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.

Because the client needed their navigation menu links to target specific frames in particularly long Captivate swf’s, I had to use the rdcmndGotoFrameAndResume variable which I had never had to use before. Frankly, I never bothered using any of the ‘frame-based’ variables before because I never needed to – you really shouldn’t ever have a Captivate swf that is so long that you need to do that. It’s best to modularize everything into individual swf files that are more granular. It’s more flexible and easier to maintain that way. But…back to my point -

I ran into a problem where I banged my head against the wall for 2 hours trying to figure out why this code wasn’t working:

contentContainer_mc.rdcmndGotoFrameAndResume = evt.target.selectedNode.attributes.frame; //the target frame was stated in the XML file…pretty slick actually

There was more to it of course but basically, when the user clicked on particular links in the navigation tree menu, I needed the currently loaded Captivate swf’s playhead to go to the specific frame stated in the XML file’s ‘frame’ attribute.

The result at first (and for 2 hours!), no matter what I tried, was that the playhead would go to the intended frame as hoped, but it would be paused. It wouldn’t ‘resume’ playing. Since there is no ‘rdcmndPlay’ variable I tried rdcmndResume every which way possible. No luck.

Then I stopped, took a breath, and figured it out. You have to insert a pause BEFORE the resume command is issued! Makes sense, but shouldn’t they just have a rdcmndGotoAndPlay variable? These variables are nuts.

So the working solution:

contentContainer_mc.rdcmndPause = 1;
contentContainer_mc.rdcmndGotoFrameAndResume = evt.target.selectedNode.attributes.frame;
contentContainer_mc.rdcmndResume = 1;

Now here’s what’s interesting – the rdcmndGotoFrameAndResume, before I came up with the above solution, was acting like a toggle – so if I clicked on a nav link it would go to the targeted frame but be paused. If I clicked on it again, it would resume playing. Strange? Or am I just too burned out from editing so many crap html sites the past 2 months….

A reader of my blog, Sean Bezdicek, emailed me a while back with the following:

Hello Mark

Your blog saved my sanity. A few months back you blogged about inherent variables inside a Captivate .swf.My goal was to have a replay window appear when the captivate movie finished.

On the root level I used the following Actionscript (2.0–mx2004).

//This files loads into the loader component
myLoader.contentPath = “TestCP.swf”;

//
if (myLoader.content.rdinfoCurrentFrame > 1 && myLoader.content.rdinfoCurrentFrame == myLoader.content.rdinfoFrameCount) {
pause_btn._visible=false
resume_btn._visible=false
rewind_btn._visible=false
replay._visible=true

}

I would like to experiment and load the skin into the flash file for the use of captivates controls and still access the same variable.

Using my file above as an example, do you know what the loader instance name would be for the TestCP_skin.swf that loads the TestCP.swf?

So, I am looking for:

myLoader.TestCP_skinInstance.content.rdinfoCurrentFrame

For your help, I donate my .fla to you so that you can pass it along on your blog. It may be of help for anybody else who experienced the same level of frustration. It has a play/pause button along with a rewind.

Thank you for your help.

Sean Bezdicek

My response to Sean:

Hi Sean,

Glad I could be of help! I don’t have time to look at your files until tonight as I’m in meetings all day, however if I read correctly what you’re asking then the instance name of the skin is:

myFlashContainer.cpSkinLoader_mc.rdcmndNextSlide = 1;

So in the above, it is cpSkinLoader_mc that is what you’re looking for I believe.

Try it and let me know. If I recall correctly (it’s been a while since I’ve used the AS2.0 loader) but I believe the code would be:

myLoader.content.cpSkinLoader_mc.rdinfoCurrentFrame //or whatever variable you want to access

Let me know if this helps.

Take care,

mark

Sean’s final response:

That’s it!!!

Thanks a alot.

Attached is my sample file with the working document. Again, make it available to all via your blog. Use the same cp file from before.

I will be a regular reader.

Sean

Thanks Sean for giving back! I get questions every week about Captivate to Flash communication yet you’re the first to donate back some code. Everyone who has run into this issue will appreciate your efforts.

You can download all of Sean’s files here.