What's the difference between "stop project" and "close project"?

[KnowAll03]

I think I'm going to go for the record of bone-headed questions posted in one day, but I hope someone can help me. What's the difference between the "stop project" and "close project" preferences? I looked it up in Help and found this "duh"-inducing definition: Stop Project Stops the project after it plays once. Close Project Closes the movie after it stops playing. Maybe I'm playing with semantics here, but those definitions sound like the same thing.

I'm trying to have the last slide of the last chapter of an 8 chapter Aggregator project freeze so the end user can see the "additional resources" information. Which would be the better option?

Thanks again!

Krista

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Consider your Captivate project to be just like an old 8MM movie. It begins, plays through and ends.

Stop project is like stopping on the last frame of the film. If anything is visible, it remains visible.

Close project is like unloading the film reel and placing it back in the canister.

If you use Close project and you Publish your Captivate as an EXE, the window will close when it completes playing. If you use Stop project and Publish as an EXE, the window remains open.

Close will not work in many instances if you publish as SWF.

Hopefully that helps... Rick

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[KnowAll03]

Perfect! A million thanks, Rick!

[Guest]

I've noticed that the project will not close when I publish it as a swf. Is this a bug I should report? Is there another option?

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

No, I wouldn't recommend reporting it as there isn't anything Adobe can do about it. The issue is that different browsers handle closing the window differently.

If you want to know why, I suggest you use Google. You will likely be amazed at how many references you discover where folks are asking why browser windows don't close.

Just search for Close window javascript.

Cheers... Rick

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[Guest]

Got it. The other issue I am having is that when I import a Captivate swf file in to Presenter, the Captivate swf plays automatically. It's meant to be an interactive lesson but the user can just sit back and watch. I disabled the navigation bar in Captivate as I didn't want two navigation bars in the published Presenter file. Any ideas?

Thanks!

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

If you don't want the Captivate to play automatically, you need to start it up in a paused state. In Captivate 4 you have a new option. Click Edit > Preferences... > Project node > Start and End node and DE-select the Auto Play option.

If you have Captivate 3 or older, you will need to insert a Click Box or Button object on the first slide to keep it paused until your user is ready to proceed. Note that this would also work for Captivate 4 if you want.

Cheers... Rick

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[Guest]

Hi Rick-

I already did that. I have the user click on a button to launch the swf in Presenter and once the swf launches it plays straight through. It should require user interaction (and does as a standalone in Captivate). Make sense? If this is still confusing, is there a number I can call you at tomorrow? My computer is shut down and in the back of the car.

Thanks, Cindy