Macrofireball

Adobe.tv eLearning Channel

2011-01-05T10:56:00.003Z

Just got back from my Christmas Holidays to find those great folks on the Adobe Captivate and Adobe eLearning Suite teams have been kind enough to mention the work I carried out for Adobe.tv eLearning Channelon the Adobe Captivate blog.

For a large part of last year, I was busy creating over 30 tutorials covering many of the key features present in both Adobe Captivate 5 and the Adobe eLearning Suite 2.

But that is not all; I am in the process of creating some more tutorials which should be added to the Adobe eLearning Channel soon.

If you like these videos and are interested in instructor led training then take a look at the Adobe Captivate courses 5 I teach with eSyncTraining.com.

Adobe Captivate 5 consolidated patch

2010-12-10T15:20:00.003Z

The Adobe Captivate team have just released a new patch for Adobe Captivate 5 which addressed some capture, audio and upgrade issues as well as a few more problems that some Adobe Captivate 5 users have encountered.

Want to learn more about the issues that were fixed? Take a look at the Main Enhancements page.

Free eLearning Suite 2 Workshop

2010-10-12T12:21:00.004+01:00

Want to learn what’s new in the Adobe eLearning Suite 2?

Join me on the 27th of October for a free workshop presented by eSyncTraining where I’ll be demonstrating new eLearning Suite 2 features such as the amazing new integration between Adobe Captivate, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash and Adobe Soundbooth.

Come and join me and learn why the Adobe eLearning Suite 2 is your complete tool box for creating engaging and interaction eLearning courseware!

eLearning Suite 2 Workshop
Date: 10.27.2010
Time: 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM PST (2 Hours)
Location: Adobe Connect (Global)

Space in this workshop is limited, so register today.

Advanced Actions: Resources

2010-10-11T11:24:00.001+01:00

Advanced Actions provide Adobe Captivate users with the ability to include complex interactions in their Captivate projects.

The problem is that most Adobe Captivate users are not programmers and therefore, many would probably benefit from having a decent set of examples that they can use to understand how Advanced Actions (especially Conditional Actions) work.

If only there was a decent set of articles on how to use Advanced Actions. Well, actually there is!

Ever since Adobe Captivate 5 was launched, my good friend Lieve Weymeis has been beavering away writing articles and creating examples to help you get up to speed with this powerful yet for some bewildering Adobe Captivate feature.

So, if you are dipping your toe into the amazing world of Advanced Actions. This list should provide you with lots of good and practical advice to help you get started.

Customized course menu based on a pretest (Captivate 5)
http://kb2.adobe.com/community/publishing/855/cpsid_85530.html

Constructing test with multiple results (Captivate 5)
http://kb2.adobe.com/community/publishing/852/cpsid_85255.html

Using advanced actions to show conclusion based on multiple scores (Captivate 5)
http://kb2.adobe.com/community/publishing/852/cpsid_85252.html

Question slide with partial scores and customized feedback (Captivate 5)
http://kb2.adobe.com/community/publishing/857/cpsid_85716.html

Video tutorial: Advanced conditional action for Customized feedback (Captivate 5)
http://kb2.adobe.com/community/publishing/858/cpsid_85847.html

Combining Standard and Conditional in one Advanced action (Captivate 5)
http://kb2.adobe.com/community/publishing/862/cpsid_86254.html

Use the power of variables in CP5 (CP4) - without advanced actions (Captivate 4&5)
http://kb2.adobe.com/community/publishing/862/cpsid_86299.html

Unleash the power of variables in Captivate 5 (4) with Advanced Actions
http://kb2.adobe.com/community/publishing/871/cpsid_87182.html (Captivate 4&5)

Some reasons for labeling
http://lilybiri.posterous.com/some-reasons-for-labeling-in-adobe-captivate

*To blog or not to blog

http://lilybiri.posterous.com/to-blog-or-not-to-blog
*You will need to scroll approximately half way down the page to locate the Advanced Action tip.

Unlimited durations of Adobe eLearning Suite trials

2010-10-07T12:29:00.002+01:00

Two blog posts in one day! Well when you receive this sort of notificiation, you just have to blog about it.

Adobe has now made it possible for any one to try out a hosted version the Adobe eLearning Suite 2 which means that you don't need to worry about downloading or installing large files.

What is even better is that you no longer need to worry about a limited period to test the software either! With this online version if you need 60 days or 6 months to evaluate the suite, that is fine with Adobe.

Just bear in mind that some features such as audio recording is not possible in this hosted trial mode.

Drag and Drop Lite Programmers Insight

2010-10-07T08:24:00.003+01:00

Following on from yesterday's post about the new Drag and Drop Lite Question Widget, the Tristan (the Widget developer) has posted some background information that contributed to the development of this new drag and drop software.

You can read the entire blog post by clicking on th link I have included below, though I should point out that this is a bit techie.

Drag and Drop Lite Programmer Commentary

Drag and Drop comes to Adobe Captivate

2010-10-06T09:14:00.008+01:00

Today is a good day to be an Adobe Captivate developer!

For years now Captivate users have been crying out for the ability to include drag and drag functionality in their eLearning courses and thanks to a new Widget called Drag and Drop Lite Question Widget that has just been released by the folks at Infosemantics this is now at last possible.

I have been a fan of the widgets created by Infosemantics since they released their first widget as well as their Widget Factory (an ActionScript 3 API containing class libraries for use by Flash ActionScript programmers when creating Adobe Captivate Widgets); so I naturally was delighted when I heard that they intend to address this huge hole in the Adobe Captivate feature set.

This widget - which by the way is available for both Adobe Captivate 4 and 5 - is not only extremely powerful but thanks to the intuitive user interface incredibly easy to use and just $27.00 USD something that no CP user cannot afford to miss out on.

What to learn more? Visit the Infosemantics web site.

Announcing Adobe Captivate 5 and eLearning Suite 2.0

2010-05-04T08:03:00.003+01:00

Adobe has announced the arrival of Adobe Captivate 5 and eLearning 2.0. Over the coming weeks and months I am going to be talking a lot about the new features in these new versions but for now here is a list of some of the new features that are coming in Adobe Captivate 5

Object Styles
Master Slides
Rich Animation Effects
Tracking and Reporting
Hosting and Collaboration via Acrobat.com
Multivideo support and synchronization
In-context learner collaboration via Twitter
Optimized user interface

You can learn more about these amazing new features by taking a look at the Adobe Captivate 5 product page.

The Future of Web Training....Now

2010-02-22T18:56:00.002Z

eSyncTraining (www.esynctraining.com) announces the arrival of their global platform for the industry’s leading synchronous online learning experience, a web technology training and certification program that offers expert instruction.

For eSyncTraining I will be teaching the following courses:

1. Adobe Captivate: The Essentials
2. Adobe Captivate: Beyond the Essentials

Adobe Review of VTC Adobe Captivate 4 Training Course

2010-02-16T12:17:00.003Z

Adobe has just posted their review of my VTC Adobe Captivate 4 training course which Shameer Ayyappan - Captivate and Adobe eLearning Suite Product Manager states "I believe at this price, the VTC course is the most comprehensive coverage of Captivate."

The full review on the Adobe Captivate Blog can be found here.

Adobe Captivate 4 Training Course

2010-02-03T18:44:00.003Z

I am pleased to announce that my Adobe Captivate 4 training course is now available both online through the VTC (Virtual Training Company) Online University and on CD-ROM. This course consists of 9 hours worth of training in which I cover all of the features available in my favorite rapid eLearning development tool.

As with all training titles from VTC you can view the first three chapters of this course absolutely free.

My First eSeminar on eLearning Suite

2009-12-10T16:55:00.002Z

Last week I had the privilege of conducting my first eSeminar for Adobe Systems on the Adobe eLearning Suite. The whole seminar was recorded, so if you would like to take a look, here is the web address.

Adobe eLearning Suite - eSeminar

Key update for Adobe Presenter

2009-08-21T13:34:00.002+01:00

In Adobe Presenter 7.0.5 released yesterday. Adobe has enhanced the support for embedded Captivate created flash content in Presenter presentations. At last Captivate content containing FMR (Full Motion Recordings) will now play properly without you having to manually copy the Captivate output files to the Presenter data folder.

In addition, the Adobe Presenter team have also fixed a number of issues related to the loss of display fidelity when Captivate content was imported with incorrect dimensions.

You can download the Presenter update by simply choosing Help > Update in Adobe Presenter or any other Adobe product. The update can also be downloaded from the Adobe Presenter Downloads page.

Visit the Adobe Connect Pro User Community to review more of the key highlights of the Adobe Presenter 7.0.5 update.

What does Broadband Support have to do with eLearning? – Part 1

2009-08-14T16:01:00.000+01:00

Recently, I had to contact two broadband provider support teams. One of which was an extremely pleasant and productive experience whilst the other was like pulling teeth.

