So, without further adieu….

Resize the Slide Notes Window

Anyone who has recorded voiceovers in Captivate will appreciate this tip from the official Captivate blog, where they explain how to resize the Slide Notes window (yes, it is possible, in a roundabout way!).

http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/2009/06/slide_notes_resize.html

Cool Buttons

The Captivate4.com blog has a post with ‘free resources’ that may be useful in your Captivate projects. Personally I think most of it isn’t all that great but the buttons are very good.

http://www.captivate4.com/2009/06/23/a-couple-of-free-resources-for-your-captivate-projects/

Using Advanced Actions

Thanks goodness we’re finally getting some good examples on how to use those pesky Advanced Actions. Here’s a great post from the aforementioned Captivate4.com blog titled “Using Advanced Actions to Store and Show a User’s Answers in a Quiz”.

http://www.captivate4.com/2009/07/01/using-advanced-actions-to-store-and-show-a-users-answers-in-a-quiz/

So last week I went out and bought a tutorial book on Photoshop (I prefer books for comprehensive learning of an app instead of trying to find piecemeal tutorials online). I started learning Photoshop and it is just so horrible to use compared to Fireworks, which is very elegant in terms of its UI. The only reason I wanted to learn Photoshop was to import the layered .psd files into Captivate 4, which keeps the layers separated on import.

Well, it hit me last night, that I had forgotten completely that Fireworks can export to .psd!

I did a quick test by creating a multiple layer 800×600 file in Fireworks and did a Save As… to .psd, then imported into Captivate 4. Worked beautifully as expected/hoped.

I’m part thrilled, part angry at myself that I wasted $19 (thank goodness I waited to get one of those 50% off Borders spam coupons) on a book for an app I’ll probably never learn : (

This solves my biggest issue with Captivate – the transparent text is fuzzy/blurry – so bad it drives me nuts. From now on I’m going to do it in Fireworks whenever possible. It’s faster too.

Does this make sense? What negatives am I not seeing in regards to this workflow?

To try them, I decided to create something useful (for once!) by putting together a sort of ‘user progress’ slide. The premise is that there is one central slide that is a ‘jump-off’ or starting point for users to go to various parts of the slide deck (ie, various parts of the course). Once there, they view the content and then return back to the main/start slide and that particular section of the content that they went to previously is marked as ‘completed’ (symbollicaly, of course) by ’show’ing a graphic on the slide.

If that confusing description hasn’t scared you off already, I’ll quit trying to describe it and just show you the damn thing. Here is a link to the working example, and what follows on this page is a walkthrough of how I did it.

Track User Progress with Actions and Variables in Captivate 4

It works well and I will definitely use this type of thing for tracking intra-course progress. Of course I won’t use images of doors, but if you imagine a bulleted list of topics instead, where instead of a standard ‘bullet’ there is a checkbox next to each topic or image, and then when the user has viewed that topic and returned to the main slide the checkbox is checked.

So – how does it work?

I wish I could just paste the code, but I can’t – Captivate won’t let me copy/paste code to/from the Actions window, which sucks. There are serious limitations with the scripting capabilities of Captivate 4, but heck, I think we all expected it to be limited considering it’s brand new. So, here’s how I did it:

Step One – Create Slides

I created a total of 9 slides, each with picture of doors that I grabbed off google images. On the first slide I left the image intact. On the remaining 8 slides, I used Captivate’s new image editing crop feature (works great) to crop the ‘doors’ image on each slide to show just it’s corresponding door.

On the first slide (the one with all the doors) I inserted blue checkmark objects and gave them each an object name of “chkX”, where X was equal to 1 through 8 (for each door). I made each of those checkmark symbols not visible by default, by unchecking the ‘Visible’ checkbox in the options tab for the symbol.

