Recording in Captivate 3 at 1280 x 1024 and adding toolbars and playback controls

[BradS19]

I'm recording a web application that is 1280 x 1024 and is displayed in a browser . I'm recording  using Captivate 3 at 1280 x 1024. Prior to recording, I remove all of the IE toolbars including the address bar, navigation bar, Google toolbar, etc. so that the only thing showing are the menu commands (i.e. File, Edit, View, etc). Before I record I set the recording window to use the "Application" and "Snap to fit" options in Captive 3. After recording, I add Playback controls. I resize the movie to a smaller size so that the training I'm building for this app doesn't require scrolling vertically or horizontolly( a customer requirement). I then Preview in browser with the IE toolbars showing again like the end user will have displayed when they run it in a browswer. Between the toolbars and the playback controls, coupled with a smaller resolution to previent the need to scroll, the application and the text I recorded become compressed (Obviously). Mainly it's the text within the app I recorded that looks the worst How do I build this training so that that doesn't happen or at least not as much. Thank you in advance for your time and input.

Brad

[Lilybiri]

You did a resizing, to which size? Did you keep the proportions (width/heigth ratio should remain the same as 1280/1024)? 

[BradS19]

I think you're asking if I maintained the aspect ratio. No.. Should I have? Would that have most likely solved my problem with some trial and error? Instead what I did was re-record at 1280 x 800. Then I resized the captured file to 1240 X 774. Thoughts? Suggestions for future efforts?

[Lilybiri · Accepted solution]

Yes, that is what I mean and I will try to explain a little bit. Resizing almost always results in degrading the quality, but downscaling is however a better option than upscaling if you keep the same ration (width-heigth) as the original movie. Digital images in bitmap format consist of a certain number of pixels (picture elements), p.e. 1280x1024 means 1280pixels for the width and 1024pixels for the heigth. If you are resizing this image in such a way that the proportions are changed, it is rather common to have a distorted picture. Imagine having the picture on a cloth and your are trying to have a larger cloth (upscaling) by trying to increment the width more than the height of the cloth: the image will be distorted. That is why in CP4 they introduced the possibility to crop the image if you are not keeping the aspect ratio constant, which means you will cut part of the image (=cropping) where the dimension has to decrement more. So if you are downscaling 1280x1024 to 1024x768: no problem, because ratio is the same. If you want to downscale to 1024x600 you will have a distorted image, or you could cut some pixels from the height (to get 768 to 600).

I hope that I will not have created more confusion?

Lilybiri

[BradS19]

Not at all. Great explanation. Great analogy. If you have time, I'd like to ask two more related(somewhat) questions. Now that I understand that, why would I ever choose not to maintain the aspect ratio? I can't think of any good reason off of the top of my head but as you realize, I'm new at this. Can you give another analogy. I'm big on analogies. Also, when I went to publish the cp file today two undesireable things happened.

1. Some of the text in my text captions became distorted, I'm thinking about resizing those text boxes to give them more line spacing if you will. and re-publishing them to see if that makes a difference.

2. I used highlight boxes in some slides but I think they're missing in the published file. I have to re-check tomorrow. Should I have merged them into the background too like I did the textboxes b4 exporting

Thanks

Brad

[Lilybiri]

Hello Brad,

Glad you understood what I tried to explain. Since I have been very busy yesterday, my reply is somewhat late, excuses.

Yes, indeed, I very rarely choose not to maintain the aspect ratio. Only when you do not mind to have a portion of the slides cropped (cut away a little bit) you can deactivate this, but then (when downscaling) I always opt for 'Cropping' instead of 'Rescale project to fit new size'. In the former metaphor: to have the wanted dimensions of the cloth, you just cut away a portion and the rescale both dimensions in the same proportion.

I'll try to answer your other questions, provided I understand them all right.