In this blog post I am going to start with the “pulling teeth” experience. In this instance I was asked to help out some folks who had signed up with an ISP for the first time. Like many other people they had relied on the company that they purchased their computer from to help them get up and running so that they could perform simple tasks like sending and receiving e-mails, viewing web pages etc.

Anyway, they had encountered some problems and through a third party I had been asked to help them out; in a previous life (when we were all using 28 K modems) I was an ISP support technician and only too familiar with the way that some companies address support issues.

So on their behalf I got through to the Broadband support help desk. To save some time, I thought it would be helpful to explain to the support person that all I needed was for them to confirm that I had the correct customer email address and password. The response I got was that they couldn’t just give me the customer’s credentials and instead I would have to go through a long winded linear process.

Whenever I hear the word linear, I automatically think of linear eLearning and how sometimes this can be very inflexible; more on that later.

So now I have to go through the process of confirming each of the support person’s steps which they duly broadcast down the phone to me. Everything was fine until the support technician told me to confirm a screen that I didn’t have. The problem was that somebody else had tried unsuccessfully to configure this mail client application and although I knew what the problem was and how to solve it, like a stuck record, the support person could not be flexible, instead they insisted I had done something wrong.

What does this have to do with linear learning? Well, in many sense asynchronous linear learning can be like this support technician because the learning is simply broadcast out to the learner. Ever faithfully followed the steps in a video tutorial only to find that what the trainer is showing is nothing like what you are seeing on your screen? I have and typically this can lead to two things occurring:

1. The learner starts to lose faith in the training / trainer.
2. The learner is left having to try and work out why they cannot reproduce task to match that of the trainer.

In addition, I tend to start shouting at the video screen, trying somehow to will the learning to provide me with the solution – not that this ever works.

Now don’t get me wrong. Getting learners to work out solutions for themselves in the right environment is perfectly acceptable; however, in the wrong environment this ultimately leads to the learner becoming frustrated and losing faith in either the training content or the trainer themselves.

Also, in the case of much of the eLearning content that is created, the learner is never given the opportunity to correspond with the trainer so that they can find out what the problem might be and learn from either their or the trainer’s mistakes.

If you are creating linear and / or video based training it is important to make sure that you provide your learners with a way of asking questions. Whilst many of us don’t want to be inundated with e-mails, one way of addressing this issue would be to provide learners with a newsgroup forum. If that isn’t possible then consider setting up a mailing list or post updates to your course via a Blog or Wiki.

Irrespective of the type of eLearning content you are creating, it is important to understand that in many cases your courses have to be considered as living and breathing entities that will need to be modified and updated - maybe many times - to meet the requirements and expectations of your learners.

Just in case you were wondering I eventually managed to convince the support technician that our screens were different and they then agreed to give me the information I needed to get my customers up and running, as well as provide them with some basic “how to send e-mails” training.

Creating eLearning Prototypes using Adobe Captivate

2009-08-08T14:02:00.002+01:00

There is much talk in the eLearning industry at the moment about how can you ensure your eLearning content is engaging.

One of most popular trains of thought is that instead of following traditional instructional design models such as ADDIE (Analyze, Design, Deploy Implement and Evaluate); instead you should create prototypes even before you write your eLearning specification documents.

The thinking here is that by creating quick prototypes and showing them to your learners they can then help you in the process of developing the best learning. After all, if your eLearning content does not resonate well with it’s target audience then what is the point in creating it in the first place?

Let's be honest here; if your eLearning content is as dull as dish water then the chances of your learners getting anything out of it are pretty slim.

The idea of creating prototypes before you really understand what the learning problem is, as well involvement from those who are going to consume the learning, is now seen by many as the best way to ensure your eLearning projects are successful since it results in your prospective learners / users giving you their ideas for free.

Whilst many of the cutting edge eLearning companies still rely on Flash and ActionScript to develop their eLearning content, when it comes to creating rapid prototypes is Flash – as in Flash Professional, not Flash the platform – really the best choice? In my mind the answer is, “no”, because creating eLearning content in Flash is a time consuming process and a better option most of the time is to use a rapid eLearning authoring tool.

Whilst there are many rapid eLearning tools available, I think that when it comes to creating prototypes Adobe Captivate is the best choice; here is why.

Flexible Working Environment
Adobe Captivate provides you with a flexible working environment. Because Adobe Captivate uses the Slide rather than frame metaphor, prototyping in Captivate is incredibly straight forward.

Adding and Editing Content
Adding content (even graphics created in Adobe Photoshop) is very straight forward. Not only that, but thanks to Captivate’s Library panel, replacing existing content with new imagery or audio can be accomplished within just a few steps. In addition you can edit any imported content graphics, audio, Flash files in the applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Flash and Adobe SoundBooth.

Storyboarding your audio
Thanks to the Text to Speech feature introduced in Adobe Captivate 4, you can now include voice-over in your prototypes, enabling you to storyboard any narrative you want to include in your prototypes.

Interaction
Adobe Captivate includes great interactive objects and control. Anyone who has used Captivate will know that you can insert Click boxes, Text Entry Boxes, Buttons etc. but if you own Captivate 4 that really is just the tip of the ice berg.

Let’s be clear here; although some in the eLearning community still consider Adobe Captivate to be IT System training author tool, that really isn’t the case any more.

Advanced Interactivity
Adobe Captivate 4 introduced Variables and Actions which enable the regular Captivate user to create complex interactive effects. Need to include a button that when clicked will hide several objects? No problem, you can do this thanks to the ability to set Multiple Actions. Want to hide the playback control on Question Slides? Again, easy as pie. You can do this using System Variables.

Want to learn more about Captivate and Variables? Read the “Break the ice with Variables” post on the The Adobe Captivate blog.

Now you may be thinking this is all fine but I can create my prototypes in PowerPoint and output to Flash using other well known eLearning tools and, yes that is true; but Adobe Captivate too can import PowerPoint presentations and– thanks to the Roundtrip PowerPoint workflow introduced in Adobe Captivate 4 you can both edit and keep your PowerPoint and Captivate content in sync.

User Feedback
However that isn’t all that Adobe Captivate brings to the prototyping table. One of the biggest advantages I think that Captivate offers is in being able to receive feedback from your users and integrate this directly into your Captivate project files.

Adobe Captivate 4 introduced a revolutionary new feature called SWF Commenting. SWF Commenting enables you to send your SWF files for review. Your reviewers install a very small AIR application which enables them to add comments to your SWF files without them having to have Adobe Captivate installed. Once they have completed the review process they can then send their comments which can then be imported to the appropriate slides in your project.

Repurpose your Captivate content in Flash
In addition to these points Captivate also provides you with the ability to export your entire Captivate project to Adobe Flash Professional so even if you do want to create your main project or components of the project in Flash, you can still repurpose much of the prototyping you have created in Captivate.

Summary

In short, Adobe Captivate provides you with the best environment to create prototypes, modify the content based on user feedback and output to the Flash platform available in the eLearning space.

eLearning Templates

2009-07-24T10:56:00.005+01:00

Do you sometimes wish that there was an easy way to incorporate the sorts of games, quizzes and other interactions that Flash developers / ActionScript Programmers include in their eLearning projects?

Well now thanks to e-Learning Templates.com you can! According to the developers eLearningBrothers.com these templates work fine in Adobe Captivate, though in order to edit them you will need Flash 8 or newer.

OnDemand Resources for Adobe Captivate 4 Users

2009-07-21T10:20:00.004+01:00

Senior Product Evangelist RJ Jacquez has created a series of onDemand resources and tips and tricks to help new and existing Captivate users get to grips with Adobe Captivate 4.

Visit RJ's blog post to learn more.

Adobe Captivate 4 Easter Egg

2009-07-07T09:07:00.004+01:00

The Adobe Captivate team have revealed a hidden gem in Adobe Captivate 4. For the first time we can get to know the Captivate team a little better.

To access this feature go to Help > Adobe Adobe Captivate. When the About dialog box pops up press the End key on your keyboard.

After a few seconds you will see a Flash demo of the Adobe Captivate team.

At last I can put faces to names!

Adobe Flash Catalyst - First Look

2009-06-03T08:07:00.006+01:00

This week Adobe has released the first public beta build of Flash Catalyst on Adobe Labs. Catalyst (formerly known as Thermo) is an application that enables you to quickly build interactive user interfaces and content in Flash without having to perform any coding.

Flash Catalyst enables you to take designs you have created in either Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator and using Catalyst convert these into interactive components including objects such as buttons, scroll bars etc.

At present Flash Catalyst does not bring anything to the Captivate user’s table. Flash Catalyst SWFs do not seem to play well in Adobe Captivate 4.0.1 even if you create AS 3 projects. But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be any integration in the future.

One area where I think that Flash Catalyst might be able to help the Captivate user out would be as an alternative to creating Widgets.

