Jul 29, 2009 7:31 AM
Button Open URL Problems...Need Help FAST!
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I am in a panic and could use some immediate help if possible. I think the problem is probably a simple one, but I'm pulling my hair out. I have published my files to a directory on my hard drive called "CDMTS Training Beta". The main welcome screen (CDMTS_Welcome.htm and swf) reside in this main directory. See attached screen cap for directory structure.
I have a button on the welcome screen that is supposed to open a subfolder (Modules) which contains the main menu (Module_Menu.htm) and individual module files. This button seems to work and launch the specified Open URL link when I run the course from my hard drive, but any time I move it to a different location or a CD, the Proceed button will not open the url. I am not sure if I have the relative path correct...could someone please help me...I have to get some CDs out to our customer today or tomorrow. THanks!
Kristi
Hi there
See if the links below help.
Cheers... Rick ![]()
Helpful and Handy Links |
Rick,
I didn't have any luck with what you referred me to, but a possible solution dawned on me yesterday. I moved all of my files (including my welcome screen) file into one directory (Modules), and created a redirect html file that started up the Welcome page in the Modules directory. I changed my Proceed buttons in the Welcome page to point to to the module menu page in the same directory. The redirect works fine, but again, as soon as I move any of my files to a different location, none of the hyperlinked buttons to other files works. I don't recall having this problem before. This should not be a difficult task, yet it's causing me to pull out my hair. As long as a have relative links to files in the same directory, why would it matter if you move the files to a different location?
Frustrated,
Kristi
Hi Kristi
I forget, are you using Captivate 3 or 4? If it's 4, Adobe issued a
patch that corrects a nasty little issue where only absolute links are
created if you use Open Other Project. So it's advisable to install the
update.
Indeed if you create relative links, things should work regardless of
where they are, as long as you don't change the relative position. ![]()
Cheers... Rick ![]()
Rick, I'm using Cap 4. I downloaded the patch, and when I install it it tells me that Adobe Captivate 4.4.01 has already been installed. Is this the update that I need to get rid of this problem, and if so, any ideas why I am still having it?
Kristi L. McFadden
Instructional Systems Designer
A. Harold and Associates, LLC
(757) 430-8202 (Home/Office)
(757) 646-5046 (Cell)
Hi again
If the patch is advising it has already been installed, there is likely no need to install it. ![]()
You seem to be having issues with simple linking. I do note that in your first post you tried to attach some images. Unfortunately, those are still in a queued state so we cannot see them. If you would like to try again, you might use the camera icon above where you post (using the web form) instead of attaching. Attachments must be approved by forum folks before anyone can see them.
Normally all you do is to just type the path as in SubFolderName/FileName.HTM and that is sufficient to create a relative path.
How did you create the links?
Cheers... Rick ![]()
Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form |
Rick, I've been on the phone with technical support for the past hour and they have been zero help, other than saying that this issue will be taken to the next level and they might be able to get back to me by Tuesday or Wednesday (which is no help when my customer is wondering why it's taking me so long to deliver them the course on a CD). They didn't seem to think there was even a fix to it because it breaks the links. I find that hard to believe that anyone who uses Captivate to produce a product is likely going to want to move it to a location other than where they develop it. This seems like such an easy thing to do, yet no luck.
Here is my course structure:
The Start_Here.htm is a redirect file that opens the welcome screen in the Modules folder. The welcome screen hyperlinks to the Module Menu (htm and swf), which in turn, opens Module 1 (htm and swf). Here are my settings for one of the hyperlinked buttons. As I said before, this works fine and dandy until I move the location of the files to a different place on my hard drive, a CDROM, or another computer. I'm in a panic and quite frustrated. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!
Hi again
I believe the issue you are facing is this. You are running SWF/HTML from your local hard drive or CD-ROM. From the Flash Player perspective, you have to adhere to stricter security settings because you are on the local file system. Your content would likely hum right along if you published it to a web server and play with no issue.
So you follow one of the original links I supplied and configure the Flash Security to acknowledge the folder as safe. But if you move things to a different folder, suddenly you are back in unsafe territory.
If you are burning to a CD-ROM, you need a way to trick the Flash Player into believing the files are on a Web Server. Fortunately it's not all that difficult to do. I'll outline the steps below:
The process below should work to install Server2Go on CD-ROM
Download the Server2Go software from http://www.server2go-web.de/download/download.html
Choose the Micro package
This should result in receiving a zip file named distribute_apache1.3_micro.zip
Unzip the contents of the zip file to the root of your hard drive ( C:\ )
This should create a folder named distribute_apache1.3_micro
Open this folder and delete the following files and folders inside:
Files:
Folders:
Open the htdocs folder and delete all files and folders inside.
