Details on Adobe's CS5 Plans for Version Cue
Version Cue is Adobe’s behind-the-scenes software that tracks your files: their locations, changes to them, and so on. The asset manager debuted as part of Creative Suite 1 in 2003.
There’s never been much fanfare about Version Cue. Perhaps that’s because it’s an under-the-hood system without a friendly face, or perhaps it’s because the target market — creative pros — can be, er, individualistic people who resist formal workflows.
However, those creative pros who did embrace Version Cue ended up relying on it heavily.
When CS4 shipped in October 2008, there were rumblings of trouble in Version Cue paradise. Those troubles continued, for Mac users at least, when Adobe didn’t update Version Cue CS4 to run in Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6), which came out in August 2009.
And then on March 1, 2010, Ken Toole, Senior Engineering Manager for Enterprise/Partner Solutions at Adobe, released the following:
“Adobe will not be including Version Cue in future versions of Creative Suite. This decision is part of our strategy to provide integrated asset management experiences to Creative Suite users in a way that reflects the current DAM marketplace. Adobe will continue to invest in asset management enablement through open industry standards and partnerships. For current Version Cue users, Adobe is working through details to help them migrate to a different asset management system with as little disruption as possible to the user experience.”
That information seemed a little thin to me, so I asked for more. The results are below.
CreativePro.com: Will current Version Cue users have to buy another asset management system to replace Version Cue?
Adobe: Current Version Cue users will either have to buy a commercial asset management system or choose to use an open source or ‘community’ edition product depending on specific requirements. The timing of this purchase and migration to this system is up to the customer, though Adobe would recommend completing this transition before it discontinues support for Version Cue Server CS4.
CreativePro.com: For most people running CS4, Version Cue hasn’t worked correctly since CS4 shipped. Why is the public acknowledgement of the lack of Version Cue support coming out now?
Adobe: Version Cue Server CS4 was actively developed and is currently supported as a component of Creative Suite 4.
Per Adobe policy, this support will continue until the release of the 2nd major version of the Creative Suite after CS4’s release. Also, Version Cue was not updated to be compatible with Mac OSX 10.6 which was released months after CS4 was released, because of the technical scope of work required due to changes in the Mac OS, and not due to lack of support on Adobe’s side.
CreativePro.com: Can you be more specific than “Adobe will continue to invest in asset management enablement through open industry standards and partnerships”?
Adobe: Adobe is actively participating in the CMIS standard through Oasis. We are also working internally and with industry partners to develop implementations of Adobe technology and those partner’s asset management systems that comply with the CMIS standard and demonstrate its use.
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If you’re affected by this decision, or if you use another asset manager and would like to share your opinion of it, please speak up in the Comments.
what are they crazy, aside from CreativePro and Im being fairdinkum, Version Cue was the best means to gain and record advanced skills. I really hope another form of if comes along with CS5.
We are a two-person design studio and have been using Version Cue since it’s inception. We found it to be the solution to many problems.
Fist we found that files names like presenation_final.ai, presenation_final2.ai, presenation_final_final.ai, and presenation_final_for_real_this_time.ai, no longer had to clutter up our file structure.
Secondly we never again found ourselves working on an outdated copy just to find that all the copy changes were made in a different version.
Third we had a safety net of forced back-up by having synchronized copies of files in multiple location (VC CS3 only).
I am stumped as to why more people didn’t use this product. I heard many individual designers say that it didn’t make any sense for them, I disagreed (see the first item above). Early on there were install problems which cause people to say on a Creative Suite custom install, omit Version Cue. Maybe this scared people off from seeing the possibilities that Version Cue could offer them. Also Adobe never seemed to give the product the marketing attention it needed. I guess those are some reasons for its demise.
Version Cue CS4 and the integration of Adobe Drive was very disappointing. Now all our files lived on a server with just a cache that appeared on our local machines. If we disconnected form the server we no longer had access to any of our files. This made working offline impossible if we wanted to stay in the versioning flow.
I am curious going forward to see what Adobe means by “Adobe is working through details to help them migrate to a different asset management system”. We saw the writing on the wall and have been taking steps to wean ourselves away from Version Cue and that includes a paid subscription to DropBox as well as integration with Gridiron Flow. Things look promising as of now.
Version Cue, RIP
-Jennifer
Adobe simply escaped from solving the problem with VersionCue CS4. We (3-4 people/graphics team) use VersionCue CS3 more than 3 years, no problems, everything works – versioning, back-ups etc. (VersionCue CS3 on separate PC machine running Win XP, we are connecting to it via LAN).
They could at least come back to VersionCue CS3 technology, local copies, check-in/check-out – everything works perfectly. What a shame for Adobe for stopping this great project! I can’t imagine any 3rd party solution, which will work seamlessly with all important Adobe apps (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat) and will be implemented into Adobe Bridge interface.
Marcus
some people asked, so I thought I would share what we are trying to do.
We are trying a combination of DropBox, and Gridiron Flow.
DropBox (https://www.dropbox.com) is giving us synchronized file storage and it lives on a cloud so it is accessible from anywhere, which is more than VC gave us. Both of us just sign up for the same DropBox and that show up in our finder and we just work out of that folder. There is a “pack rat” feature that allows us to see all the versions and history – even if we delete a file. We have started with the 50GB subscription and are planning on archiving completed jobs to make space as we go.
The Gridiron component is still in the works as we still have a production machine running Tiger which won’t work. When it does work we see all the versions of a file in Gridiron also (redundant with Drop Box). A nice feature of Gridiron is that it show you how long you have spent on a file(all versions), which is great for estimating and billing.