Introduced in Adobe Captivate 4, Widgets though extremely powerful, require that you have a solid understanding of Flash and Action Scripting which unfortunately many Captivate users just don’t have and this where I think that Flash Catalyst could be of use. Personally, I would like to have the option of building components from Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator files that I could then be imported and used in my Captivate projects.

If like me you would like to see Catalyst integration with Adobe Captivate in a future version then please do submit an Enhancement Request.

Some might think that I have my head in the clouds here, but as a member of the Cloud Appreciation Society, I don’t consider having my head in the clouds a bad thing.

You can learn more about Adobe Catalyst from the link I have included below.

Learn about Adobe Flash Catalyst.

Adobe Captivate 4.0.1 - What got fixed.

2009-06-01T08:11:00.002+01:00

Further to my post on Friday regarding the Adobe Captivate 4.0.1 patch. Below is a complete list of what issues the Captivate team have addressed.

Note: In order to download the Adobe Captivate 4.0.1 patch choose Help > Updates

Audio Quality improvement

In Captivate 4, some users observed poor audio quality in the published movie. We’ve addressed all the elements that caused this issue. With this patch you will see a noticeable improvement in the audio quality.

USB Microphone support for Vista setups and working well with RealTek and Sigma Tel soundcards

Captivate failed to recognize USB microphones on the Vista OS. Also, in some instances, specific sound cards were not recognized. Both these issues have now been resolved in the patch.

Open another project’ now works from any location

In Captivate 4, the navigation option ‘open another project’ was based on an absolute path. This led to issues when these linked projects were published and moved to a different location. This has now been resolved.

Inserting objects at playhead position

We have worked on an important productivity issue. Now it’s possible to insert objects at the exact position the playhead is on. This is helpful for content developers as they can easily play the slide on timeline, pause the slide at a specific time, and insert objects at the playhead position.

Memory Leak in Image insertion and Editing

Few customers had reported memory leak issues while inserting and editing images. These have been investigated. The leak was significant only in a specific case and has been resolved now.

Image quality while resizing is improved

There was some degradation in the image quality when images were resized inside Captivate 4. This patch will help address this.

HTML page Title

Captivate now picks up the title name from Project preferences > Project name section. This name appears as the HTML title when the project is published and viewed in a browser.

Question Type identification by LMS

This addresses a specific scenario in LMS reporting. We have worked on the way the question type data is reported to LMS systems.

PPT slides containing Master Templates work well with Captivate

Some PPT files containing Master templates were getting corrupted once published from Captivate 4. This has now been resolved.

Widget Template is modified

Widget template had a few undefined variables which created compiling problems. This has been sorted out in this patch update.

Adobe Captivate Updater Now Available

2009-05-29T14:43:00.006+01:00

Adobe has just announced that the Adobe Captivate Windows updater is now available. I am still waiting to find out what has been fixed but you can download this now by selecting Help > Updates to download and install the fixes.

First look at Adobe Acrobat.com Presentations

2009-05-28T17:38:00.006+01:00

Yesterday RJ sent a tweet announcing that Adobe Acrobat.com Presentations was available on Adobe Labs, so I thought I would take a look.

Presentations is similar to Buzzword in that it enables you to for free create, edit and best of all just as with Buzzword you can share your files – no need for e-mail attachments here which is very cool to say the least.

Naturally being a Captivate user I want to see whether or not I could insert SWF files into Presentations files. At present you cannot do this (though you could insert an FLV file) so I thought I would add this as a feature request which I did.

Within two hours of sending in my request I get an e-mail back from the Adobe Presentations team telling me that this is something that they will definitely consider.

Straight away I filed another request asking that they also enable a user to import / export Presentations files to PowerPoint format. This would then enable Captivate users to convert a PowerPoint file into an Adobe Captivate project. Just as with the first request, this is something they are also going to look into.

I think that this is another tool that I will be able to integrate into my eLearning production workflow.

A spot of color for Dreamweaver

2009-05-27T08:49:00.007+01:00

When designing eLearning course, one of the areas that I really used to struggle with was getting the color scheme right. Now when creating my learning projects I use Adobe Kuler. Adobe Kuler is a web application that enables you to experiment with color variations something that is incredibly useful for designers and developers of all shapes and sizes.

If you own the Adobe eLearning Suite, you find that Adobe Flash CS4 Professional includes a Kuler panel right inside the Flash app. However, it is also possible to add Kuler functionality into Adobe Dreamweaver as well.

Adobe Dreamweaver is included in the eLearning Suite because Adobe has added the CourseBuilder extension. CourseBuilder (first developed as a standalone extension for Dreamweaver MX) has been completely overhauled for the Adobe eLearning Suite and provides web developers with a great way to create web-based learning interactions.

Just in case your interested, CourseBuilder offers compatibility with the latest versions of web browsers, is SCORM compatible and includes the following 3 new interaction types:

Matching interaction
Sequence interaction
Likert interaction

To add Kuler functionality into Adobe Dreamweaver, download the free WebAssist extension PalettePicker. PalettePicker is available for both Dreamweaver CS4 and CS3 on Windows and Macintosh platforms.

Interactive or Page Turning Learning

2009-05-22T14:28:00.029+01:00

Recently I have been involved in a discussion about Interactive or page turning learning. For those of you unfamiliar with the term page turning learning, this is the kind of learning where an individual listens and watches a concept being explained by an instructor. The only time they get to interact with the training is when they are asked to click a button to move to the next page / slide. In Adobe Captivate terms page turning learning is the kind of learning you would create as a demonstration.

Before going any further, it is only fair to point out that for over 10 years I created page turning learning in the form of video tutorials for the online training company Virtual Training Company. During this period I received countless e-mails thanking me for developing what was then considered to be some of the best video tutorials on my specialist subject Dreamweaver. I am therefore not completely against this kind of learning.

Additionally, at work I still create our feature tours using Captivates demonstration mode.

However the big question is this. Does page turning training enable learners to grasp the concepts you are trying to teach and make those mental connections required to ensure that they recall what they have learned after a certain period of time?

In most cases, to ensure that a learner can fully grasp what you are trying to teach them they need to engage with the training. If you are reading this and think that this type of interaction can be accomplished simply adding a quiz at the end of your course, then be aware that this might not be a good indication that your learners have been successful. Many learners are able to pass a quiz soon after they have completed a training course, simply because they have a good memory.

So if page turning or demonstration-based learning is considered ineffective, what are the advantages of creating an interactive training course?

Below are some reasons why interactive training can be more effective:

It can be measured.
Demonstration based learning does not provide you with a clear indication of how well a learner performed, whereas with interactive based learning you have the ability to track and score every time a learner interacts with the learning.

Adobe Captivate enables you to track and score each interactive object such as a click box, button etc via the Reporting tab. The interactive data can also be published to a Learning Management System or Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional. In fact any interactive learning project can be treated as a quiz, providing the learner with a score at the end using the Quiz Results slide

Failure is acceptable.
One of the reasons why I think that interactive learning can be so effective is because it provides learners with a safe environment in which to fail. Whilst failure isn’t always seen as a positive thing - after all who wants to fail at something, right! – making mistakes can be a very effective way to learn.

There are two advantages here:

Firstly, software training learners (especially those new to a subject) don’t have to worry about breaking the software. In the past when I was a classroom trainer, many students on the first day would want reassurance that they couldn’t damage the software before they were prepared to try out the tasks themselves.

Secondly, Interactive training can provide a learner with feedback that can assist them perform the task at hand. In addition, if they repeatedly fail they can be redirected to an earlier part of the course, or at least encouraged to review additional learning before they continue.

In Adobe Captivate you can provide visual feedback using success, failure and hint captions and redirect additional learning using branching. You can also determine what happens if the learners passes or fails the lesson or course.

Learners can discover the learning for themselves.
Thanks to the fact that Adobe Captivate includes the ability to branch, your courses don’t have to be linear. Learners can branch from one section of the course to another, enabling them to discover the learning for themselves.

Adobe Captivate has great branching capabilities, enables you to visualize the branching using the Branching view and thanks to the new scripting feature – Advanced Actions and Variables introduced in Adobe Captivate 4 - provides you with a great set of tools for creating advanced interactivity.

If you need to go the extra mile and own the Adobe eLearning Suite, you can create even more complex interactivity using Adobe Flash CS4 Professional, which includes a comprehensive set of Learning Interactions.

It is self-paced.
Another benefit of interactive learning is that it enables a learner to learn at their own pace. As creator of eLearning content as well as a consumer, I want to understand the steps being demonstrated before the instructor moves on to even more advanced concepts.

There have been many occasions when watching a video tutorial where I have shouted back at the screen “back up, I don’t get that bit, show me those steps again.”

Yes, you can always just rewind the video and play it again, but that certainly isn’t as effective as being able to try out the steps for yourself before you move on to the next series of steps.

Using the self-paced option built into the Table of Contents feature you can enable learners to dip in and out of a training course.

Can page turning learning ever be effective?