Step Two – Create User Variables

Then, I created a set of User variables – one for each of the doors, and assigned them each a value of zero (0):

User Variables

Step Three – Create Custom Actions

Next, I created two custom actions:

Check Doors Viewed Custom Action Code

The first action I created I named “Check Doors Viewed” and this was by far the most time-consuming part of the process, mostly because the actions window is SLOW when inputting anything more than a few lines of code. Please let me know if you experience this slowness too. So if you look at the outlined code block you can see what is happening. In plain-speak:

Check to see if the door1 variable is equal to 1 and if it is, then make the chk1 symbol visible. The chk1 symbol is the object name for the blue checkmark that sits over top of the first door. I then kept going and added the same code for each door/checkmark (for a total of 8 in my example).

Step Four – Set Slide ‘On Enter’ Property

I then went into the slide properties for the first/main slide (the one with all the doors) and, on slide enter, I set it to run the Check Doors Viewed action so that it will enable any checkmarks that need to be made visible:

Slide Properties for Main/First Slide

Step Five – Add a ‘Clear Checkmarks’ Button

I then decided to add a ‘clear checkmarks’ (ie, clear progress) button to the main slide. I set that button’s properties so that, when clicked, it runs the ‘Clear Checkmarks’ custom action, which has this code in it:

The actions window is fixed in size, so I couldn’t capture all the code in one screenshot, so here’s the rest:

Clear Checkmarks Action, Part Two

Note that highlighted last line, where I have it ‘reload’ the 1st slide. I did this so that, when slide one is restarted, it will trigger the previous direction to run the ‘Check Doors Viewed’ action from before.

That’s about it. I have the source available for download here.

Reflections

All in all it’s fairly straightforward and easy to use. Keep in mind that I’m a pretty decent actionscript coder, and have also done some Java coding in the past, so I’m comfortable scripting. The one thing that is really annoying is that the actions window gets *really* slow/sluggish if you are trying to do anything that needs more than a few lines. Another huge problem is that you cannot execute two actions in sequence. In other words, I couldn’t set the ‘On Enter’ slide to execute multiple USER actions – you can execute multiple system actions, but not actions you create. So there was no way to do something like, “on slide enter, execute the Clear Checkmarks action and then execute the Check Doors Viewed action”.

I really hope that Adobe can fix the sluggishness of the Actions window, or better yet allow for actions to be imported as text files. I realize they have to ensure that the code/syntax is legit before it can be applied, so perhaps some sort of validation check can be built into the import. Better yet, just have an actions window, like in Flash, complete with a ‘check syntax’ button. That would be so much faster. But more pressing to me is the need to be able to execute multiple custom actions.

Am I off-target? I definitely could be. Please leave a comment if I’m missing something in regards to these features, or a better approach to the example.

UPDATE: A reader (Connie Price) has graciously submitted a PDF that details how she used Advanced Actions in her project. Click here to view the PDF.Click here to view a source Cp demo file.

Captivate 4 is awesome. It still has its warts, but considering all the new functionality I’m just amazed at this product and highly recommend it. I’ve now decided that it is going to be my primary elearning development tool. Of course I’ll still use Flash a lot for actual content, I think the packaging/TOC/aggregator features are worthwhile (though they have some serious shortcomings too) and just make the process so much simpler when working with Adobe Connect (or any other LMS I suppose).

Anyways…I plan on posting my opinions on a lot of the new features as I have time. First up: the new text-to-speech feature.

This feature is based on a 3rd-party product and it’s quite easy to use. You simply type in your slide notes (I *believe* that this new ‘text/notes’ area is new to Captivate 4 but I’m not sure) and then click a little button/checkmark next to the text, under the ‘Text to Speech’ column. Really simple. View a screenshot to see:

Captivate 4 Text-to-Speech Feature

It then converts your text to an audio file and adds it to the slide’s timeline, the same as if you recorded your voice into a microphone. No different, except much easier and better sound quality in terms of no noise, good volume level, etc.

There are two voices to choose from: one male voice, “Paul”, and one female, “Kate”.

So….the million-dollar question: do the voices sound like robots?

The male voice does. The female voice, while I haven’t used it much yet, sounds much better. But don’t take my word for it. Listen for yourself:

As you can hear, this guy doesn’t really work too well.