Copy all of your Captivate output files to the htdocs folder
Rename the HTML page Captivate created to index.htm
Copy the contents of the distribute_apache1.3_micro folder to the CD-ROM and test!
Give that a try and you should be set. Although, if you are insistent on maintaining the folder strucure as you have it, you will need to massage these instructions slightly.
Cheers... Rick ![]()
Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form |
Rick, thanks for your reply.
I'm am really stressing out about all this. I can't understand why three months ago, I could have a person remotely download my course on to their computer, and have all the links work perfectly, and now three months later (when I haven't even made any changes), all the links don't work. This seems like a very basic and common thing to do. And the recent patch is even supposed to address this very problem it sounds like. I even tried uninstalling, and reinstalling...not luck. My company's reputation (and my own rep) is on the line here. Because our customer is a military institution, they are limited to applications that can be loaded on their system, so, I can't have them download this Server 2 Go application, nor should I have to ask them to adjust their Flash settings. This is a simple course with basic html and swf file structure...the most basic structure possible, so I can't understand why reputable product like Captivate can't accommodate these file links. Am I the only one with this problem, or is it a common problem? I am by no means busting on you...you have been the ONLY person that has been helpful in this situation, and I appreciate your help tremendously...just trying to get down to the root of it.
Sweating bullets,
KM
Rick, thanks for all of your timely responses and overall help in this frustration issue. I believe you are 100% correct in that this whole thing was caused by finicky Flash Player security settings when running local content. Sheesh...seems like such an easy and popular thing to do. As much as I do NOT want to cause extra work for my customer to change the Global Security settings upon intial start up, I think I have no choice. I changed them on my PC and everything is working honky-dory now! I must say that Adobe Tech Support leaves much to be desired...they never even considered this, and had me exporting my content as a Word document (why, I have NO IDEA!!!!!).
Kristi:
Did you actually ask your viewers to change the security settings? I am having the same problem, and I can't believe there is no other solution. The last thing I want to do is ask all the users to change security settings before they begin.
Please let me know.
Thanks
Jo
Hi Jo
Where are you planning to have your users access the Captivate output from? I ask because if you say something like: from our web server you son of a silly person! Your fears are unfounded.
The only time Flash Player security causes problems is if the end user copies the Captivate output to their local hard drive and runs it. Or if they run it from media such as a CD-ROM or DVD.
Cheers... Rick ![]()
Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form |
It will be on a web server. Are you saying that the links are not working right now, but when they are uploaded to the server they will work? I am starting to get a happy feeling if that is so.
Jo
Jo,
Yes, I had to ask my users to do that, which was a very tough thing to have to explain to my customer. I spent about 9 months building a complex course. Whatever version of Flash Player I was using to test initially didn't pick up on it for some reason, until I moved the content to another computer (probably with a different Flash Player version). The other option is to publish as a PDF (which retains most of the interactivty - not sure about quizzes though) or an exe. I couldn't use either of these formats because of military security issues. Bummer. What I ended up doing was having a setup page with a button that linked directly to the Global Settings page. Take note that your user has to have an internet connection. If they don't have one to do this step, they will not be able to view the course in this format. Totally stinks!!!
Kristi
Hi Jo
Indeed, once the Captivate is accessed from a Web server it is automagickally placed in a different security zone. And really, that's the gist of it in a nutshell.
So the bottom line is that the links should work beautifully once the project is accessed from a web server.
So take a deep breath and exhale... Feel better? Ahhhhhhh
Cheers... Rick ![]()
Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form |
Hi again Kristi
How exactly are you providing your content to the user? There are ways to set something up so they don't have to deal with the Flash Security.
Cheers.. Rick ![]()
Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form |
Rick, this course was supposed to be embedded into another application, but that is up in the air. Currently, we simply deliver a CD-ROM to our customer where they can either run it from the CD-ROM or copy the files directly to their hard drive. They did not want it delivered via internet or server (military restrictions).
Hi again
Unfortunately, if they copy to their own hard drives there is little you can do other than to advise that things won't work until Flash Player security has been massaged. I think there is actually a way to supply some form of an XML file that configures the player to allow a specific location to behave, but you would have to know the location beforehand. And short of simply advising that they place content in a specifically named folder, that doesn't seem feasable. If you are supplying via CD-ROM, you may also install a small "Web Sever" that runs on the CD. This tricks the Flash Player into believing the content is in that safe zone and the security restrictions aren't enforced.