In some cases this style of learning can still be very effective, particularly if you are creating learning for advanced learning where a learner is already very comfortable in the subject matter but just wants to take this to the next level.

It is also fair to say that in the right hands demonstration based learning can be a very powerful tool.

Both Adobe Captivate and Adobe Presenter (part of the Adobe eLearning Suite) can be used to create good quality demonstration based learning.

In some cases even with interactive training it is possible to sprinkle bits of demonstration learning. An example of which in where a learner is already performed a particular task several times earlier in the course and easing of the interactive peddle is possible.

Happy Holidays for Monday

Clearing dat file

2009-05-21T09:01:00.004+01:00

Sometimes Adobe Captivate (like any other piece of software) can behave oddly. Instances where the Timeline won’t open or a certain project won’t publish properly are just two examples of the sort of problems I have experienced over the years working with this program.

The blame for many of the issues you experience in Adobe Captivate can be laid firmly at the door of Captivates DAT file.

Many software applications use dat files. In short this file type is used to store some kind of data.

In the case of Adobe Captivate the .dat file is used (amongst other things) to store session preferences. Adobe Captivate has two kinds of preferences. Project and Session preferences.

Project Preferences
These are the preferences that are specific to a project, such as publish or quiz settings. Project preferences are stored in the Adobe Captivate file itself so that they can travel with the project.

Session preferences
Session preferences are ones that are applied to all projects, for example if you change an objects default settings then these are changed for all the projects. It is these kinds of preferences that are stored in the .dat file.

Adobe Captivates .dat file – in the case of Adobe Captivate 4 called captivate_v40.dat - can be found in the following location.

Windows Vista
Drive Letter\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Captivate

Windows XP
Drive Letter \Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Adobe\Adobe Captivate

Note: You will need to make sure that you have set the Windows Folder option – Show hidden files and folders before you will be able to see the Document and Settings Folder.

It is also possible to peak inside your Adobe Captivate .dat file by opening it up in a text editor. However I would first recommend that you create copy of any application file before attempting to open it.

Above is an example of the type of information stored in the Adobe Captivate 4 .dat file.

Why the .dat file sometimes becomes corrupted is unclear but the good news is that removing this does seem to solve many of the problems you may encounter.

Replacing the .dat file

Replacing the .dat file is incredibly straight forward. Start by closing Adobe Captivate and then rename or move the captivate_v40.dat file outside of the Adobe Captivate folder.

The next time you start Adobe Captivate, the program will automatically re-create the .dat file for you.

Removing the Captivate file bloat

2009-05-13T08:49:00.004+01:00

Have you ever noticed that copying original slides and objects from an existing project to a new one can dramatically reduce the file size of the new project?

Manoj from the Adobe Captivate team has recently provided some insight on why the copy paste trick is so effective.

[Quote]From a programmers perspective this is what is happening.

Earlier versions of Captivate had some inaccuracy in cleaning up resources.

A resource ( there are many which are internal and not visible to the user other than those in Library) is always linked to some captivate object. When this object was deleted or changed then the corresponding resource use-count should go down.

This resource should be removed once the project is saved so as to maintain proper resources.

With the number of workflows it turned out that the use-count of these resources are not 0 even though these are no longer being used.

Once this happens captivate sees a particular resource with use-count > 0 and keeps loading/saving it all the time, slowly increasing the size of the project.

How does copy-paste help us out ?

When you copy paste, the items is copied and pasted with exactly the only resource its using, Thus the new file need not bother about unused internal resources. Hope this clears the mystery surrounding this trick.

Why has this not been done already ?

If this has to be corrected then every time a project loads we might have to check for all resources' mapping with objects in the project, without looking at the use-count. This will lead to unreasonable project load times.

A repair tool can be made, but the workaround being so simple it better be left as it is. [/Quote]

Removing Unused objects
Another great way to ensure that your Captivate project files are kept small is to select all of the unwanted objects in the Library panel by pressing the Select Unused Items button and then pressing the Delete button.

By default in Adobe Captivate 4 when you first open a project, you will also be notified of any unused objects that are present in your file project.

If project bloat is something that you would like to see addressed in the next version of Adobe Captivate then please file an enhancement request via the Adobe Captivate Feature Request/Bug Report Form. According to Manoj since Captivate is currently being overhauled for the next version (Adobe Captivate 5) now is the best time to get this kind of request from the Adobe Community.

Adobe announces beta for Captivate for the Mac

2009-05-11T08:56:00.003+01:00

Ok so it is official. Adobe has announced the first of the software builds for Captivate for the Mac. This is a momentous occasion and therefore something I just had to blog about. If you own a Mac and can put some time into testing the first ever build of Adobe Captivate for the Mac OS then complete the Adobe Prerelease form

Adobe Captivate 4 Success Story

2009-05-11T08:48:00.005+01:00

In many of my posts you will have noticed that I tend to write about examples of work that I have created for my employer WebAssist.com so I though in today's post I would share the link to the Adobe Captivate success story we had the privilege to create for the launch of Adobe Captivate 4

You can read how as training manager for the company I (and others) use Adobe Captivate in our day to day lives. WebAssist Adobe Captivate 4 Success Story

The case of the disappearing Captivate objects

2009-05-08T08:39:00.003+01:00

Recently I have been working on updating a number of existing Captivate projects, most of which have the following type of ending slide.

Having made the required alterations to the first project when I previewed this in Adobe Captivate 4, I noticed that everything (part from the slide background) on the last slide disappeared after the playback head had reached the end of the project.

How strange I said to myself (or words to that effect) and tested this with another project – same result. Maybe the original project file had become corrupted I thought and proceeded to create a new blank project and copy all the slides to this new file. Yet again when I previewed, low and behold all the objects on the last slide behaved the same way.

After some head scratching I found that if I set the duration of all the objects on my last slide to “Rest of project” and select the “Place object on top” check box then all the images, text captions etc remained on screen.

Happy that I had managed to find a solution, I applied this duration setting to the rest of the objects on the last slide of all my projects and carried on working.

Once I had finished the task at hand, I then decided that it would probably be a good idea to file this as a bug.

Yesterday I received an e-mail back from the Adobe Captivate team with another solution to this problem. Instead of setting the object duration to Rest of Slide, setting the Slide exit navigation menu to “No Action” also resolves this issue.

Even though sometimes Adobe Captivate 4 does seem to behave oddly, it is always reassuring to know that 9 times out of 10 if you report a possible bug to the Captivate team, they are able to provide you with a workaround solution.

You can report bugs as well as make feature requests using the Adobe Captivate Feature Request/Bug Report Form

Photoshop Product Manager Blogs about CSS Designer Starter Kit

2009-04-29T20:12:00.006+01:00

John Nack, Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop has very kindly blogged about the WebAssist CSS Designer Starter Kit for Photshop. You can read what John had to say on his blog.

Although this was the last project I worked on in Adobe Captivate 3, we did recently updated this interactive training package to include some detailed information on helping learners visualize the box model so I did manage to add some advanced actions, including an image toggle button, which I will blog about another time.

CSS Menus Starter Kit

2009-04-28T08:51:00.010+01:00

Today sees the launch of the latest Adobe Captivate project I have been working on for my employer WebAssist The CSS Menus Starter Kit for Photshop. This was the first project I worked on in Adobe Captivate 4 so it was great to be able to take advantage of some of the new functionality version 4 has to offer including being able to take advantage of the Adobe Captivate 4 Aggregator.

The Adobe Captivate 4 Aggregator enables you (finally) to combine published files (SWFs)and includes a table of content plus other features such as "self paced learning" and a really nifty Search option. I have to be honest and say that at one point I didn't think that we were going to be able to use the Aggregator.

You see by default in Firefox when you load the published Aggregator (SWF)it loads and plays the audio (my voice over) from each of your published tutorials (SWFs)which as one of my colleagues pointed out:

"What a lovely cacaphony of Fletchers! A veritable flight of Fletchers, if you will. The new Aggregator certainly is making quite the impression"

Thankfully we managed to address this issue by disabling the Auto Play option, which can be found in the Start and End category of the Project preferences. Though you have to do this for every single project file - which did prove to be a bit of a pain. Also bear in mind that once you do disable the Auto Play option when you publish you then just get a Play button appearing in the center of the screen.

However, the good news is that you can add your own background image. Below is the screen shot of the background image we are using in this and all future starter kits.

Oh, just one final point, the style of the Play button you have seen in this blog post is determined by the style of skin you choose for your Playback Control.

You can learn more about the CSS Menus Starter kit available for both Photoshop and Fireworks then please visit this web addresses.

CSS Menus Starter Kit for Photoshop
CSS Menus Starter Kit for Fireworks

VTC Hat Tip

2009-04-28T08:49:00.000+01:00

I used to work at VTC and had the pleasure of creating quite a few Dreamweaver instructional videos. I left VTC in 2006 to meet new challenges and broaden my horizons at Web Assist and again like at VTC I work in a great friendly environment filled with talented individuals who have a real passion for what they are doing.