But “Kate” sounds much better:

So, after I’ve bashed “Paul” to smithereens, you probably think I don’t think much of this feature. But in fact I do like it. During development, I usually have to take the time to do a rough, quick voiceover recording for all my slides so I can confirm that my design is ‘flowing’ and my voiceover script is good. I can only tell if I hear it, in synch with the onscreen visuals. So this is a great time-saver in that regard. Hopefully it will prove more useful in future projects.

What do you think? Will you be using this feature? Am I being too picky?

var myLoader:Loader = new Loader();
myLoader.load(new URLRequest(”myCaptivate.swf”);
myLoader.width = 400;
myLoader.height = 300;
addChild(myLoader);

The result will be that the Captivate gets loaded but you won’t see it. You can hear it so long as you have sound in it. But you won’t see it. It doesn’t get rendered.

But if you have the same exact code as above, but without modifying the width/height properties of the Loader instance, then it renders fine.

- I had coded a course ‘gui’ with navigation controls such as previous/next buttons, and a List component for the non-linear navigation.

- The list component is populated via an XML file that contains the path to the individual swf, and the label, and also an icon string (an undocumented feature – that’s another post).

- For the prototype, most of the content was in AS3, developed purely in Flash, with the exception of a single Captivate-generated swf that was published from Captivate 3, and thus an AVM1 swf.

- After getting the prototype right, I decided to develop the remaining content in Captivate whenever possible to speed up things. After putting together a few more Captivate-generated swfs, I tested and the result was that whenever I navigated away from a Captivate swf and loaded another Captivate swf, the sound from the previously loaded Captivate swf’s would continue. In other words, using the unload() method of the Loader class doesn’t truly unload the content of the Loader. To make things worse, I was even *removing* the Loader instance and creating a new one. Still, the audio would keep playing. Terrible!

After googling I come to find out this is a known issue:

http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2008/07/unloadandstop_i.html

So, the workaround was to use the unloadAndStop method of the Loader class, which unfortunately is only available in Flash Player 10. Fortunately, I have the leeway to force my users to move to FP10 if they have to. Most people wouldn’t.

Of course, then after I get that sorted out I come to find out that Captivate 4 was released yesterday : ) I have started to publish the Captivate’s with the ‘AS3′ spec but I’m not sure if that helps or not.

Has anyone tried that?

As for the Elearning Suite. I have not played with it other than a prerelease version where I took a quick peek and nothing made sense at the time, but that was early in the process. I am very interested in seeing the new learning interactions included in Flash CS4. I just upgraded the the CS4 Web Developer Edition at work so I’m kind of bummed at the timing of this release, as by now most serious elearning designers/developers have moved to CS4 and certainly won’t be able to expense another upgrade this soon. I guess instead of CS5 we’ll go with the Elearning Suite : )

The trial downloads are available on Adobe’s site. Have at em and let me know what you think of these new tools. I’m very interested in hearing how people leverage these new tools!

Based on the features included in Captivate 4, I am amazed at what Adobe is able to do in one release cycle. It seems like just yesterday Captivate 3 was released (along with the groans that came with that release).

While I’m sure there will be plenty of kinks/bugs to work out in Captivate 4 due to the sheer number of major changes/enhancements, it is definitely one step closer to being a real primary elearning development solution. Do I think it is the only tool that a professional elearning designer/developer should know how to use? No. In my opinion you still need to know flash/actionscript. But Captivate 4 is a HUGE upgrade over Captivate 3. It seems to me that, within a few more major releases, they could actually approach the capabilities of AuthorWare with this thing **(see below for my side-comments on AuthorWare).

And, both fortunately and unfortunately for me, I will lose a lot of my freelancing work/revenue once Captivate 4 is out in the wild.

Why? Becuase 90% of my Captivate-related freelance work (which was roughly 20% of my total freelance work) was focused on things like working with the variables, and also with creating custom UI wrappers/Menu systems to load in those bloated Captivate swf files. People would buy a license, slap together one long recording, publish, and then couldn’t figure out why their 300mb Captivate swf would crash and/or take a year to load. And then when they’d get wise and realize they needed to break up the long movie into smaller chunked swf’s, they’d learn that there was no way outside of Flash to create a usable UI that could load in all of these swf’s (unless you wanted pop-up windows galore). Allegedly Captivate 4 will have an aggregator function that finally allows people to create content in chunks and load them when needed (and don’t even comment on that garbage ‘MenuBuilder’ crap they’ve had). I also did a lot of work keeping data persistent across slides/CP swfs. CP4 has this capability built-in now.

