Rollover buttons in Captivate 5?

[RSedgwick]

I know how to create the three rollover button files in Captivate 4, but can't find the same feature in Captivate 5.  Help, please!

[RodWard · Accepted solution]

1. Insert a button.
2. In the Properties inspector tab > General accordion > Button type field, select Image Button.
3. Scroll down through the buttons listed until you find the one you want.  All of these buttons have rollover states already set up.  You just need to pick one.

[RSedgwick]

Thanks, RodWard, but I should have been more specific in my question. I want to create rollover buttons from my own image files. Do you know how to do that in Captivate 5?

[RodWard]

You don't actually do that inside Captivate 5 (or 4 for that matter).

You have to create three versions of your button. One for the Up state, one for Down, and one for the Over state.

Then you copy these files into: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 5\Gallery\Buttons

You'll see plenty of other buttons already there.  These will give you a good idea of the file naming syntax you have to use.  Note that the state indicator comes at the end of the filename and the first part of the name has to be identical for each part of the button.

Then when you go back into Captivate, you should be able to select your button.  You may need to restart Cp for this to become visible after you add the image files to the correct folder.

[RSedgwick]

I understand how to create and save the files. They just don't work in Preview. I'll try restarting Cp and let you know if that does the trick.

[RSedgwick]

I understand how to create and save the files. They just don't work in Preview. Thanks for your suggestion about restarting Cp, but I'm afraid that hasn't changed anything.

[Captiv8r]

Hello again

How exactly are you previewing?

Cheers... Rick

[RSedgwick]

I can't really preview the rollover aspect of the button, since I can only choose one of the three images in the gallery/button folder. However, to make sure the button works in jumping to a designated slide, I preview from the previous slide through the jump to the landing place.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

The ocean of gray interface tends to make things blend into the background. Have you tried clicking the folder icon to choose the image?

Cheers... Rick

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[RSedgwick]

Yes, I have tried clicking the folder icon, but Cp only allows me to choose one of the three .png files.

Restarting Cp doesn't make a difference, alas.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

You likely need to close Captivate and clobber the preferences file. Exactly where it will be found seems to depend on your operating system.

I would heartily suggest that you (and others) hammer on Adobe and coax them into giving us a means to reset the preferences file from inside Captivate so we don't have to sojourn into wild goose chases for this sort of thing. Link to the Wish Form is in my sig.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links Begin learning Captivate 5 moments from now! $29.95 Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Adobe Certified Captivate Training SorcererStone Blog Captivate eBooks

[RSedgwick]

Wow. Searching for the preferences file outside CP is rather above my head, but I'll try. Thanks.

[Captiv8r]

What is your operating system?

• Apple/Orange/Grapefruit/Blueberry/Strawberry
• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7

Cheers... Rick

[RSedgwick]

Vista Home Premium

[Captiv8r]

Hello again

I'm not 100% sure where that file will exist in Vista (I'm using Windows 7) so you might perform a search for a file named info.cpi. In case it will help you locate it, on my Windows 7 it's found here:

C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Adobe\Captivate 5

Of course "user" refers to my logged in user name.

Hope you get it sorted!

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links Begin learning Captivate 5 moments from now! $29.95 Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Adobe Certified Captivate Training SorcererStone Blog Captivate eBooks

[RSedgwick]

Thanks for trying to help. Before I go looking to clobber my preferences file, can you tell me how that might fix my problem?  I'm a little nervous about clobbering anything.

[Captiv8r]

Hello again

Here's the deal. Captivate stores many of its preferences in this file. For example, the list of available images may be lurking inside it.

If you are hinky about deleting files, just rename it. The key is to coax Captivate into believing it is no longer there. If Captivate doesn't sense the file, it creates a fresh one. And hopefully the new file will list all your pretty new button images you so lovingly copied to the location. Then hopefully the preview will show the images.

Your call on whether you want to try that.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links Begin learning Captivate 5 moments from now! $29.95 Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Adobe Certified Captivate Training SorcererStone Blog Captivate eBooks

[RSedgwick]

I seem to have 4 info.cpi files, stashed along three different paths.

Of the 4, three were modified today.

Of those three, one is a shortcut, located in C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Windows.

Of those three, one is located in the documents folder where I keep Captivate projects.

Of those three, one is located in C:\Users\User\Documents\Adobe Captivate Cached Projects\long alphanumeric string, starting with CPD

The fourth info.cpi file, modified last week, is the in Cached Projects folder (as above) with different long alphanumeric string.

There is "db" at the beginning of the three non-shortcut filenames.

Do I delete (or rename) them all?

At this rate, you'll never be rid of me!

[RodWard]

In previous occasions when I've every created my own customised rollover buttons and added them to Cp's button gallery I only ever needed to select the Up state button. As long as I had named all the buttons correctly and they were the right BMP or PNG format and bit depth, Cp would look after making sure the other two button states were present at runtime.

Can I just confirm a few details:

• Your buttons are either BMP 24bit, or PNG 32 bit (that's what the other buttons in the Gallery seem to be)
• You have strictly followed the naming convention of my_button_up.bmp, my_button_down.bmp, my_button_over.bmp and used all lower case.
• You have loaded the buttons into the correct folder location in the install file location at: Adobe\Adobe Captivate 5\Gallery\Buttons
• You selected whichever version of the button Captivate shows you in the menu
• You tried to view it in published HTML/SWF not just in the Preview window

Just so that we're all on the same page and know we've covered off all the obvious reasons why this might not be working.

[RSedgwick]

I really appreciate your persistence. This rollover button issue is driving me mad.

So, to try to clear all extraneous matter, I have created a new project with three simple slides. There is a text box on each one. The only other object is an image button on the first slide.

To create the three rollover files, I created a simple star and copied it twice, each time changing the color. All three files are PNG 32 bit. They are named Rsedgwick_star_up.png, Rsedgwick_star_over.png, Rsedgwick_star_down.png. (Question: is it necessary to start each filename with my user name?) They are in a folder named Stars for Cp rollover buttons', which is in the ...Gallery\Buttons folder.

To create the image button, I inserted a button, selected 'image button' from Properties, browsed for the folder and clicked on the icon. It opened - as before - with all three images showing, none of them selected. I selected the 'up" file, and the 'up' colored star appeared. To test the button effect, I made 'On Success' a 'jump to slide' function.

In preview, the jump works, but there is no rollover effect.

I don't know how to publish it in HTML/SWF. (You may have guessed, I'm a noob.)

Thanks for any more thoughts you might have.

[RodWard]

Send us your three images. Upload them here.

I want to check this out on my box.

[RSedgwick]

Here you go

[RodWard]

Not seeing anything to download.  Did you upload the button files?

[RSedgwick]

I just forwarded you the email I sent this morning. Did I not sent it to the right place?

[RSedgwick]

Here's a copy of the email I sent you this morning.