Since leaving VTC they have continued to create intuitive titles and the latest Dreamweaver CS4 training video is worthy of a mention. The videos are created with the beginner to Dreamweaver CS4 in mind or anyone upgrading to CS4 from a prior release. Feature by feature Dreamweaver CS4 is the most significant release of the program since Adobe acquired Macromedia. The real beauty of these training videos is that they are split up by subject, so for those of us who already have a some background with Dreamweaver (or design in general) it’s easy to skip the introductory stuff and get right to the new features and upper level techniques.

Beginners Dreamweaver CS4 Tutorial Video

Adobe announces Adobe Captivate 4 and the eLearning Suite

2009-01-20T09:16:00.003Z

Today sees the launch of both Adobe Captivate 4 and the eLearning Suite. As Training Manager for WebAssist I need a tool box that enables me to deliver rich and engaging eLearning experiences whether you want to deploy your eLearning content to the web, desktop, mobile device or an LMS the Adobe eLearning Suite is right on the money.

Here is what is included in the Suite

Adobe Captivate 4
Adobe Flash CS Professional with Learning Interactions
Adobe Dreamweaver CS with CourseBuilder Extension
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended
Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro
Adobe Presenter 7
Adobe Soundbooth CS4
Adobe Bridge CS4
Adobe Device Central CS4
SCORM Packager

Learn more about the eLearning Suite and what I think of this incredible new suite of applications

Podcasting and Edit Timing

2007-10-05T14:16:00.000+01:00

During my recent tour with Adobe UK demonstrating Adobe Captivate and Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, I was asked whether I ever used the Captivate audio feature Edit Timing. Well I have to be honest and say that until now this one of those features that I have hardly used. However, like many Captivate users I am always looking for ways to cut down on my workload and any opportunity I get to re-purpose content I welcome with open arms. Which brings me nicely to the topic of podcasting.

As recently appointed training manager for WebAssist I'm always on the look out for new and creative ways to offer informal learning to our users; and one way of doing this is to use podcasting.

Now when it came to creating the podcasts I naturally turned to Adobe Captivate and looked for a way to take the voice-over from the existing feature tours (demonstrations) and use this in my podcasts.

Now if you are sitting there thinking well surely that is simple enough, you just export the audio you recording when you first captured your screen action! Then let me explain how I create my voice-over.

Firstly, I don't use Adobe Captivate, whilst the recording and editing tools present in the applications are fine for many users; they just don't offer the power that I need. Instead I use Sony Sound Forge to record and edit my voice-over. Oh and in case you are wondering I don't use a headset either. I currently use a Sure SM 58 microphone - yes I am one of those Captivate users. Once I have recorded my audio I then import this on to each of the appropriate slides.

Anyway back to podcasting. So here I am with maybe 30 audio files scattered through my entire project. So how do I get them all back into one single file? The answer is to use Captivates Edit Timing audio feature.

Here are the steps....

Start by opening the Adobe Captivate project file you wish to extract the audio from
Insert a new blank slide (Shift + Ctrl + J)
Move the new slide to the very start of your project.
Double-click on the slide background and set the duration to say 120 secs
Note: If you don't set the duration to a high value you won't be able to move all the audio segments to just a single slide.
Choose Edit > Edit Timing > Project
Select the first of the slide markers and drag it to the first slide - your new blank slide.
Now do the same for the rest of the slide markers
Note: If you find that you cannot move a marker, go back to the blank slide and extend its duration.
Once all the markers are all located on the first slide click OK.

Now using the Thumbnail view you should find that only one slide has audio attached to it.

The final task is to export the audio. To do this:

Choose Audio > Advanced Audio...
In the Advanced Audio dialog box select slide that has the audio
Select the option - Include MP3 files in export
Click Export
Click OK
Specify where the audio file should be created

Then it is simply a case of creating the project file you want to use for the podcast and importing the just exported audio.

WebAssist Success Story

2007-10-04T08:14:00.001+01:00

Earlier this year Adobe Systems Inc wrote a success story based upon the tremendous impact Adobe Captivate has had upon our business. This study is also featured in the e-Learning Guilds new ebook "The eLearning Guild's Handbook of e-Learning Strategy."

Announcing Adobe Captivate 3

2007-07-23T09:02:00.000+01:00

The wait is over, Adobe have today announced the latest version of Captivate, Adobe Captivate 3. Over the next few weeks I will be blogging about many of the new cool features (and some extra little bits) but for now here is the list of new features:

Multiple recording modes
Automatic rerecording of web applications (MS IE 6 only)
Random Quizzing and Question Pooling
Cut, copy and paste slides
New Questions Slides

Hot-spot
Sequence

Zooming in and out in Branching view
Slide groups
Answer Shuffle
Rollover Slidelets
New Slides transitions
Microsoft PowerPoint Import - Now Adobe Captivate can convert PowerPoint slides into SWF files whilst retaining the animation effects
XML file export and import for easy localization
Preview project while recording audio
Find and Replace

You can ready about all of these features in more details from the Adobe Captivate 3 features page at Adobe.com

Adding XML data in Adobe Captivate Projects

2007-07-05T12:57:00.002+01:00

I am always looking for ways that I can extend my Adobe Captivate projects but not only so that I can include cool features but also to save myself some time. One of the time saving features I have been looking at recently is integrating XML (Extensible Markup Language) into my project files. Let me start by painting my requirements picture. WebAssist had a number of product suites (Super Suite, Web Developer Suite and Web Designer Suite) that were on special offer, now imagine that I had created a product feature tour that describes each of the suites and I want to include the offer price for each of the product suites.

View the Adding XML Data into Adobe Captivate projects sample.

Whilst I could just add the prices using transparent text captions what would be a lot more efficient would be to store the prices somewhere else so that once the special offer has ended I can adjust the prices without having to republish my Adobe Captivate project file. XML is an idea format for storing the suite prices but, since you cannot link XML data directly into Adobe Captivate you have do have to be prepared to spend a little time in Adobe Flash the end results are worth the extra effort.

The first step is to create the XML document which is something that you can very easily do in Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 or even Notepad if you don’t to use an HTML Editor.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding= "UTF-8" ?>
<!-- xml document created by Mark Fletcher -->
<products>
<product product_name="Super Suite" price="449.99"></product>
<product product_name="Web Developer Suite" price="249.99"></product>
<product product_name="Web Designer Suite" price="149.99"></product>
</products>

The next step was to fire up Adobe Flash and insert all the graphics and insert the graphics I wanted to include in the document. In this case I inserted the WebAssist logo and suite box shots.

Because I wanted to load text from a file instead of adding just static text, I inserted some text boxes and then using the Properties inspector text type drop down menu I selected Dynamic Text and gave each of the text fields a title.

Now for the ActionScript code which is used to display the data. I should point out that there are other ways of working with XML in Flash which I might come back to at some point in the future, but, for now here my AS logic.

// create an XML object called "my_xml"

my_xml = new XML();

// load data from an external XML file into "my_xml" object

my_xml.load("wa_offers.xml");

// When the data has been loaded... Call a function ("my_function" in this case)

my_xml.onLoad = my_function;

// ignore "white spaces", text nodes that only contain white space are discarded

my_xml.ignoreWhite = 1;

// function contents

function my_function() {

// take the data from the XML lines (line 0,1,2) and place that data inside text fields

text_field_1.text = my_xml.firstChild.childNodes[0].attributes.product_name;

text_field_2.text = my_xml.firstChild.childNodes[1].attributes.product_name;

text_field_3.text = my_xml.firstChild.childNodes[2].attributes.product_name;

//

text_field_a.text = my_xml.firstChild.childNodes[0].attributes.price;

text_field_b.text = my_xml.firstChild.childNodes[1].attributes.price;

text_field_c.text = my_xml.firstChild.childNodes[2].attributes.price;

Having tested the ActionScript code actually works, I then published the Flash document and turned my attention to Adobe Captivate

To add the published Flash file, I simply inserted the exported SWF file as an animation

At first when I did this I honestly thought that this wasn't going to work since in Captivate the XML data is represented as "undefined" both in Edit view but more alarmingly when I previewed.

However, I decided to press on and see what would happen once I have published the Captivate file.

In order to get XML to work correctly I did find that I had to publish the project using Flash version 8 but once I had done this and made sure that my XML file (wa_offer.xml) was in the same folder as my published Flash files the data did show through correctly.

I have included the sample files below in case you want to experiment with this

Published SWF files and XML
Sample Flash File with ActionScript code

Disposable or re-usable content

2007-06-24T19:01:00.000+01:00

In a traditional e-learning environment the general consensus is that when creating learning content you should ensure that your e-learning objects are reusable. However, with rapid training tools such as Adobe Captivate is this still valid?

