Camtasia SWF and Robohelp x5 - Please help!

[tojo71]

I think the summary says it all. I produce a swf file using Camtasia (a well known and popular video producer) and when I include all the video files in the project, nothing shows up after it's compiled (there are 4 files: an swf video, controller htm file, config xml file, and html display wrapper file. The strange thing is that it works fine when I'm in my Robohelp project and click on the view icon. I see everything there. But when it's compiled, no video and no controller bar. I have found a hack fix for it here: http://forums.techsmith.com/archive/index.php/t-1358.html, but can't even get this code to work. I'm hoping that one of you might have encountered this problem, or have a solution for me. Otherwise, I can include just the swf file as a video and include it as multimedia in the project through the "Robohelp" way, but I don't get any controller bar. I'm amazed that robohelp x5 is lacking simple controller bar functionality for multimedia files (and flash more specifically). That's beyond baffling. In any event, it would really be nice to find a simple fix for this.

[Captiv8r]

Hi tojo71 and welcome to our community

Have you tried adding the Camtasia files to your Baggage Files folder in RoboHelp? I'm guessing if you do this, the Camtasia output will play.

But RoboHelp is probably gagging on it because it's not Captivate.

Cheers... Rick

[Pete_Lees]

tojo71,

You may get a little further using the scripts in the following page, although they're basically the same as those in the page you linked to:

http://helpware.net/FAR/far_faq.htm#Applets

It always used to be the case (and presumably still is), that Camtasia Flash files did not work when compiled into a .chm file — hence the need to leave them outside the .chm file and use scripting to load them dynamically.

Pete

[tojo71]

Thanks for the welcome to the community.

Adding the files into the baggage folder does nothing. The problem seems to lie in the xml file not being readable by the compiled CHM file. I have no doubt that the swf file can be played and viewed. But for some reason the compiled version does not find the xml file (even though I confirmed it IS being included in the CHM compilation). It's a really bizarre situation and makes absolutely no sense to me, unless the compilation is changing file names or has some scripts internally that disrupt the path locations of these files.

I've verified all the files are in a single location under a folder in my help project, so there's no reason why they shouldn't work correctly. I even verified that this setup works before compiling by clicking the "View" icon at the top of the help project window and testing the video / controller. All works like a charm.

If I were a better programmer, I could probably fix this. But my programming skills are novice at best.

I also would prefer not keeping any of the files outside the chm, as that can open up more hassles than it's worth. Especially when you distribute help files on all kinds of different computer configurations. I don't have to use the swf format either. I just need a simple way to include a control bar with the multimedia included in the Robohelp project. I would think Robohelp would come with pause, stop, play, rewind, ffwd options. But apparently we're still in the early 1990's or something?

So is there any alternate solution / video format that will give me a control bar in a compiled CHM file? Or is that asking for a miracle?

PS: I don't have adobe captivate, and my company is not going to purchase it at this time. As much as I'm trying to push them in that direction.

Thanks in advance for all your help. It is greatly appreciated.