Open with "Closed Captioning" on, or always show CC

[RobertsNevada]

I want to have my projects start with "closed captioning". I tried to down load the little SWF file, from the third party, recommended elseware, but it doesn't seem to work. It says it was made for Captivate 4, and I'm using 5.

Any help? Is there another way to set CC as the default?

[Lilybiri]

You can turn on CC by setting the system variable cpCmndCC to 1 on entering the first slide. I heard that sometimes this will not work immediately, so it could be better to insert a very short first slide, and have this On Enter action at the second slide, so that CP can execute the action.

Lilybiri

[RobertsNevada]

Thanks,

I am just starting to work with Captivat, so where might I find the "System Vartiable"?

[RobertsNevada]

I found the system variables in Captivate, but they don't allow me to change them. Is there a secret?

[RodWard]

Some system variables are READ ONLY.  Sadly the description text for each system variable is not very comprehensive.  Sometimes it will tell you that you can change the value to this or that for a given result, however, many times it gives little or no indication about the READ ONLY status of the variable.  I've requested that Adobe make these descriptions more comprehensive and 'helpful' in the next version.

[RobertsNevada]

Thanks,

What would be better, is to have them all readwrite, or a switch allowing a user to "mess" with them, if they want. I have been looking at other "eLearning" SW tools, that have this, and other features that give me more control over the presentation. I like the Adobe tools, but too many of these things and I might look elsewere.

[RodWard]

My apologies if my mentioning READ ONLY in the context of system variables confused anyone.  I did say that SOME of these advertised variables are Read-Only and that the description text normally gives you an idea as to whether or not you can set the value.  Perhaps I wasn't clear enough.

It's not really a valid propositon to make ALL system variables writable by end users as this could potentially break the project at runtime.  If you ever have to write your own software one day, you'll quickly discover that end users have a nasty habit of doing things you never anticipated and thereby breaking your product.  So wisdom dictates that you leave some things out of their control. 

For the record, the developer in me would love to have access to even more system variables than we currently do in Captivate. But I think the current list compares quite well against other tools I've seen.

[RobertsNevada]

Rod,

I think you're right in that the Adobe eLearning suite is better in

comparison to some of the others I've considered. It was more expensive, but

Adobe SW has always been very reliable, and well supported ( like with folks

like you). In fact support was the major factor in my decision to buy the

Adobe eLearning suite. Being a novice to any SW, having a good network of

support to rely on is very important to me.

I think "Lilybiri" may have solved the problem.

Thanks for your help and insight.

Robert W. Neuner

Northwest Senior Management Services

[Lilybiri]

You're welcome, and sorry that I overlooked the fact that you were on CP5 and not 5.5

Lilybiri

[RobertsNevada]

I tried your recommendations and they worked!

The only problem is that it is not displaying the standard CC. It's now in a

small grey box with a white font, in the lower left hand corner. Can I make

the CC box bigger, and modify the font? It doesn't seem to be taking it's

formatting from the standard closed caption controls on the "skin editor".

I'd like the CC bar to cover the entire bottom of the slide, since most of

the captions are being cut off.

Any thoughts?

Robert W. Neuner

Northwest Senior Management Services

[RoboWizard]

Hi Robert

This is what happens when a small amount of time isn't allowed in order for things to "settle" before enabling it. The standard "fix" is to insert a blank slide at the beginning and configure it for perhaps .1 or .2 seconds. once you do that, the CC should be fully visible and function normally.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Adobe Certified Captivate Training SorcerStone Blog Captivate eBooks

[RobertsNevada]

Thanks RoboWizard.

However, I inserted a new slide and moved it to the top. I waited several

minutes, then applied the Advanced Action. The appearance is still

different. Could it be a glitch in 5.0 rather than 5.5?

Looks Like this...

Should look like this...

Robert W. Neuner

Northwest Senior Management Services

[Captiv8r]

Hi Robert

If you had images and replied via email, please note that the forum software strips them out. If you have images to show us, you need to use the web interface to add them in.

Or..... even better

Record a screencast using either Jing or ScreenR and post the link for us to view.

Click here for Jing

Click here for ScreenR

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Adobe Certified Captivate Training SorcerStone Blog Captivate eBooks

[RobertsNevada]

OK, Thanks,

I loaded JING, so I'll add the links to the missing screen shots.

http://screencast.com/t/bMZD94fAIp This is what I am seeing when the

"Execute Advanced Actions" script is activated.

http://screencast.com/t/9q6Zd9HKvEpy This a link to what I would expect to

see.

"Rodward" was suggesting that there may be a widget that is causing the

problem. I have downloaded several widgets, but I don't use any in in this

presentation or others. I get the same result on every presentation I've

tried, so it leads me to think that there is something else going on.

This is a copy of the advanced action. In  other attempts I have added

another line for "continue", but there was no change.

http://screencast.com/t/rP1J9nR5Rg

Now, when I inserted a new slide, it naturally added it below the first

slide. I moved it up to the first position, then added the "execute advanced

action" to the slide. I can't seen to insert a new slide directly into the

first position, but rather have to added it, then move it to the first

position.

Does this help?

