Insert SWF Animation affects menu behavior . . .

[MikeM_WL]

Hello, All:

I have Captivate 2.0.0 Build 1177 installed on a 2-year old Dell Inspiron laptop (1.6Ghz Intel Pentium M CPU, 768 MB RAM, Windows XP Professional)

A newbie question/problem:

I am actually working my way through a Captivate tutorial course from ICONLOGIC (provided to me by my boss). One of the modules covers adding simple Flash animations to a slide. The problem is, as soon as I select Insert > Animation > (drill down to) downright.swf --- the 'New Animation' dialog box appears and Captivate ceases to function normally.

If I click on the OK button, nothing happens. Usually the second or third time I click on OK, the animation is inserted onto the slide. At that point, none of the menus in Captivate function normally. If you select a menu, if appears only for half a second or so and vanishes before any action can be selected. Other GUI interactions (buttons, etc) seem to do the same thing. Usually, the only way out is ALT>F4 to close the application.

I thought it might be a memory problem so I closed all other open applications. No luck. Also, similarly configured hardware/software laptops do not have this problem. I uninstalled and reinstalled Captivate. No change.

Any ideas?

Thanking you all in advance,

Mike

[Captiv8r]

Hi Mike and welcome to our community

This one is a common issue since Captivate 2 has come out. Before inserting the animation, make sure your library is visible. After you insert the animation, try clicking any object in the library so temporary focus is place there, and your menus should stabilize.

Cheers... Rick

[Captiv8r]

One other thing. You say that other similarly configured PCs in the office don't do this. The difference may be in the versions of the Flash player or browser plug in that you are using, as well as possibly which browser is your default. Happens to me all the time. My default browser is Firefox.

[MikeM_WL]

Captiv8r:

Thanks so much for your quick response to my question. I did search the forum but could not find a similar question...

Nevertheless, your fix worked. Thank you. And thanks for your follow-up. A good reason to switch to Firefox!

Mike

[Captiv8r]

Hi again Mike

I'm happy to have helped. However, keep in mind that switching to Firefox may or may not influence this. Remember, I said my default browser is Firefox. And I also have the issue. So it might be the fact my default is Firefox that is causing the problem. Then again, maybe not. I was told at one point from the developers that it stemmed from some issue related to having version 9 of the Flash player installed. Then I saw other reports that said their player version was 8 and it was happening to them.

The good news is that it doesn't seem to happen in the new Captivate 3.

Happy Friday all... Rick

[MikeM_WL]

Hi Rick:

I appreciate the insight on this problem. Not to worry, though. No one here can install Firefox even it they wanted to --- it's all locked down by our friends from IT.

Another good example, though, of the perils of cause and effect in the world of software.

Thanks again.

Mike