Complete List of Variables for Adobe Captivate 5

22 Comments

1. Thanks, very useful …

2. Thanks for this extensive list, very useful. I do have some doubts however about two variables “cpInfoCourseName” is not the same as “cpInfoProjectName” as you seem to indicate in the list. The last is indeed the name entered in the properties of the file (Project Info), but until now I couldn’t figure out what “cpInfoCourseName” is, ditto for “cpInfoCourseID”. Could those two variables be linked to the alternative reporting for Quizzes to acrobat.com perhaps?

3. @lieve yeah, i’m actually not sure about those two. i think they’re from the quiz properties, such as the SCORM manifest.

4. With the variable for cpCmndFastForward, is there a way to get the audio to play back during the fast forwarding of the video?
   I’ve noticed that the fast forward button only speeds up the video. The button doesn’t playback the audio at all (let alone at the faster speed) at the same time. Is there a way that I can have the audio play at the same (faster) speed with the video in fast forward? My goal is for people to be able to still hear the audio and watch the video at the faster rate. Any help is appreciated – thanks!

   1. @mark sorry, i don’t think audio scrubbing is supported in Captivate.

5. The XML limitations only apply when sending data to the browser, right? You should still be able to use flash.xml to navigate the tree internally.

   1. @eric correct, this is only a limitation when sending data from ActionScript to JavaScript.

6. Awesome work as always Phillip. Send me an e-mail, I have an updated “prettied up” PDF file of your very handy Captivate 5 Variables.

   Cheers,
   Kurt

7. How can I edit those variables? because in a script in advance actions I don’t have access to modify or assign a value to all the variables, only a few ones.

   1. @alvaro i access the variables via JavaScript, but they’re also accessible via widgets and embedded SWFs. there are lots of examples out there. for starters, you can check out cpguru.com, the Adobe Captivate forums, and Tristan Ward’s widget site. they all have good examples and different approaches to working with Captivate

8. Hi… I hate using Captivate for creating elearning modules (as a simulation tool it’s fine) and ur the only decent source of information out there. The only reason I’m using it is cos the client (in all their infinite wisdom) uses it.

   Don’t worry I won’t go into a rant here – saving it for a huge post over on the Adobe captivate forum.

   I’ve got a question for you – If you had to force the SCORM score variable to a particular value through javascript (in captivate 5) how would you go about it?

   1. @george all SCORM data is handled by JavaScript, so in theory you could just monitor SCORM’s JavaScript. Doesn’t matter what the course was built in (CP5, Articulate, whatever). Scores are handled via the cmi.core.score CMI element in SCORM 1.2 and cmi.score in SCORM 2004. I won’t go into the details, since it would be equivalent to giving instructions on how to cheat. If you look at the SCORM support JS file that ships with Captivate, you should be able to figure it out easily enough.

9. Hey Philip!

   Can you or one of your readers lend a hand? I’m trying to get my AS3-written Flash swf to target the “parent” Captivate swf file in order to tell it to go to the next slide. I used to be able to do it using a proxy swf file that used this line to do that:

   (parent.parent.parent as MovieClip).rdcmndNextSlide = 1;

   However, now I’m executing the same line in another AS3 Flash swf and the Captivate container isn’t responding to it. By using trace actions I can conclude that the function this line is nested in is executing properly, so it seems its either a syntax or targeting issue, and am leaning toward the latter since the same snippet has worked before (though should have had the same parent child relationship).

10. hi danny

    it always gets tricky when working with nested SWFs and movieclips.

    so the two Flash SWFs are both being imported into the same Captivate SWF, and one works while the other doesn’t? is the ActionScript in both Flash SWFs located at the root of the SWFs? do the Flash SWFs have the same internal structure?

    i suggest posting this to the elearning and technology google group, as more people will see it and possibly be able to give feedback. it’s also better suited for longer discussions (this isn’t really related to my blog post).

11. Thanks a lot for this extensive list of commands 🙂 Helps a lot when converting my old player to AS3. One thing tho, i am having trouble with some commands, especially rdcmndRewindAndStop which used to work nicely in captivate 3 but not at all in captivate 5, it rewinds the movie, but it will continue to play and not stop playback as expected, do you have any clue to why this is happening?

12. Adobe changed the way some variables are supported; many now require using ExternalInterface. I don’t have it all memorized, but if you look at the source code for my CaptivateController, you’ll see my take on how to handle the changes.

13. Thanks a lot!!!

    I have loaded captivate published SWF file to flash, now I want to read the closed caption/slide notes text from flash for each slide. Is there any command in captivate to do this?

    Thanks in advance!!!
    Kathir M

14. @kathir not that i’m aware of. it’s probably possible to extract the data, but i don’t think there are any easy-to-use Captivate variables that provide the information.

15. Hi Philip,

    Thanks for reply. Can u tell me how could I extract data/CC/slidenotes other than thru variables?

    Thanks and Regards,
    Kathir M

16. @kathir you’d have to find the variables in the nested movieclips using actionscript. it’s hard because you have to know exactly where to look. you’d probably need to write a widget to get that level of access, or else use the old embedded SWF technique.

17. Philip,

    This is probably really lazy of me to ask, but we are having issues with Captivate quizzes in our lms – SCORM 1.2. Our compliance folks want people to be able to start a quiz, stop and resume, and for the course to pick up scoring where they left off.

    Currently bookmarking works fine, taking you to where you left off. But the course doesn’t remember that you have already answered the first 5 questions correctly. So the course marks you as incomplete…

    Do you know if anyone has a solution for this? Maybe pulling the previous score on re-launch and adding it to the current score on post? It doesn’t look like you could update the cpQuizInfoPointsscored directly because it is info only… But like you have said elsewhere maybe in JS or HTML wrapper?

    Anyhow, just wondering if anyone has an easy solution.

    1. @michael there’s no easy solution that i’m aware of. i suggest posting your question(s) to the elearning and technology google group, as more people will see it and possibly be able to give feedback.

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