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!

After implementing the fullscreen feature, I’m thrilled. I’m convinced that every elearning app like this should include it as a feature. And I wondered why I hadn’t seen it used before…so I thought, “Perhaps SCORM/AICC calls can’t be made when it is in fullscreen mode?” While I haven’t taken the time to actually test that theory, I did put together a quick html/swf to test whether the ExternalInterface class is usable when the swf is in fullscreen mode. And it works! Here is the example (warning – it opens in a new window). To test for yourself, first put it in fullscreen by clicking the button (it’s a toggle). Then, click the ‘Call ExternalInterface’ button to call a simple function in the html page named ’showAlert’, which shows an alert box.

So, here’s the code:

In Flash:

/*************************
* External Interface – work in fullscreen mode? YES!
*************************/
function checkInterface(e:MouseEvent):void
{
if (ExternalInterface.available)
{
status_txt.text=”ExternalInterface available!”;
ExternalInterface.call(”showAlert”, “It works!”);
}
else
{
status_txt.text=”ExternalInterface Unavailable!”;
}
}
myButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, checkInterface);

// fullscreen
function goFullScreen():void
{
if (stage.displayState==StageDisplayState.NORMAL)
{
stage.displayState=StageDisplayState.FULL_SCREEN;
}
else
{
stage.displayState=StageDisplayState.NORMAL;
}
}
fullscreenBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, _handleClick);

function _handleClick(event:MouseEvent):void
{
goFullScreen();
}

——————————–

Function I added to the html page published from Flash (with ‘allowFullscreen’ param set to true):

function showAlert(text)
{
alert(text);
}

So, theoretically, going fullscreen shouldn’t cause any issues with communications with an LMS. As you noticed if you tried the example, calling the showAlert function in the html page forces the swf out of fullscreen mode. I’m assuming (too many assumptions here?) that this won’t happen for behind-the-scenes calls.

Have you tried this? What has your experience with using fullscreen flash for your elearning?

http://elearninglive.com/wordpress/tutorials/

Hopefully, they will be of some use to others. I, admittedly, need some way of pushing myself towards learning more about ActionScript 3 and I figured this would be a great way to do it. So, somewhat selfishly, the tutorials are really about my own learning : ) That said, I would think that some folks new to Flash/ActionScript would get some value out them. I’m specifically targeting someone like myself about 5 years back – having jumped into the elearning development role with absolutely zero development experience, with the exception of a couple of intro to programming courses in C which were horrible.

The first tutorial offered is titled, “Creating a Drag and Drop Learning Interaction Using ActionScript 3.0″. In actuality, the focus isn’t on AS3 in terms of the OOP aspect, as this tutorial’s code resides in a single frame on the timeline.

I do plan on following up this simple drag and drop tutorial with a dynamic, XML-based version as that is always a better way to go. Before that, I expect to add a tutorial on some of the real basics – how to create a simple button that controls the timeline, for example. But *all* with an elearning focus, with practical examples. To my knowledge there is nothing of its kind out there presently (not for free!) that has the beginning instructional/elearning developer in mind.

My inspiration for this endeavor is Lee Brimelow’s excellent (and that’s an understatement) tutorials at gotoandlearn.com. Lee started his tutorials a number of years ago before he was hired by Adobe and they have always been top-notch. The first tutorial’s audio is horrible (this logitech headset’s mic is really ‘creaky’), and I should have spent more time polishing it, but what the heck.

PLEASE provide feedback on the tutorials. What you liked, what you didn’t, whether they were valuable to you. Right now I need to redo the way I’m delivering this/these videos as the current cheesy-looking html page that is serving them (adsense and all…I could use the dough) is awkward. After I get a decent number of these videos online I’ll re-think the approach to make it look/work better.

Anyways…enjoy! I hope people learn from these things. I know I will. All my tutorials will come with downloadable source. No licensing – they are free to use in any way you wish. Hopefully someone will come along and improve on them and send me the improvements so that I can post and we all gain from the experience of sharing.

Click here to view the example swf.

