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Button Accessibility

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 06 May 2014 20:36:40 GMT

Hi! After over three years of using Captivate, I'm finally delving into accessibility, and I was hoping that someone more experienced could confirm what I think is currently the case. My assumptions here are based on searching these forums (particularly posts by @Justenuf2bdangerous). I'm using Captivate 7.0.1.237 on Windows 7.

I'm currently looking at tab/enter behavior of buttons when navigating a project using only the keyboard. (I don't have JAWS to test any screen reader functionality, so that's another issue entirely.) It seems that...

If you want to tab to an button and then press enter to activate it, you can use:

an image button
a text button

If you want to tab to a button and/or use a shortcut key, you can use:

an image button
a text button
a transparent button
a smart shape button

However, it is a bad idea to use the default Enter key as a shortcut when making projects accessible. The shortcut keys also execute the action whether or not you've tabbed to the button, and that might not be the functionality desired.

Click boxes are not accessible because you cannot tab to them. A workaround to get a transparent, tabbable button that executes upon pressing Enter is to make a transparent png and use that as an image button.

Is that correct?

EDIT: I've moved this from the main forum to Advanced Adobe Captivate Users in the hope that'll it will be noticed by people who make accessible courses, instead of falling out of view so quickly. I've never noticed the "move" feature before-- I hope this is an acceptable use for it!

Randomize slides with JavaScript (or Advanced Actions)?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 19:16:19 GMT

I was wondering if someone out there with JavaScript knowledge could help me out a little...

A coworker came to me with a question about randomizing slides. We're working in Captivate 5.5. The slides are all part of a quiz (but are not question slides). They have a click box. The idea is that if the user clicks the box (or outside the box), it shows a correct (or incorrect) caption and then jumps to a random slide (a new scenario). If the user gets to the end of the slide without choosing anything, their time runs out and they get jumped to a random slide and it counts as an incorrect answer. The user must see all the slides in a random order with no repeats.

I've created an Advanced Action, incorporating the random number widget, and it works. My problem is that the project has 50 slides, and I'm not sure that's very doable with Advanced Actions. As it is, my test with 3 random slides has an action with 4 conditional statements, so I'm not really looking forward to creating one for 50 slides. (I don't even know if Captivate would be able to handle that.)

Is there an (easy-ish) way to accomplish this with JavaScript instead? My vague idea based on my very limited programming knowledge is:

on entering first captivate slide, create array of the slide numbers of the random slides - 1 (because cpCmndGotoSlide index starts at 0)
so if I had a project where I wanted to randomize slides 3-8, the array would be [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
shuffle/randomize the array
set up a variable called slideviews = 0 to keep track of how many slides have been viewed (and therefore which element in the random array to jump to next)
create a function that I will set to execute when I want to jump to a random slide (either at the end of a slide or upon success/failure of clicking a box)
something like... if slideviews < array.length, cpCmndGotoSlide = array[slideviews]; slideviews++; else, cpCmndGotoSlide = 8 (jump to end slide)

Obviously this is missing stuff (like proper syntax and the necessary things to communicate with captivate)... but is the logic sound? Is there a better way to do this?

Now that I think about it, the array and the variable slideviews would have to be saved if we wanted it to work with bookmarking... I think this project will be SCORM 1.2 in an LMS.

It might also be nice to have a user variable that I can access within the Captivate project and I can put in a caption to show the scenario #. Something like scenario = slideviews (I know this isn't the syntax, from reading Jim Leichliter's JavaScript series on CaptivateDev.com, but it's the basic idea.)

Anyway, any pointers would be very helpful! Thanks.