Especially when rescaling, I never would merge objects into the background as you did with the text captions, or want to do with the highlight boxes, because then you do not have any control left, it is just one layer, the background that will be rescaled. If objects are left independent (they are visible on the timeline) you can then choose 'Rescale captions, highlight boxes....' if you want Captivate to adapt the proportions of those objects to the new dimensions. Sometimes, when rescaling, I prefer not to activate this option but rescale the objects myself manually after rescaling. It is a little bit more work, but I'm used to be called a 'control freak'.

Hoping that this helps you somehow? Captivate is really a fine tool, I really like it very much, and am discovering new possiblities all the time. Please do not hesitate to question this forum.

Lilybiri

[BradS19]

No.problem. Thanks for the continued explanations you've been very helpful. But now I'm confused. It's nothing you said but probably some bad information I got or then I just don't understand how Captivate works.. I'll explain the lesson I'm building. I'm mimicking an operator's actions in performing a task on a software system. I tell them to click here enter information there, etc. It's a demonstration only lesson so there isn't any interactivity in this lesson. It just runs (ie. the Captivate movie is playing). It's nothing but caption text boxes and red highlights where I focus the user's attention on the button or field I'm explaining. I put everything in the timeline so that things highlight and lowlight and textboxes appear and are replaced by other textboxes to match the highlights It plays just fine in Captivate but when I got to publish them neither the textboxes nor the highlights are in any of the slides. It's just the original screen captures playing one after the other. A friend of mine told me that in order for textboxes to show in the published file you needed to merge them into the background prior to publishing. I did that an sure enough now they appear in the swf file and the executable file. This is why I asked you about merging things in the prior pos because as far as I know it's the only way to get things to appear in a published file. If you don't merge your textboxes, then how do you get them to appear in the published file? One problem that resulted from me merging the textboxes into the background is that in the published file they now (incorrectly) appear throughout the slide rather than in a timed manner on the timeline so that they appear in conjunction with the highlights.

Same problem with the highlights. If I don't merge them into the background they don't appear in the published file, but if I do merge them and let's say there are 3 on a slide and each one highlights a different portion of the screen every three seconds then I lose the timing. They appear all at once rather than every 3 seconds like they do in the Captivate file. Please help. This lesson is due first thing Tuesday morning.

I'm probably abusing this post and trying your patience but since I'm at it, here's two more. In the same movie I show the cursor movement, like above it plays fine in the cp file but in the published file you don't see it at all even though I selected "Include mouse when the project is generated" when I was publishing it. These three are all related. They are all publishing issues.

The last one is different, again when I publish the movie, you hear 5 or 6 unwanted and annoying clicking sounds in the first 3 slides of the published file. It doesn't happen after that.

Thanks for your infinite patience, wisdom, and feedback. I hope to hear from you soon.

Brad

[Lilybiri]

I'm not sure to be able to help. But merging objets in the background is definitely not the right solution at all. All the objects you can see on the Timeline can be seen as different layers. You can only apply a timing for each object if it is on an individual layer. Since you like metaphors: imagine a presentation or a lesson with a good old projector, using transparant slides. First you will show the general idea (= background) by putting a transparant slide on the projector. Then you want to enhance an item, by putting a second transparant slide with only this item (in a different colour p.e.) on top of the first slide. You are doing this 'later'. In the Captivate timeline this second item can be a Highlight box, but it really needs to be on a separate layer. If you merge it in the background, it leaves you with only one layer, one transparant where background and enhanced item are both present. You cannot have different timing for them if that is the case. I do not know the reasoning of your friend, but disagree as you understand.

How did you publish? Did you preview the project in Captivate (preferably in the web browser)? When you publish to a swf, this is really a movie: every slide plays directed by the timeline: in my example the slide will first show the background, the highlight box will appear when the timeline reaches its layer. When the slide is finished, it goes to the next slide... If a slide doesn't playw well: check if you have some click box (or another interactive object) on the slide. A click box pauses the slide until the user click on it. Objects placed further on the timeline will not show until its time is reached.

About the clicking sounds I'm not sure. Did you record some typing? Is there an object on the timeline? Somewhere on this forum there is a thread about annoying click sounds, but I never had an issue of this kind.

Lilybiri