Evaluting - opinions?

[cindihartman]

For the past 12 years, I've used Authorware to develop tutorials.  As Authorware is obsolete, I'm evaluating replacement software.  We have always done fully interactive software simulation with keystrokes as well as mouse-clicks, as the software we are teaching is text-entry intensive, and the end-users do NOT want to point and click during text entry.  One CRITICAL key that must be available is F4.  When we last evaluated Captivate (version 1 or 2), we were told it was impossible to assign F4 to an end-user action because the movie played back in a web browser, and the web browser's F4 would always (and only) open a new browser window.

Is this still the case, or can Captivate 5 be set so that F4 can be used as a keystroke to play an action in the movie and NOT open a new browser window?

Thanks.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Captivate 5 doesn't really change anything with respect to that, nor would I fathom it could. The issue is that the Flash SWF is playing inside a Browser window. Unless, of course, you create an EXE and present the user with an EXE. In that case you could use F4 even in Captivate 4 or 3 or older.

Cheers... Rick

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[jamesnotjim]

F4 can be set as a shortcut key for buttons and for text entry areas. In simulations, that might provide a way to fake it.

[mvlele]

Hi,

I just created a very basic project in Captivate 5.

- Inserted a button on slide-1

- On success - it should jump to slide-3

- Assigned shortcut F4 for the button action

- Previewed in browser (Chrome)

F4 worked correctly. It excuted the action assigned to the button.

Hope this is what you are looking for. Let us know if you have any more queries.

regards,

Mukul

[Captiv8r]

Hi Mukul

That's terrific if you know everyone ever viewing your project will be using Google Chrome to view it!

Try it in IE. What you will find is that each and every time you press F4 the Address bar gains focus. (At least this is the behavior I see)

It does seem to work properly in Firefox, but only after the user has shifted focus to the Flash object sitting in the web page. Until that happens the keystroke appears to be totally ignored.

Cheers... Rick

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[jamesnotjim]

Wouldn't all keystrokes be ignored until the Flash object has the focus, Rick? Generally, that isn't an issue, as kicking off the presentation can be set to require some user interaction (e.g. pressing a button).

I had no idea that IE used F4 for that behavior. Very odd. I always just use ctrl-t to pop a new tab. I'm primarily a Chrome user (on Windows and OS X), though I, of necessity, test all of my stuff with IE8, as that's the platform here. I wonder if any of the various hotkey apps out there can trap F4 before IE can? I doubt it, and that route would only work in an environment where you had complete control over the audience's machines. Not a likely circumstance.

But, I guess, if the training is mission critical and trapping F4 is critical to the training, installing Google Chrome is a perfectly workable solution, especially as it is dead simple to install.

[Captiv8r]

Hi James

wheatthewicked wrote:

Wouldn't all keystrokes be ignored until the Flash object has the focus, Rick?

Indeed they will. At least in Firefox. That's why in all the Captivate classes I facilitate I advise it's a good idea to insert a Button on the first slide. For that very reason. To ensure the user clicks it to shift the invisible focus to the object.

wheatthewicked wrote:

I had no idea that IE used F4 for that behavior. Very odd. I always just use ctrl-t to pop a new tab.

As I said earlier, for me the F4 keypress places focus on the Address bar. That makes sense because that's what is listed in the help for IE.

Now I am aware that the thread began with a misunderstanding that F4 would open a new window, and I sort of ignored that bit knowing there are certain keypresses that the browser will always trap and cannot be used. Admittedly, Google Chrome may be a totally different animal in this respect. I've personally not had the inclination to test it on my own machines.

Also, personally, I feel that forcing someone to install a specific browser to work with your stuff is the wrong move. Why should folks be forced into a box? It's like saying I can only wear a red shirt. What if I want to wear black? Shouldn't that be allowed? Then again, I'm sort of an odd duck, so maybe others feel differently.

Odd, as I'm typing this I see James Martin, but the quotes pull in wheatthewicked? Is there a forum snafu?

Cheers... Rick

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[jamesnotjim]

I'm with you on browser independence. I try to find a happy medium, so that my projects look and function as identically as possible without regard to browser or platform. It is one of the niceties of Flash as a delivery platform that the experience is so consistent. I always start my Captivate projects with a button press. So I guess I solved that focus problem w/o really thinking about it.

My username was "wheatthewicked" until Adobe started standardizing on email address as username. At that point, I clicked some option to use my real name as my display name. But, it looks like I'm still "wheatthewicked" behind the scenes.

Maybe creating a standalone presentation, as you suggested, would be the best bet here. I haven't tested that (as I don't need to trap f-keys). But it's worth testing.