creating a software demo with robohelp

[karen2008]

Hi everyone,

Can you help me to create software demo with robohelp. This demo needs to be saved with mp3 file extension.
If you can, can you show me step by step.

Thanks

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi karen2008 and welcome to the RH community.

I am willing to be proved wrong but aren't MP3 files sound based? If so, they are not suitable for video demonstrations of software. Why do you need this file format?

[karen2008]

Hi Colum,

Cause my boss doesn't want to save as flash files.
Do you have any idea that how I should save these files.
Actually, the demo doesn't include sound.
Give me suggestion.

thanks

[RoboColum_n_]

Karen.

I am far from being a Captivate expert so am probably not the best person to respond here. There are users on these forums or the Captivate forum that are better placed. However my understanding is that all Captivate demos are flash based so if your boss doesn't want a flash file I can't see how they can have a demo.

[MergeThis]

You could use animated gif files; there are several tools for this, as shown here. You simply take a series of screenshots and the tool will compile them into an animated version. I'd guess that the more expensive tools would allow some editing for callouts, bubbles, clouds, etc.


Good luck,
Leon

[HKabaker]

Jasc Paint Shop Pro, up through PSP 8, had a free companion application called Animation Shop.

I've done a few 5 to 10 second demos. The downside is that it's not practical to show cursor movements; you have to replace, fade, wipe, etc. from one shot to the next. I suppose you could insert a cursor into each of the transition frames, but that's what tools like Captivate were invented for.

By the way, FWIW, my Macintosh SE came with a set of animated demos for new users. That was in 1988. I don't know what technique they used to build the demos, but they did a good job in showing me what buttons to press.

(Students of ancient history can research Macintosh_SE on Wikipedia.)

Harvey

P.S.
Corel, which bought Jasc Software, sells a $39 application called Animation Shop 3 and another product, Ulead GIF Animator 5, for $49.95.

[Linux Rules]

Use your favorite search engine on this string:

"video file formats"

...and pick one that can be used on numerous platforms but don't use Flash.

Regards,
GEWB

[Captiv8r]

Hi all

Actually, long before the days of applications that could be used to create demos (Captivate, Camtasia, Wink, etc) I actually used RoboHelp to create a software demo. So if you are determined, here is how you can do it.

It all begins by grabbing screen captures of all the different screens in the application. Then you insert each on a different HTML page. Then you insert Image Map Hotspots on the images and link them up appropriately so that clicking different areas results in the same screen changes you would normally see in the application.

Just a thought... Rick