Alas neither has annotations. I spoke with Gridiron people at length and told them how important this is for us. They said that they only wanted their app to run in the background and asking you to enter comments would not do that. Maybe they will see the need in the next release.
So that is where we are, I hope that helps.
-Jennifer
After years of happily using VC, my first experience after upgrading to CS4 was ‘losing’ images through one of the many workflow flaws in VC CS4. Being somewhat careful about storage and versioning – I assumed user error… but after a month of discovering more ways to shoot myself in the foot – it became clear that VC CS4 is just not functional in a production environment.
Travelling a similar path to that of Jennifer, I researched the various backup offerings looking for a replacement, and decided to give Flow a shot. My choice was influence by being a long-term satisfied user of another Gridiron product line (X-Factor, Nucleo and now Nucleo Pro).
Flow provides a visual versioning feature that so far is able to provide some of the functionality of VC. I too wrote a lengthy email to Gridiron asking for some way to annotate versions, or even go one step further and provide a checkin/checkout feature. They replied that their design philosophy for Flow doesn’t support that functionality.
However – I pointed out that there might be a wave of people left at sea by Adobe with the VC debacle – and now might be a good time to take another look at that design decision!
Nicholas
From my experience, Version Que caused far more headaches than any one component in the Creative Suite. And this has been true since it was included with CS1! Just search the Adobe InDesign forum if you do not believe me.
I tell everyone to just turn it off! Good riddance, I say.
I was really shocked to see that version cue was being dropped from the next release of CS5. Not because the last release was so perfect, god knows CS4 Version Cue has been a debacle, but because no other piece of software since OS X or InDesign 1.0 has had such a great impact on my work.
Version Cue has been so important to my work that I have decided to forgo installing CS4 and continue using CS3 – preferring the solid version cue workflow to the hand-full of new bells and whistles in the CS4 apps.
Sure there are tons of designers out there, who have no idea what version cue is, or how to make it work, but if you manage a small workgroup of creatives this software was vital. Without offering a clear migration path Adobe is really taking a huge step back. Just thinking about having to see a file with a “final_rev_Final” suffix makes me cringe.
Looking at potential version control software replacements makes it clear how big a gap will be left. Flow while having great features, isn’t a suitable as a workgroup repository manager. Most others are geared towards code and not graphic files.
I hope the Adobe CS5 release event brings some clearer explanations and better news.
Alain
I have several VC CS3 servers up and running. I am more than interessed in a solution as the most recent Apple system upgrade forces me to upgrade my Adobe software.
Best wishes
Heiner
I’m really beginning to question the directions of Adobe over the last few years, esp. as it pertains to workflows, etc. Guess we stay at 10.5 and CS3 for awhile.
I really don’t understand why this topic is so much undervalued! Perhaps million of people working with a PC or Mac saving so many files each day and loosing even more time by naming them with stupid names (like already stated above) with _last _final _old …. . In every second project I am involved in I get files like this to work on.
This is just nuts – there are great programs like NX Alienbrain or Cummulus – if you have seen this programms once you will hate it to work without them. The bad thing is that they are much too expensive for single users.
I thought CS5 would do it for me with a great new version of “version cue”
I am very disapointed
Antonio
I’ve got cs3 web premium and was flirting with cs4, but stood off and read the “bug” reports about that suite. With all cs4 issues, I thought I’d skip a version and, like the previous commenter “Antonio” said, “I thought CS5 would do it for me with a great new version of “version cue”” I
I guess not…
I can’t believe that… what do we do until then… we just spent a small fortune in purchasing CS5 Master Collection and this is what we get!!!
The plain fact of the matter is that Version Cue CS4 simply didn’t work. Worse still it wasn’t compatible with Version Cue CS 3. I think Adobe did their customers an extreme disservice by bringing out a half-baked product – allowing users to trust it – and then withdrawing it. I have a lot of sympathy with Steve Job’s comment that Adobe are simply “lazy”.
I am a project manager at a 10 man design and development agency, and we have been using Version Cue CS3 on mostly Macs and some PC’s since it came out. We are struggling trying to find a replacement as it becomes more and more obsolete.
We were extremely disappointed when CS4 came out and totally changed the way it worked, when it worked so well as it was. We have employees that access our server across the country and so far, besides very minor hiccups, it has been working awesome for us, and the thought of moving to SVN worries me. We are managing about 500-800GB of data on there and it runs like a champ every day.
I can’t begin to understand why Adobe would give it the axe, but my only thought is that managing important files on such a widespread basis like that was too much of a liability for them… I’m sure that every time someone lost important files, whether Version Cue’s fault or not, they went to Adobe and tried to get them to somehow fix it or make it right.
All that said, I’m surprised someone hasn’t come along with a solid direct replacement… If and when they do, I will be ready to shell out for it, because file management can be a serious nightmare without some intelligent software helping out.
We are a creative agency with about 12 users, similar story been using CS4 Version Cue with attendant pain of weird issues with asset version getting corrupted etc. Lot has been said about it in blogs and on this portal.
We have got over 250 GB of data in all, we trialed a version control solution that was mentioned in a post here last year, Evolphin Zoom. Initially our designers were hesitant to move to a new paradigm and learning a new interface. But after using it for couple of months, they can’t live with out it. It’s a worthy replacement but obviously not free.
We looked at other option Alie n Brain but that was not geared towards cs5, like Evolphin Zoom was. Robustness has been impressive we haven’t had the CS4 VC issues with Evolphin.
They got a new version out with Mac Finder folder coloring that looks very nifty. With older Mac versions we have used versioning software that did badging with Mac Finder. Haven’t see that work since we moved to Snow Leopard. So we are going to see if Evolphin’s upgrade is worth it.