According to William Ward the keynote speaker on the Adobe e-learning tour I have just finished; in many situations the cost of creating new content is so low that you can just throw the outdated content away and start again and in many cases William (Billy to his friends) is absolutely right!

This is something that I have done many times with the Captivate content I have created. In many cases amount of time and the cost of trying to integrate new content into existing projects just isn't worth it. This is especially true when the narrative needs to be recreated from scratch as trying to ensure the tone and the color of voice-over is exactly the same just isn't worth the time and effort involved.

Yet there are also many instances when, Adobe Captivates flexible work flow has enabled me to literally drop a few new images and voice-over into an existing project and save myself a ton of work.

For example, last week as part of a marketing campaign I had to update an existing product feature tour. In total these updates took no more than approximately 45minutes whereas, creating the project again from scratch would have probably taken me a whole day and this is what I probably love the most about Adobe Captivate. As you may have heard me state before, because Adobe Captivate is so flexible, I can mold my content around my work flow rather than being forced down a single path.

The upshot of this is that whether you always ensure your e-learning content is reusable or you because of a short product life cycle you are happy to throw existing content away and start again from scratch with a rapid e-learning tool such as Adobe Captivate it really doesn't matter.

So over you to. Wherever possible when creating your Adobe Captivate projects do you re-purpose existing content or do you always start with a blank canvas?

Announcing Nutshell

2007-06-12T17:10:00.000+01:00

Last week the company I work for (WebAssist.com) announced the release of Nutshell - Enhanced Reporting for Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional.

So why I am talking about this in a blog that is supposed to be dedicated to Adobe Captivate and e-learning? Well, because Adobe Captivate works seamlessly with Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional. Integrate Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional with Adobe Captivate and you can track your learner's progress and ensure they meet their learning objectives and what Nutshell does is offer multi-tiered reporting on all Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional trainings as well as meetings and events. With Nutshell you can not only generate reports on your Acrobat Connect activity you can also do the same for all groups, departments or your entire organization!

Want to learn more about Nutshell? View the feature tours I created for this new product, which of course were created in Adobe Captivate!

Upgrading from Captivate 1 to Adobe Captivate 2: Fudging Text Entry Boxes:

2007-06-01T15:12:00.000+01:00

Today I am going to share some of my experience of working with Text Entry Boxes when upgrading from Adobe Captivate 1 to Adobe Captivate 2.

Back in Adobe Captivate 1 WebAssist (the company I now work for) asked me if I would create a series of interactive simulations for an eCommerce extension to Dreamweaver – eCart. This was a very detailed project and involved me creating over 60 interactive project files, many of which included TEBs (Text Entry boxes.)

Recently due a number of corporate branding updates I had to upgrade the original Captivate project files from Adobe Captivate version 1 to version 2.

Naturally I started the lengthy process of testing the upgraded files to make sure that during the conversion process no issues had been introduced.

Imagine my horror when I found that any text I inserted into the Text Entry boxes (during preview / run-time) was rendered at a different font size in Adobe Captivate 2.

Here is the reason why this happens.

After upgrading a Captivate 1 project to Adobe Captivate 2, font in text entry boxes appears large in Adobe Captivate 2. This is because of a bug in Captivate 1 and Flash Player. The font used while editing and publishing the SWF file was not the same as the original font. This bug has been fixed in Adobe Captivate 2. However, Captivate 1 projects will continue to have large font in Text Entry Boxes when the projects are upgraded to Adobe Captivate 2.

The Adobe Captivate team offers two workarounds to address this issue.

After upgrading a Captivate 1 project to Adobe Captivate 2, open the upgraded project.
Edit the font in a text entry box.

Use the Apply all option to apply the change to all text entry boxes in the project.

Now in theory this all sounds fine and certainly much easier that the second workaround which I will introduce in a moment.

The problem is that whilst you can change the font size in the TEBs in many cases when testing the TEBs at run-time having entered the correct text and moved to the next slide or whatever On Success action you have specified the text on the next slide of the project jumps slightly.

Now when you’re working with a single project file that has maybe one or two TEBs repositioning the Text Entry boxes isn’t a huge deal; especially since you can use the Advanced Interaction dialog box to locate all these controls. However, when you are working with multiple files all of which have many TEBs then this approach is simply a non-starter.

The second workaround might be a lot more complicated but at least it saves you from having to manually reposition your TEBs.

Here are the steps:

Upgrade all the Captivate 1 projects to Adobe Captivate 2.
From the Start menu, click Run, type REGEDIT, and click OK. The Registry editor appears.
Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Adobe > Adobe Captivate > 2 > FudgeFactor.
Change the value of the FudgeFactor key to 1. The default value of the key is 1.4.
Close the Registry editor. The changes are applied after you restart Adobe Captivate.
Preview or publish the Adobe Captivate 2 projects.

What I do is create a folder on my Windows desktop and Label this “Fudge Factor is set to 1”

Dreamweaver CS3 Bible is alive

2007-05-30T08:46:00.000+01:00

I am delighted to announce that the Dreamweaver CS3 Bible is now available. I created a series of interactive tutorials to accompany the book created of course with Adobe Captivate. When I get some spare time, I will post some of the techniques I used to create these tutorials. But for now it is back to the grind stone.

Exporting Captions to MS Word

2007-04-20T12:30:00.000+01:00

Today’s post focuses on one of the reasons why I have been so quiet recently At the tail end of 2006 I was asked if I would be prepared to create a series of getting started tutorials for Dreamweaver CS3. Due to the incredibly positive feedback I received month after month, from the original Dreamweaver 8 Getting Started series I created a couple of years ago, the only answer I could give was “Yes!”

Initially, I had hoped that I would be able to repurpose a lot of the content I had previously created. However, due to the significant changes Adobe has made to Dreamweaver in Dreamweaver CS 3 and also the fact that the original tutorials were created using table-based layouts – so 2005 baby! I end up having to create virtually all of the Captivate project files again from scratch.

For the most part, one of the project components that I did manage to salvage was the caption text. This bring me nicely to the topic I want concentrate on, in this post - Exporting project captions to MS Word.

For those unfamiliar with this feature you can export your text captions to MS Word by choosing File > Import / Export > Export Project captions and closed captions…

In general the main reason why you would want to export text captions to MS Word would be to localize (translate) your caption text into another language. This is why if you have ever used this feature and opened the resulting MS Word document you were presented with two columns one called Original Text Caption Data and the other Updated Text Caption Data.

If you are a regular visitor to this blog you’ll know that I am pretty passionate about the Captivate 2 feature set. I’ll be honest I love nothing more than being able to use, promote and talk about Captivate wherever I can. During the elearning technologies conference I spoke at back in January (2007) many delegates asked about how do localize there Captivate projects and I got a real buzz seeing the look on their faces when I explained that Captivate makes this just so simple but anyway I digress…

For this project I knew that although I would not be able to import the text captions from my existing project files into the new ones (Captivate does not allow you to do this) I had to create for Dreamweaver CS3. What I could do, was to use MS Word’s Find and Replace tool to change all references in the text captions from Dreamweaver 8 to Dreamweaver CS3. And also change the name of the sample web site from Café Townsend to Aquo Drink (the name of the new sample site for the new version of Dreamweaver.)

Having made all required changes I then had to simply copy the text from the MS Word document and paste this into each of the new text captions I inserted into my new project files.

Although this might not seem like a big deal, it did mean that I didn’t have to type all the text for each of the text and failure captions and it also gave me the satisfaction of knowing that nowhere in the Getting Started series (thanks to MS Word’s Find and Replace feature) were there going to be any references to the original sample site “Café Townsend”

Converting SWFs into a video format

2007-04-18T12:54:00.000+01:00

Well, following the sign off my very large Captivate simulation projects (details to follow in the near future) I mentioned briefly back in February I’m finally back and excited to share some of stuff that has been happening over the last couple of months.

Today's post is all about a great new little application from Sothink.com called SWF to Video Converter. Using this powerful new application I am now able to convert Captivate content we create at work (WebAssist.com) into an AVI format. This is a very exciting development because it means that for the first time we can distribute / broadcast content on sites such as YouTube

I first came across the SWF Converter thanks to the Developer Center article Silke Fleischer wrote; Silke is a senior product marketing manager for Adobe Captivate. So naturally, being the inquisitive soul that I am, I naturally went and downloaded a copy of this software to put it through its paces and I have to say that I was very impressed. The wizard style user interface is very straight forward and what excited me the most was that this app could also record the audio from the current SWF file. I have to say that along with another very cool feature I’ll come to in a minute, this feature sold the SWF converter for me and I recommend that we should purchase this product. As whilst in the past I had experienced success in capturing Captivate screens using an AVI screen recording tool, capturing the audio at the same time had proved to be very problematic.

