JavaScript
As alluded to in a previous post, I’ve whipped up a simple JavaScript utility to help you control your Captivate SWFs using JavaScript. Give it a spin. The biggest selling point for this utility is that it not only contains all of the built-in Captivate ‘variable’ functionality, but it
Adobe Captivate
Note: This post covers Captivate 2 & 3; Captivate 4 introduced new problems for JavaScript interaction. You can avoid the headache of writing your own code by using the free CaptivateController utility, which works with all versions of Captivate. JavaScript can control the playback of Captivate-generated SWFs. I posted some
Adobe Captivate
Adobe Captivate 3 doesn’t have a built-in mechanism for sending quiz results to JavaScript. Here’s a workaround you may find useful. The plan The basic premise of this workaround is to hijack Captivate’s ’email report’ functionality, replacing the original email-centered JavaScript with new JavaScript. This approach was
ActionScript
There is a newer list of variables available, which includes new Captivate 4 variables. A recent post (link no longer available) in the elearning development forum (link no longer available) reminded me that I forgot to post some unpublished Captivate variables I dug up a while back. These were gathered
Adobe Captivate
Many of us use a Flash-based course interface (a.k.a. ‘player’) to load Captivate SWFs and other content. A well-known stumbling block for this kind of ‘loaded SWF’ approach has been Captivate’s lack of ActionScript support — Captivate won’t allow a user to add a simple line of
ActionScript
A few months ago I wrote about the dilemma of trying to load Captivate SWFs into an ActionScript 3-based parent SWF. Dilemma solved! I present to you the ActionScript 3 class LegacyCaptivateLoader. This class utilizes ExternalInterface and a proxy SWF to facilitate sending commands to and querying data from an
ramblings
Before I get to my point, I’d like to give you some background information. For better or for worse, I’m something of a perfectionist. I’m also something of an idealist; this combination makes life very difficult sometimes. When I embark on a project, I’m usually driven
Adobe Captivate
You may be familiar with the famous “Captivate variables” (see page 201 in PDF link), but did you know about “rdcmndHidePlaybar”? It isn’t mentioned by Adobe in their documentation, but it’s a handy one to know about. You can toggle the Captivate playbar’s visibility by importing two
accessibility
Adobe has a short but useful article detailing how to make your Adobe Captivate movies more accessible. These are pretty simple (borderline “no-brainer”) steps a Captivate author can easily implement: * Add a description to an Adobe Captivate movie * Add a description to an individual slide * Limit quiz questions to multiple
Tips and Tricks
Update April 7, 2008: I’ve written a new AS3 class named LegacyCaptivateLoader that uses ExternalInterface to bridge the AS3 SWF and the Captivate SWF. Check it out. I guess I’m late to the party, but I only recently realized that although a Flash Player 9 SWF can load
ramblings
Today was the day… I gave a presentation at the eLearning Guild’s DevLearn 2007 conference in San Jose. Topic? Captivate-to-Flash ActionScript Communication. Not a sexy title, I know, but there was a pretty respectable turnout… which indicates to me that a lot of people want to use Captivate but
ramblings
Here are my first impressions of Captivate 3’s improvements and new features. This is part one of a multi-part journal entry. Importing PowerPoint presentations Disclaimer: I have never recommended nor will I ever recommend using PowerPoint presentations as online courseware. It’s a bad idea, whether it’s been