Help!

Report · May 19, 2008

I am a newcomer to the Adobe suite of tools. My issues and assumptions are as follows.

Assumptions:

Captivate can be used as the container presentation layer for slides of a project, and that they can contain flash swf files with their own encapsulated functionality, as created with the drag and drop flash editor.

Captivate can handle multiple quizzez per project file.

Issues:
Flash interactive animations exported as swf and imported onto captivate slides do not function correctly. Unfortunately, each slide malfunctions in a different way. Some dont play, some show absolutely no content, some play but objects are missing, some play fast, some play slow. This is an issue, because I assumed that Captivate would be responsible for slide presenation and quiz handling, and flash would be used to make the interactive sections (possibly but not necessarily having funtionality tied to other objects in each slide). If captivate can not present my flash animations, or rather, If I cannot modify my flash animations to fit in the captivate container, then I am forced to make my own such application via whatever adobe app dev tool exists (ugh) I am also under a bit of a time crunch naturally, and this isn't the only project that i might be dealing with over the next few weeks.

Also, Captivate only seems to be able to manage one quiz per project file. If the workaround is to make separate "quiz only" projects, and jump into them from the main project (ignoring flow logic issues for a moment, such as capturing the outcome), then fine. If there is a better solution, i wouldn't mind a pointer or a key phrase to search for
(yes i've tried "multiple quizzez per captivate project" in google)

Main question:
Given the above issue, what would be the toolchain setup recommended for a project of this nature by those of you here with relevant experience, and where can I go to find training material (or what books give good coverage of the nature of my project). Feel free to email me at the email attached to this profile, or respond here. Thanks in advance.

Josh

Report · May 19, 2008

Welcome to our community, jkordani

Assumptions:

Captivate can be used as the container presentation layer for slides of a project, and that they can contain flash swf files with their own encapsulated functionality, as created with the drag and drop flash editor.

Well, if you are assuming that Captivate presents Flash output that consists of .SWF format, you are correct. But if your sole intent is to take content already created as Flash and use Captivate as a simple way to present that content, you are probably a bit mistaken.

Part of the issue is the difference in Frame Rates. Unless you change it from the default, Flash has a Frame Rate of 12 Frames per second. Captivate's default is 30. So if you pop someting designed to run at 12 frames per second into something that runs at 30, the result is a mismatch. Normally the animation speeds way up. The key is to design your Flash animations to play at 30 frames per second if you are inserting into Captivate.

You are correct in your assumption that a single quiz is used inside Captivate. There is currently no way to have multiple quizzes in a single project.

There are many different avenues for Captivate training. However, I'm uncertain as to whether your questions actually indicate a workflow.

Cheers... Rick

Report · May 20, 2008

Thanks for your response!

The difference in frame rates is a totally understandable reason for my .swf files not gelling well with Captivate. When the flash guy gets in ill tell him to try that and we'll go from there. I will post the results.

My main question assumed that I wouldn't be able to drop my swf files right into captivate slides, and since I figured other people were having the same problem, I was wondering how they were leveraging the power of flash and captivate. I was intending to use captivate to house the presentation part, and the flash to provide interactivity. Since I was facing the idea that i could not use captivate and flash the way I wanted to, I wanted to see what other people used. i guess I dont understand your response about workflows.

Report · May 22, 2008

Also of note, The swf file doesn't seem to play right when I go to preview (slide or project), but If i publish the project, or preview in web page, it works. this was noticed after the swf's framerate was changed to 30, so it might not matter much, but just a heads up. thanks captiv8r

Report · Jun 11, 2008

jkordani,

You are right when you say that imported .swfs lose their interactivitiy. I have found this myself when creating swfs in flash. You can import .swfs into captivate but they simply play, all interactivity is gone.

There is an option of working the other way, of importing your captivate project into flash using the export to flash function in the menu. Haven't tried that yet as not overly confident flash user but they seem to sell captivate on this point.

Captivate does contain a lot of its own interactivity features , click boxes, rollovers, captions, etc

Report · Jun 11, 2008

Hi Lee

Actually, to state that all imported .SWF files lose interactivity is technically incorrect. All you have to do is browse fellow Adobe Community Expert Paul Dewhurst's site to determine that. Paul makes lots of little Captivate widgets that do this or that when you drop them into Captivate.

You may visit Paul's site by clicking here.

Cheers... Rick