The other very cool thing about this application is that whilst you are playing and capturing your Flash (SWF) files using the Converter, you can still interact with your SWF file. This is made possible because the SWF Converter supports ActionScript which means that when you capture your SWF, the ActionScript can be played properly. So what benefit does this give you? Well, it means that using the SWF Converter you can capture all the steps from an interactive simulation (training or assessment in Adobe Captivate) and convert it into a video demonstration! You can view a small example of this by downloading this example file (2,112 KB) Sample Adobe Captivate interactive simulation converted into video format.

You also can see how we are now using the SWF Converter to market the Database Starter Kit on YouTube.com by clicking on the this link. Database Starter Kits on YouTube.com

A Quick Update

2007-02-14T08:37:00.000Z

Things are pretty crazy here at the moment so posts are going to be far and few between for the next month or so. I want to apologize to any one who has recently posted comments that I have not replied to yet once things settled down I promise to get back to you all. Here are some of the things that have been going on.

Speaking at the UK Learning Technologies Conference and presenting live demos for Adobe UK
The launch of Project DB Cooper. DB Cooper is WebAssist's first commercial training package teaching Dreamweaver users (PHP and ASP) how to work with databases developed as interactive simulations. Learn more...
UK Internet Magazine .Net feature WebAssist's SecurityAssist solution recipe on their cover CD of the .net February Edition

Project: DB Cooper

2007-01-14T18:02:00.000Z

Having just got back from my holiday break, I’m straight into creating Captivate content. One of the really exciting projects I am currently working on for WebAssist is a project which goes under the code name of “DB Cooper”. Unlike many of the other work projects I worked on last year, DB Cooper is an interactive simulation. Whilst I cannot go into the specifics of this particular piece of work, I must say that it feels great to be creating simulations again. There is just something about interactive simulations that really resonates with me;in particular the fact the interactive simulations enable learners to “exercise their mental muscles". Oh and if like me you haven't heard of DB Cooper before then visit this web address.

Adobe Captivate 2 includes a variety of new tools that make creating interactive simulations much easier that in previous versions these include:

The Advanced Interaction dialog box
The ability to automatically add text entry boxes for text fields

The fact that Captivate 2 will automatically insert text entry boxes during “capture time” is a good feature; though I have to be honest and say that I always find that I need to adjust any text entry boxes Captivate adds; plus, the program does not always capture the characters I have typed (during capture) correctly so there is still so additional steps to perform but at least now you have a better starting point than before.

However, the most exciting features for interactive projects are the Advanced Interaction dialog box. Historically, trying to recall the various settings you have applied to your interactive objects was a right royal pain as you had to inspection these individually. What the Advanced Interactive dialog brings to the table is the ability to review (and if required print) all your interactive project information from one centralized location. You can filter the list by clicking on the button that corresponds to the object type you want to review; one of things about the filtering I find particularly useful is the ability to remove any hidden slides from the list.

If like me you are spending much of your working life using this program then anything that improves you workflow and cuts down the overall duration of your Captivate projects is always something we will welcome with open arms.

Working with multiple pages documents

2006-12-19T11:25:00.000Z

Sometimes when working on a Captivate project you might find that you need to include additional information which would normally be best presented in a multiple page text document. Although it is possible create a link to say an MS Word document using the Open URL or File option of a slide or interactive object such as a click box there are many instances where this is not the result you or your client is looking for.

So is it possible to embed a regular text document into an Adobe Captivate 2 project file. Well, if you want this to be an MS Word document, then the answer is No! The same is also true if you want to embed a PDF file. However, if you own Flash Paper then you can actually embed a document into a Captivate file.

Although you can just insert a Flash Paper document into a Captivate project an as animation; the problem here is that in many case you will find that the Flash Paper doc will get automatically resized when you preview and or publish the your project. To get around this annoying little Flash Paper quirk, carry out these steps.

Create a Captivate project with a single slide and insert the FlashPaper (FP) document as an animation so that it covers the entire slide
Make sure that both in the animation dialog and also the Project Preferences all transitions are switched off and that the loading screen option (Project preferences) is also disabled.
Publish the FP document as a SWF
Open the project file you want to add the FP document (SWF) into
Insert the published SWF file containing the FP doc as an animation
With the Animation options dialog on screen set the transition effect to No transition.
Publish your new Captivate project

View the sample file

In the example I have included in this post, I've hidden a button object behind the FlashPaper SWF file to ensure that the slide is paused. In order to advance to the next slide you would simply need to click the Forward button on the playback control.

Learn more about FlashPaper
FlashPaper Developer Articles - Part of the Adobe Contribute Developers Centre. You may need to scroll down to locate these articles.

Publishing to an Adobe Connect Server

2006-12-18T12:33:00.000Z

If you are using an Adobe Connect server, you might need to download this hot fix file that addresses a problem of Adobe Captivate 2 only supporting HTTP references.Hot Fix for Adobe Connect Server users

Read the tech note: Adobe Captivate 2 content uploaded to Adobe Connect fails to playback.

Extending Captivate Projects with Variables - Pt2

2006-11-30T22:02:00.000Z

Today's post continues on the theme of working with Variables in Adobe Captivate but this time the sample file displays the current frame plus all of the SWF frames in the Captivate project and includes a go to frame feature.

The following commands were used to create this file:

rdinfoCurrentFrame
rdinfoFrameCount
rdcmndGotoFrame

Download the Goto Frame sample file.

Macrofireball Logo

2006-11-24T20:26:00.000Z

Today sees the arrival of my new macrofireball logo. A number of people have asked me how the name "macrofireball" came about so here is why I choose that name.

macro - In memory of Macromedia Inc who first introduced me to Captivate. At the time the product was then still called RoboDemo and for those interested it was George Fox - Dev Center Editor for Dreamweaver who first told me about this incredible application.

fireball - because of the way Captivate was taken my career to a new level and given me opportunity to work on projects I could of only dreamed of.

ball - cos' it is round.

Extending Captivate Projects with Variables - Pt1

2006-11-21T14:13:00.000Z

Working for a company that develops software which integrates with Adobe software such as Dreamweaver, Adobe Connect and Contribute certainly made me wonder if there was any way of extending Adobe Captivate. Whilst Captivate does not include the ability install new components into the application the same way that you can with other Adobe products there are still ways using ActionScript code to communicate with Adobe Captivate and thus additional functionality. You can learn more about these in the Adobe Captivate 2 User Guide on pages 147 through to 148.

Before I go any further I would like to pause and offer my deepest thanks to my good friend Gaurav Satija who has kindly steered me through the murky waters of ActionScript. Gaurav your a pal!

To demonstrate this, let’s start with something very simple. Each of the Playback controls you add to your Captivate projects include an information box, not a lot of Captivate users tend to use and from what I gather even fewer end users ever bother to click on the Info button.

However, this still is a useful feature. This is especially true if you are creating section 508-compliant projects since project information such as the description can be read by a screen reader such as JAWs for Windows. Just as an aside the description is also useful if you are publishing to an Adobe Connect Server since content of this field is also used as your project summary.

To accomplish this all you would have to do is create a new Flash file with a small amount of ActionScript code that includes the following:
rdcmndInfo == 0 rdcmndInfo = 1

In plain English this means that if the Info box has an equality value of 0 or in other word is closed then set its value to 1 and open it.

You can see this in action by clicking on the graphic shown below

Ok, well that is all well and good, but now let’s move onto some a little more exciting.

For example let’s say that whilst testing your Captivate projects you would like to display the current slide, the total number of slides in your project and a previous and next button to boot. Well, using the following four commands you can:

rdcmndPrevious – Go to Previous Slide
rdcmndNextSlide – Go to Next Slide
rdinfoCurrentSlide - Slide currently playing
rdinfoSlideCount – Number of slides in the project

To see this in action please click on the image shown below.

Now, if you are reading this and thinking well this is all well and good but I don’t know ActionScript code and I have no desire to learn either, well the good news is that for the most part you won’t have to. Adobe Community Expert Paul Dewhurst. has already created a ton of Captivate widgets that you can just download and then insert as animation objects into your Captivate projects. Many of these have been around since Captivate 1 but Paul has already started creating some new widgets that take advantage of the new features available in Captivate 2 including one widget that automatically opens closed captions. Something I will be using in my future audio blog posts.

Feel free to use this SWF file in your own projects. Simply download it. Insert it as an animation in your Captivate project and set it's display to Rest of slide.

Training Simulation Project

2006-11-20T17:19:00.000Z

I'm still crafting out my next big posting so in the meantime here is a link to one of the big interactive simulation projects I worked on last year for Adobe (at the time Macromedia Inc)

Getting Started with Dreamweaver 8

All comments welcome.

Macrofireball's Captivate Articles

2006-11-14T20:26:00.000Z

The blog post that I was hoping to share today is going to need some more work, so in the meantime here is a list of the Captivate articles I have written over the last 18 months.

Adobe Captivate 2

Using the Library Panel in Adobe Captivate 2

Captivate 1

Creating Audio blog posts with Adobe Captivate 2

2006-10-31T08:22:00.000Z

Following a number of requests todays post outlines how to create an audio blog post using Adobe Captivate 2.