Robert W. Neuner

Northwest Senior Management Services

[RodWard]

cpCmndCC is a boolean variable.  It will be either 0 or 1 depending on whether the CC text is off or on respectively.

Your expression cpCmndCC = 1 - cpCmndCC would turn off CC text if it was on (1-1 = 0) but would do nothing if CC was already off (1-0 = 1).

You can only insert a new slide AFTER another slide.  So you can never insert it directly into the first position.  You just drag it up there after insertion.

I would suggest you try copying a bunch of slides from the beginning of your project and pasting them into a new blank project of the same dimensions.  Then check what your CC text looks like.  If it's still truncated, whatever the cause was, you will find it inside those first few slides (I'm still thinking it's either a widget, or a corrupted slide).  If the CC text looks normal after copy/paste, then the issue is likely to be corruption in your project file.  Best solution is to copy all slides to a new blank project and set up your Advanced Actions and Variables again.

[RobertsNevada]

Thanks Again,

Looks like I have some experimenting to do.

The original action I tied wasn't an expression, just an "assign" parameter.

I had the same problem. I'll do a little playing. If others can get it to

work, there must be something I'm doing wrong. The puzzling thing is that it

works the same on all of my 11 presentations in this lesson. It seem

unlikely that all of them are corrupt, but stranger things have happened.

Robert W. Neuner

Northwest Senior Management Services

[RodWard]

Did you create all of these presentations from scratch or did you inherit this project from someone else?

If you got this from another user, have you inspected every slide in the project to check all layers on their timelines to verify there are no widgets present?  (I've never seen CC text do what yours does without a widget being in the mix somewhere. It could be on any slide in the movie.)

[RobertsNevada]

I started them all myself from blank presentations, and importing the slides

from "PowerPoint". Nearly all of the work was done in PP. Just the TTS, and

a few "click boxes" were added in Captivate. I had no animations in PP, and

added none in Captivate. I wanted to keep it simple, to concentrate on the

content. I may add some "fun stuff" in the future, but there are none now.

Robert W. Neuner

Northwest Senior Management Services

[RodWard]

Do you happen to have any widgets in this project? 

There was a widget from one of the developers that repositions the Closed Captioning to be in a box on the side as you described.

http://captivatedev.com/2011/02/23/adobe-captivate-5-widget-reposition-closed-captions/

I'm wondering if your issue might actually be due to this widget being present in the project and just trying to do its job.

I've never seen the CC text bunched up in the way you describe for any other reason.

[RobertsNevada]

I haven't downloaded this widget, but it looks pretty cool. If I can fix this problem, I might look at experimenting with in on my presentations.

I have no widgets in this  presentation, or any others I've tried. I like to keep things as simple as possible and concentrate on the content rather than flashy displays. This seems to be something in the Captivate 5.0 I'm using.

Robert W. Neuner

Northwest Senior Management Services

[Captiv8r]

Robert, I think the issue here is that after you insert the new slide and drag it to the first of the presentation, you then defeat the purpose of adding the new slide because you then configure THAT slide to execute the advanced action to set the variable.

The point of introducing a new slide is to introduce a delay that gives the presentation time to "settle" before turning on the Closed Captioning.

The bottom line is that you insert the slide, move it to the beginning and configure the timing for perhaps .1 or .2 seconds. THEN execute the action on the SECOND slide.

Give that a try and see if things improve.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Adobe Certified Captivate Training SorcerStone Blog Captivate eBooks

[RobertsNevada]

OK, for all that helped, I can't thank you enough, however, "Captiv8r" seems

to have solved the problem, and I think Lilibiri also had it correct, but I

just didn't quite get it. Rodward and Robowizard I think also were on track,

but I don't think I was explaining myself well enough. All that said, I

think I have it now, at least on my test project. It worked as expected.

Thanks again to everybody!!!

Robert W. Neuner

Northwest Senior Management Services

9101 E Burnside

Portland, Oregon 97216

503 282-9926

FAX 503 282-9887

bobn@eldernw.com

www.eldernw.com

[RodWard]

Well done Rick!  That's a new wrinkle I've learned today.

[RobertsNevada · Accepted solution]

Just a footnote, I've tried it on several of my other presentations, and

they are all working as expected! This is the fix.

Robert W. Neuner

Northwest Senior Management Services

9101 E Burnside

Portland, Oregon 97216

503 282-9926

FAX 503 282-9887

bobn@eldernw.com

www.eldernw.com

[Lilybiri]

In the Properties of each slide you have the Action accordion with two possible actions 'On Enter' and 'On Exit'.

To turn on CC on starting the file, set the On Enter action for the first slide to 'Assign' instead of Continue, then choose the system variable cpCmndCC in the dropdown list and next to With type '1'. This will turn on CC. If there is a lag (depends on several factors), you could insert a first short slide and have this action I described on the second slide. The system variable cpCmndCC is NOT read-only, it can be controlled by you. It is directly available in this simple action dropdown list, you do not even have to write an advanced action. There is only a limited list of variables in this dropdown list, a lot more can be controlled by the user but mostly you'll need an advanced action for them.

Have a look at my articles about variables, perhaps this could clarify things:

Use Power of variables

Unleash Power of variables

Lilybiri