Edit: I played around a little; for randomization I found some code online, and then I wrote something that would create an array automatically and a function for jumping to a random slide. Here's what I've got so far (not tested in Captivate yet):

var objCP = document.Captivate;

var randomNumbers = []; 

 // The following creates the values for the array: 3 to 52.
 // I want to randomize slides 4-53, using cpCmndGotoSlide (index starting at 0) to jump to them

for(i=3; i<53; i++) {
                    randomNumbers[i-3] = i;
}

var n = randomNumbers.length;
  var tempArr = [];
  for (i = 0; i < n-1; i++ ) {
    // The following line removes one random element from arr
    // and pushes it onto tempArr
    tempArr.push(randomNumbers.splice(Math.floor(Math.random()*randomNumbers.length),1)[0]);
  }
  // Push the remaining item onto tempArr
  tempArr.push(randomNumbers[0]);
  randomNumbers=tempArr;

var slideViews = 0;

var randomSlide = function() {
if (slideViews < 50) {
                    objCP.cpEISetValue("cpCmndGotoSlide", randomNumbers[slideViews]);
                    slideViews++;
                    objCP.cpEISetValue("scenarioNumber", slideViews);
          }
          //after all the slides have been seen, jump to the final results slide
          else {
                    objCP.cpEISetValue("cpCmndGotoSlide", 53);
          }
};

I doubt this'll work off the bat, but maybe it's a start?

Problems upgrading from 5.5 to 6.0 (cpInfoCurrentSlide duplicate and blank screen)

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 31 May 2013 17:48:39 GMT

I am currently looking at a trial version of Captivate 6.0. I realize that the trial will be more buggy than the newer patched versions, but I was wondering if anyone had come across this problem before, and whether or not it is fixed with a patch.

I have many 5.5 projects in which I use the cpInfoCurrentSlide system variable in Advanced Actions. Today I tried to upgrade one. I opened up a copy of it in the trial, and previewed. The result was this:

It looks the same when I publish it.

I figured it was my Advanced Actions/variables and my widgets, so I deleted all of those from the original, then tried to upgrade that project. Same problem.

Then I happened to scroll through the system variables listed in the upgraded project, and noticed there are 2 versions of cpInfoCurrentSlide:

and

Note the different descriptions and default values.

Why is Captivate making 2 versions of this one variable, even after I've removed any reference to it in my original 5.5 project? I'm assuming one is a vestigial 5.5 variable and one is the 6.0 variable, but... that's fairly annoying if they don't automatically update/overwrite.

I've managed to get around things by copying my original slides into a new Captivate 5.5 project and then in turn upgrading that to 6.0. The project plays, but strangely it still has the duplicate variables. (Which indicates that the duplicate variables are not actually the source of my original problem... sigh.)

A new blank project only has the first version of cpInfoCurrentSlide.

Upgrading to 6 or 6.1?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:59:22 GMT

The department I work for is starting the process of upgrading Captivate (we have 5.5 currently). Assuming that either one is an option, which version would people suggest, 6 or 6.1?

I've been following a few discussions about the two versions, and from what I can gather they seem to be at different places in terms of bug fixes. Obviously 6.1 will have some more features like drag-and-drop, but I'm personally more concerned about bugs. For example, I saw there was a JavaScript/SCORM/IE bug for which you can email Adobe to ask for a patch, but last time I checked the patch is only for 6. (An aside: emailing for a bug fix? It's strange Adobe can't just have a link on their website with some instructions...)

I don't really think there's a black and white answer for this, but I was curious to hear what other Captivate users have to say.

Storing data in cmi.comments (SCORM 1.2 and JavaScript)

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:02:13 GMT

Hi,

I have 50 numbers (technically an array) that I need to store so I can use them upon resuming a course. I can't save it in a Captivate variable in cmi.suspend_data because there are 50 scored interactions in the course, and I've found that I run into the space limit; the variable that comes back upon resume has often had much of it chopped off.

I decided to store the data in cmi.comments, but I've run into two problems. The first is that when I set cmi.comments in JavaScript, the course immediately quits. The code I'm using: g_objAPI.LMSSetValue("cmi.comments", randomNumbers); Is there something about cmi.comments that I don't understand (quite likely) which is causing this behavior? I'm testing on Scorm Cloud, and the log data looks like this:

