown on the about window.

For Windows this is the same. Choose about from the menu

The Dongle serial number is displayed on the about window.

Of course if the dongle has died or you can’t get the software running then hopefully there is a label on the dongle with the number on it. The number is a 12 character number similar to the ones shown above.

Technorati Tags: Dongle, Serendipity Megarip, Serial number, Serendipity Blackmagic

There have been a couple of incidences where the client language has changed to Chinese. The language setting is in the System Settings section which is found under the Application menu. Chinese is the first language in the menu and is therefore displayed first. As no language is set when installing the client it defaults to English. But opening the system settings and hitting OK will apply any setting selected. This is Chinese unless you have explicitly set it to another language (although we have had reports of this happening without going into the System Settings at all).

If you do not have the Chinese encoding installed or enabled on your computer the client will display squares instead of the Chinese characters. Below is a quick guide to setting the language back to English or any other language available.

Below shows an example of the two interfaces when the language encoding is installed (on the left) and when it is not (on the right). From here on the screen shots will show the Mac interface with Chinese characters. The location of the menu items for both cases are the same. Just follow the proceedure.

Select the System Settings from the Application menu. The Application menu is the one to the right of “Serendipity Client” (Mac) or the first on the left for Windows. System Settings is located as the first item below the Test Prints option indicated by an ⌘T or Ctrl+T.

This will open the System Settings window. Select the middle Tab for the Client settings.

And choose your preferred language from the pull down menu.


Then press OK which is at the bottom of the window on the right.


You will then be presented with a Pop-Up window which tells you that a restart is required for the language change to take effect. Press OK.

Then select Quit from the Application menu which is the last item and indicated with ⌘Q or Ctrl+Q

Next time you start the client the language you selected should now be used. In the 3.1 release we have placed a Default language option to avoid this happening.

Technorati Tags: Language encoding, Language setting, Serendipity Blackmagic, Serendipity Client

Bob Murphy has yet again come up with an interesting use of Serendipity Blackmagic. He simply calls it “Proofing up the alleys”.

When printing magazines, which can have really wide plates, the operator will normally adjust the colour one column at a time. These columns are called alleys. Bob has come up with a procedure that uses Blackmagic’s softproofing an de-impose modules to present the operator with a softproof of each alley.

We first create a signature that will de-impose the sheet into 2 alleys.

After the pages have been submitted and processed, the Queuemanager will show the individual alleys.

We can then open them up in the flip book for closer inspection.

Once the appropriate alley has been located, use the “View rendered option” to open it up in the softproof application.

Once the alley has been loaded into the softproof, zoom so that it is all visible

Once finished, go back to the Flipbook and turn to the next page.

Repeat to view all the alleys as required.

After seeing Bob perform this, we decided to make his life much easier by incorporating some extra functionality into the softproof application. If you select a publication and softproof it, you will now get  a list of page numbers at the bottom of the window just like the flipbook. Clicking on a green page number will load that page while retaining all the current rotation, mirror, negative and zoom settings. This added functionality can be seen below.

This new functionality will be included in the upcoming version 3.1 of Serendipity Blackmagic.

Technorati Tags: proofing, serendipity blackmagic, serendipity software