There are three things you must know to use this variable:

1. The slide numbers are based on their index number in the array that Captivate uses internally to keep track of them, and thus, they are zero-based. Just like actionscript arrays. So slide 1 is really slide 0 to Captivate.
2. If you simply use the rdcmndGotoSlide variable to jump to a specific slide, it’ll do it. But the movie will be paused. The rdcmndGotoSlide variable should really be named rdcmndGotoSlideAndPause : ) You can see it in the code sample here, taken from one of the buttons:

   /***********************************************
   * Jumps the Captivate Movie to Slide 3, pauses, then resumes
   ***********************************************/
   three_btn.onRelease = function() {
   myLoader_cld.content.rdcmndGotoSlide = 2; //zero-based array
   myLoader_cld.content.rdcmndPause = 1;
   myLoader_cld.content.rdcmndResume = 1;
   }

3. The problem is, just like in a previous post where I ran into this same scenario, you have to programmatically pause it, even though it’s already paused, in order for the Resume variable to work. I can see how this would be the case as it’s not like the Captivate programmers (or should I say RoboDemo programmers?) were anticipating people using this variable since they have never documented it.

Hopefully, this opens up some new possibilities for you. I am currently in the process of working on an xml-based navigation menu that uses this same variable in order to provide a quick, elegant, and very flexible way for loading/unloading multiple Captivate movies.

It will be quite interesting to see how Captivate 4 addresses this issue. I heard from a very reliable source (as reliable as it gets…but that’s all I can say) that Captivate 4 (if that’s what the next version is going to be called) will have the ability to publish swf’s to AVM2/ActionScript 3 format. There are going to be lots of instructional designers/developers who rely on Captivate/PowerPoint as their sole tools who will be in a world of hurt if they find out that their old content is not compatible with newer AVM2-based content without a workaround such as the discussion in the link above. I’m sure Adobe has to realize this and the Captivate folks in Bangalore are going to come up with a slick/transparent way of handling this….

There were about 300 attendees, with plenty of room left (well, not *plenty*, but usually you didn’t have to sit right next to someone else so there was always an empty seat next to you if you wanted).

Colin Moock started with all of the basics of OOP. In fact, the first half of the day was just a review for me as I’ve done a bit of java development and OOP in the past. Colin was pretty clear that he couldn’t take questions until later in the day/at the end of session, and for the most part he stuck to that. Can’t blame him and am glad he took that approach or else we would have been held up with a lot of tangiential questions no doubt (is ‘tangiential’ a word?) .

The Pennsylvania Hotel is where it was held and, quite frankly, that place is a rathole. At $229 a night I guess it’s not one of the more expensive NYC hotels, particularly considering it’s convenient location across the street from Madison Square Garden, and only a short walk to Times Square. That area of the city is non-stop CROWDED! I was amazed at the crowds on the streets on Sunday night as I drove in. The hotel itself was poorly maintained, the wired in-room internet was down all night, and I didn’t have wi-fi with me : (

9 hours straight in a not-so-comfortable chair listening to straight lecture was a pill I was willing to swallow and am glad I did. Did I get any revelations? No. Did I learn a lot of new things? Honestly, no. I had a couple of questions about the new DisplayObjects and Container system in AS3, and feel more comfortable in that. I also got some more insight into the MVC patten and how Moock uses it. But probably the most valuable things I took away were:

• Colin stated up front the following: “If it works, it’s *right*.” In other words, he said do what you need to do to make the client happy and that may mean not doing OOP or making things perfect from a pure development perspective. This is something that I have struggled with through the years now. I get so hung up in trying to put together things the best way possible as if my code is going to be put on review for the experts of the world to review and criticize.
• Even Colin himself doesn’t have all the answers. There were a number of times he had to test something before responding to a question.
• Managing state in an application using constants (static vars). I hadn’t considered that before.

There was lots of other things learned for sure. It was well worth the hassle of the drive, the hotel, etc. It would have helped if I had made it through more than just 1/3rd of his book before attending as the 9 hour lecture is basically a recap of the ‘Virtual Pet’ app that is constructed throughout his book.

Adobe has overhauled their documentation for Captivate (I’m guessing with the release of version 3, which was announced today) and in the livedocs for Captivate is a page listing the rdcmnd variables mentioned in a previous post of mine. There is a note in there that is useful to know:

“To control the project through the skin file, add the prefix cpSkinLoader_mc to the variables. ”

Typically I create my own navigation “skin” for my Captivate projects but this is useful to know. Prior to Captivate v2.0 the navigation bars that were included were absolutely hideous – they were mostly unprofessional looking and were the type of thing you’d expect from one of those “Build yur own kewl mp3 playa!” tutorials on Flashkit. But with v2.0 they added the “skin” swf as a container by default and there are some nice options. Particularly once you know how to get rid of or edit the Adobe branded ‘info’ button and/or caption.