[15:15:31.680] LMSSetValue('cmi.comments', '21,53,45,14,34,49,13,51,46,31,4,15,22,38,18,36,32,28,47,50,35,42,19,8,52,20,44,7,29,39,3 0,37,40,23,48,11,41,26,10,25,24,17,16,12,9,5,6,27,33,43') returned 'true' in 0 seconds
[15:15:31.680] CheckForSetValueError (cmi.comments, 21,53,45,14,34,49,13,51,46,31,4,15,22,38,18,36,32,28,47,50,35,42,19,8,52,20,44,7,29,39,30 ,37,40,23,48,11,41,26,10,25,24,17,16,12,9,5,6,27,33,43, cmi.comments, , )
[15:15:31.680] Element is: comments
[15:15:31.680] Call is error free.
[15:15:31.680] StoreValue (cmi.comments, 21,53,45,14,34,49,13,51,46,31,4,15,22,38,18,36,32,28,47,50,35,42,19,8,52,20,44,7,29,39,30 ,37,40,23,48,11,41,26,10,25,24,17,16,12,9,5,6,27,33,43, cmi.comments, , )
[15:15:31.680] Element is: comments, storing at position 0
- [15:15:31.682] LMSCommit('') returned 'true' in 0 seconds
[15:15:31.682] Checking for Commit Error
[15:15:31.682] Call is error free.
- [15:15:31.682] LMSFinish('') returned 'true' in 0.001 seconds
[15:15:31.682] Checking for Finish Error
[15:15:31.682] Call is error free.
[15:15:31.683] Close Out Session
[15:15:31.683] Mode = normal
[15:15:31.683] Credit = credit
[15:15:31.683] CompletionStatus = incomplete
[15:15:31.683] SuccessStatus = unknown
[15:15:31.683] MasteryScore = 80
[15:15:31.683] Score = 0
[15:15:31.683] Sco was taken for credit
[15:15:31.683] Next entry is normal
[15:15:31.683] Session Time: PT1S (100 hundredths)
[15:15:31.683] Previous Time: PT0H0M0S (0 hundredths)
[15:15:31.683] New Total Time: PT1S (100 hundredths)
[15:15:31.683] New Tracked Total Time: PT26.10S

My second, related problem, comes if I try to reference cmi.comments in my code upon entering the first slide. It seems to do so before initializing, but of course I don't understand why:

- [15:03:09.9] LMSGetValue('cmi.comments') returned '' in 0 seconds
[15:03:09.9] CheckForGetValueError (cmi.comments, cmi.comments, , )
[15:03:09.9] SCORM ERROR FOUND - Set Error State: 301 - GetValue called when not initialized. element-cmi.comments
- [15:03:09.11] LMSGetValue('cmi.comments') returned '' in 0 seconds
[15:03:09.11] CheckForGetValueError (cmi.comments, cmi.comments, , )
[15:03:09.11] SCORM ERROR FOUND - Set Error State: 301 - GetValue called when not initialized. element-cmi.comments
- [15:03:09.12] LMSCommit('') returned 'false' in 0 seconds
[15:03:09.12] Checking for Commit Error
[15:03:09.12] SCORM ERROR FOUND - Set Error State: 301 - Commit called when not initialized.
[15:03:09.12] Current status is not attempted so changing based on score
[15:03:09.12] Missing mastery score or raw score, setting to completed
- [15:03:09.12] LMSFinish('') returned 'false' in 0 seconds
[15:03:09.12] Checking for Finish Error
[15:03:09.12] SCORM ERROR FOUND - Set Error State: 301 - Finished called when not initialized.

Any help would be appreciated, since I'm new to both JavaScript and manipulating SCORM. Thanks!

Caption formatting problems when inserting variables

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:41:21 GMT

Hi,

I've come across a bug similar to what is talked about in this thread: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3893978

When I insert a variable into a caption (with font: Tahoma, size: 12, style: bold), it changes the formatting. The text is larger, in a different location, and is a different font.

Does anyone know if there have been developments since that thread? I'm trying to match the font style of a website, so unfortunately the solution suggested there (putting an empty variable in every caption so they are consistent) will not work for me.

Thanks!

___

More info on exactly what I'm doing:

The project is a simulation that involves the user logging on to a website. I have a text entry box with a variable associated with it (username). On subsequent slides, there is a header on the webpage that says:

Logged on as: student1

I want to replace the username that was recorded (student1) by simply editing the background in photoshop to erase it and adding a text caption that has the username variable. At the moment though, the formatting is so off that the variable looks strange; I can't match it to the original text on the website.