In the event you want to try that route, below is an article I constructed that lists the steps you need to take:
So here you are. You have your Captivate movie(s) finalized and ready to go. Your goal at this point is to copy the content to CD-ROM or DVD for distribution.
What next? Are there special considerations I need to think about? Anything in particular I can do to make things easier?
If you intend to use CD-ROM, you have roughly 650 to 700 megs of space available to store your content. Is that enough? If your Captivate content is larger than this, you will have to either consider ways of paring it down so it fits within that size restriction or you will need to consider using DVD. DVD has a much larger storage capacity.
You may elect to exploit the autorun feature available. It's worth noting that autorun is far from foolproof. For example, in some organizations, the IT staff will routinely disable autorun. You may wonder why. They often view autorun as a security vulnerability they would rather avoid. If autorun is left enabled, and someone has constructed a CD with a virus or other malware that automatically runs and installs or otherwise damages the computer, the IT staff would like to prevent this. Hence the reason for routinely disabling the feature.
Assuming autorun has not been disabled, there are other reasons it could fail. For example, the autorun.inf file needs to reference the file to run. If this file name is very long and contains spaces, autorun will often fail. One way around that is to surround the file name with quotes inside the autorun.inf. Unfortunately Captivate doesn't do this for you, so if you wish to use a long file name, you will need to amend the autorun.inf yourself after Captivate creates it. Another approach is to simply change the name of the Captivate file you are autorunning so it conforms to the older DOS 8.3 naming convention. For example, instead of using a file name of My Most Wonderful Captivate Movie in the whole wide word, the name would perhaps be MyMovie.
Adobe Captivate does offer a feature that will create the autorun.inf for you. Even though the cons have been issued above, it's still a good idea to configure an autorun.inf in case it will be used.
If the amount of information on the CD/DVD is substantial (meaning you have a potentially confusing array of files) it is often useful to create a folder and place all the content inside the folder. You would then keep only the file(s) pertinent to starting your application in the root folder of the media. This simplifies things dramatically for your end user.
Captivate is capable of outputting a few different formats. The main two formats are known as Standalone and Flash SWF.
If your output is Flash SWF (Captivate SWF with HTML page) you have special considerations. Later versions of the Flash Player have security built into them. This means that when you try to run content on your local drives (CD or DVD would be considered local drives in this case) the Flash Security model will often block certain operations. Things such as JavaScript calls and links to web sites fall into this category of blocked items.
What is at issue is the fact that you are operating on the local file system. That's dangerous territory to allow anything to happen. After all, if an application that normally runs on the web has access to the local file system, some nasty things could result. Hence the security restrictions imposed. For testing purposes, you may wish to configure the Flash Player to acknowledge the folder where you are running the location as being safe. The problem here is that with CD or DVD distribution, the CD or DVD is considered as being part of the local file system. This means that unless the location has been marked as safe, some of the content will refuse to work.
You might wonder why this doesn't happen with content that comes from a Web Server. The reason is simple. Content that has been served by a Web Server is automatically in a restricted zone from the security perspective. Because it is already within a security zone, the Flash Player has no need to restrict or inhibit any actions.
Fortunately there is a way to work past this. What you can do is to trick the Flash Player into believing the content it is playing is actually coming from a web server. The manner in which this is done is by installing a very lightweight web server that starts and runs before your content runs.
Fortunately one is available in the open source arena. (Read free to use at no additional expense to you)
The name of the software is Server2Go.
You will need to follow the steps below to install Server2Go.
Download the Server2Go software from http://www.server2go-web.de/download/download.html
Choose the Micro package
This should result in receiving a zip file named distribute_apache1.3_micro.zip
Unzip the contents of the zip file to the root of your hard drive ( C:\ )
This should create a folder named distribute_apache1.3_micro
Open this folder and delete the following files and folders inside:
Files:
splash.bmp
logo.ico
readme.txt
Folders:
dlls
dbdir
cgi-bin
Open the htdocs folder and delete all files and folders inside.
Copy all of your Captivate output files to the htdocs folder
Rename the HTML page Captivate created to index.htm
Copy the contents of the distribute_apache1.3_micro folder to the CD-ROM and test!
Hopefully this helps... Rick ![]()
Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form |
Well Rick, I must say...YOU ARE MY HERO!
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
Joanne P. Hickey
Divisional Project Officer
Ministry of the Environment SWR
733 Exeter Road
London, ON N6E 1L3
Phone: 519-873-4763
Fax: 519-873-5020
Email: Joanne.Hickey@Ontario.ca
P Please consider the environment prior to printing this email.
Awesome! I will give it a shot Rick! Thanks pal!
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