But I’m kind of happy they added these features. I was up-to-my-ears with freelance work and with a new promotion at my day job I don’t need the extra work anymore. At least not boring Captivate work : )

Another feature that Camtasia has had forever (though they somehow managed to botch it up in the latest release!) and now CP4 will have is auto-panning for the recording. We can finally record large screens with and keep the clarity. If you’re not sure what auto-panning is want an idea of what auto-panning can do,  just check out Lee Brimelow’s awesome Flash tutorials over at gotoandlearn.com. He’s been using Camtasia for years to record those (and he still recommends Camtasia for screen recordings, even though he’s an Adobe employee…). I was at a conference a couple of years ago and an Adobe CP developer sat next to me and asked me what I’d like to see included in Captivate and I told him auto-panning. He was kind enough to send me an email after the conference saying that they looked into it but the resulting filesize would be too large so they scrapped the idea. I guess they revisited it.

Regardless of my cynical posts on Captivate over the years and today…honestly – my hats off to the Adobe Captivate developers on this release.

What do you think about these features? What else still sucks about the product?

** Re: AuthorWare: I got into the elearning development field about 6 years ago. At the time, it seemed that everyone knew, except for the die-hard Authorware fanboys, that Authorware was going to be ditched by Adobe (then Macromedia) soon. It took a few years longer than anticipated, but it happened. Back when I started I was fortunate enough to be told some good advice from some good elearning developers, mainly this: learn actionscript right away. Focus on flash. Forget about Authorware. I heeded their advice. I’m a  member of the Authorware ‘AWARE’ listserv (or whatever they call listservs nowadays). It’s still active and not at all focused on Authorware, which is good. Often though people still post questions asking for help/workaround for their new development using Authorware, which makes me cringe today more than it did 4 years ago : ) But, my be-labored point is – Authorware did rock. I never used it, but based on the features and capabilities of it, and the type of things that the folks on the AWARE list were/are able to do with it, I don’t see why Adobe ditched it and now are packing more advanced features into Captivate. Would have been better had they just kept it, updated it, and most impotantly made it *usable* by ditching the shitwave (er, I mean shockwave) plugin that made it unusable then and unusable now, and added an Authorware to SWF option. I know there are technical limitations there that would need to be contended with (Authorware had activeX capabilities), but they could have gotten real close. It just seems now that it will take another 4 or 5 releases but then we might get an Authorware equivalent in Captivate…

This is part three of the testing, where I’ll focus on the encoding speed setting and its effect on filesize and audio quality, in reference to voiceover audio.

Published SWF Files

Filesize Comparison

So when the boss told me to edit the Camtasia-produced modules, I initially thought, “Cool. I’ll finally get around to learning how Camtasia works beyond just ‘hit record, stop, and then save as an flv’. 

Well, I was wrong. Not quite. I now know all of Camtasia’s features. It only takes about 30 minutes to get intimately familiar with it if you are comfortable with timeline-based apps or any video editing software. The problem with Camtasia is editing is basically not possible. Yeah, you can split video files, slap ‘callouts’ (ie, graphics and text) over top of the videos, and a few other minor features, but that’s about it. And if, during recording, the recordee screws up, you can’t edit it. Not unless the recordee was kind enough to return their cursor/app to the exact spot they were at before screwing up, and then redid it correctly.

Camtasia is cool if you’re a one-person show and you need to quickly slap together powerpoint and/or video captures of your screen, and you’re fine with mistakes or the agony of not being able to edit. 

As much as I complain about Captivate, after spending some time with Camtasia, I have a newfound appreciation for it.

Yeah, the bloated BMP screen capture backgrounds, the transparent caption bug, the bloated filesize, and overall bugginess gets on my nerves. But at least I’m able to edit and maintain things that are created with it. Can’t say that about Camtasia.

Do you agree?