On Tour with Adobe UK

2006-10-29T17:10:00.000Z

I’ve just finished the first leg of the Adobe Acrobat 8 Tour where I had the privilege of introducing attendees to Adobe Captivate 2 and demonstrate how Captivate fits in the Adobe Connect family. This first leg of the tour took place in London in Regents Park. As you can probably tell from my previous blog posts I love talking about Captivate and it is always a joy when I have the opportunity to introduce new users to the program; not to mention showing existing Captivate developers some of the many new features that Adobe have introduced in Captivate 2 not to mention showing how Captivate 2 can be integrated into the Adobe Connect (formerly Macromedia Breeze) workflow.

The next leg of the tour takes me to Leeds on November 9 followed by Manchester 28 November so for those who are registered for those dates I look forward to seeing you there.

Without this sounding like the award ceremony at the Oscars I do want to take this opportunity to also thank all those who attended my sessions in Regents Park and to Adobe UK for making me feel so welcome. I look forward to catching up with you again later this month.

An Adobe Captivate 2 Audio Blog Post.

2006-10-17T17:13:00.000+01:00

In the second my blog posts today. I demonstrate how Adobe Captive 2 can be used to podcast. The possibilites here are endless and as somebody who spends a considerable time narrating you can expect to see alot of these sorts of posts in the near future.

Click on the graphic to launch the Adobe Captivate file.

Text Area boxes in Adobe Captivate project files, surely not!

2006-10-16T08:34:00.000+01:00

Last weeks lack of posts were primarily due a project on teaching WebAssist users how they can customizing pure CSS layouts generated using SiteAssist 3.0. In a couple of the segments of this tutorial series I really wanted learners to have the opportunity to grab the customized CSS code that we had used to customize the web page layouts but how to do that in Adobe Captivate? Well the simple answer is that in Adobe Captivate alone you just cannot do it the solution was create these in Flash 8 using the Text Area component and add them to my project file.

This is something that I had experimented with in Captivate 1.0 and although I could insert the published text area component (SWF) as an animation when I tried and preview the text area just would not show. Publishing didn’t help that much either. In a published file although the text in the text area box was there, the learner couldn’t see it and asking them to select what appeared to be invisible text and pasting this into a text file just didn’t sit right with me.

In Adobe Captivate 2, the text area component is handled much better, the text area and the text is rendered correctly either when you preview and publish as a SWF or you publish to Adobe Connect Professional.

One thing that you have to bear in mind is that when you publish locally you must include the published text area SWF. Internally I believe that Captivate references the published component the same way the program does with Flash video files. Something I found out when I sent my test Captivate 2 file to my colleague and good friend Joseph Lowery, only to find that Joe could not see the text area / code box I had inserted into my Captivate project file.

Below are two sample files that show this technique in practice. Although the ActionScript code included in the sample Flash file works, I have since found a better way to handle CSS in Flash, which I will make available once I have had the chance to do some more testing.

Using the Library in Adobe Captivate 2

2006-10-06T08:17:00.000+01:00

Want to find out all about the new Library panel in Adobe Captivate 2, then read my latest Captivate article now available at the Captivate Developer Center.

Adobe Captivate 2 in anger

2006-09-27T14:07:00.000+01:00

No this isn’t a rant about problems with Adobe Captivate 2, far from it. I have just finished creating my first real-world project, the WebAssist.com solution recipe PayPal Websites Payments Pro. Using any piece of software on a real project (opposed to testing the software during the development cycle) can be a daunting experience. Does the software live up to it’s expectations? Do the new features really improve the user’s workflow and most importantly when used under normal working conditions does the application remain stable?

Well, in the case of Adobe Captivate 2 I am happy to say that this project the program performed really well. I am still amazed at how quickly Captivate 2 saves project files, even those that during development consisted of over 140 slides still saved in a fraction of the time they used to in Captivate 1 and, as for the new Library feature – well you’re going to have to wait a little while longer before I talk about that one.

Transparent Text Captions

2006-09-20T21:18:00.000+01:00

Today’s Adobe Captivate 2 feature is transparent text captions. Transparent text captions, I hear you say! What possibly could be so exciting about these? Well in Adobe Captivate 2 if you need to create a transparent text caption and you want your text color to be say white, the Text Captions dialog box temporarily fills the background with a color so that you can see what you are typing! How much do I love this feature? More than words can say!

Preview Next X Slides

2006-09-19T08:41:00.000+01:00

Today’s Adobe Captivate 2 feature focuses on Previewing. When working on a project there as many instances when you only want to preview a certain amount of slides; although with Captivate 1.x you could preview the next five slides, there were many occasions when this simply wasn’t enough.

To address this issue in Adobe Captivate 2 you the user can now specify how many next slides the program should preview.

Another option in this dialog, is the ability to specify the default duration for newly created blank, image and question slides.

Keyboard shortcuts

2006-09-13T12:59:00.000+01:00

One of the reasons why I decided to start using Captivate over other screen recording tools was because Captivate enabled me to create truly interactive simulations. For the past 8 years, I had been creating video-based tutorials for my former employer Virtual Training Company.

Whilst I have nothing against creating demonstration tutorials, the chance to create interactive simulations was something that for many years I had wanted to explore. So, needless to say having discovered Captivate and been offered the chance to create some interactive content, I leapt at the opportunity.

Last year one of the interactive projects I got to work on was the Dreamweaver 8 Getting Started series. Whilst Captivate enabled me to create a “fairly realistic” series of tutorials, I kept hitting two major problems:

I could not attach a key board shortcut and a mouse click to the same object
I was not able take advantage of the numeric keypad.

Thankfully, in Adobe Captivate 2 all this changes. Adobe Captivate 2 enables you to apply both a mouse click and keyboard short cut to the same object.

What is even more exciting is that you can also include the numeric keypad as part of your keyboard shortcut combination and ensures that the learner's experience is incredibly realistic!

For example it means that as well as learners being able to press say the Return key on their keyboard, they can also press the Enter key on the numeric keypad instead, which of course, is what many users in the real world do!

Automatic Slide Branching

2006-09-12T19:30:00.000+01:00

Today, I want to focus on another of the Adobe Captivate 2 feature set: Slide Navigation.

Although Captivate 1.0 you could send a learner to another branch (part / section) in your project, using interaction objects such as click boxes, text entry boxes etc; if a learner landed on say slide 20 and you wanted to send them to say slide 45, and you didn’t want them to interact with the project, you were pretty well sunk.

In Adobe Captivate 2, the Captivate team has dealt with this limitation by including automatic slide branching. Now, if the learner lands on slide 75 and you want to send them to say slide 25 you can do so by simply setting the Slide navigation option to Jump to Slide 25 in the Slide Properties dialog.

The complete range of navigation options are:

Go to previous slide
Go to next slide
Jump to slide
Open URL or file
Open other project
Send e-mail to
Execute JavaScript

The level of flexibility this offers is truly breath taking and provides Captivate developers with the ability to create paths that can seamlessly merge back onto a path in a previous or main section.

Adobe Captivate 2 eSeminar Series

2006-09-12T08:22:00.000+01:00

Interested in learning about the exciting new features in Adobe Captivate 2, then sign up for the Adobe Captivate 2 one-hour online interactive seminar (09/13/2006 - 11/29/2006) and learn about the benefits of the new version of this awesome software .Plus you will also have the opportunity to get your questions regarding Adobe Captivate 2 answered to!

Sign up for the Adobe Captivate 2 eSeminar Series.

Adobe Captivate 2: Edit view

2006-09-10T18:47:00.000+01:00

Today, I will reveal some of the cool new features that you will find in the Adobe Captivate 2 Edit view.

Open Adobe Captivate 2 and the first thing that you will notice is that at the very top of the view you now have a toolbar. This offers a convenient way to perform basic tasks such as cutting, copying, arranging objects, displaying object and slide properties as well as showing/hiding the grid and snapping objects to the grid. Over on the right hand side of the tool bar is a magnification menu enabling you to zoom in and out of your slide – you can also choose Best Fit.

However, this is one extra little surprise. Select any object and you will notice that the position and size text fields also appear. This means that for the first time you can position and size your objects with pixel level accuracy.

Adobe Captivate 2 also makes the Slide notes much easier to discover as these are now located at the bottom of the Adobe Captivate 2, application window.

Another great addition in Adobe Captivate 2 is the ability to float the Filmstrip. This is an ideal feature for those who have two monitors or very large screens. Simply tear-off the Filmstrip, drag it to the desired location and resize it.

Lastly, one of the great little new tools is the Go to Slide option. Located in the Edit menu and available by pressing Ctrl + Shift + G, this ensures that have to scroll through the Filmstrip trying to locate the desired slide is a thing of the past. It might be a small feature but it is a great timesaving tool that many Captivate users will be thankful for.

Meet the Adobe Captivate 2 Development team

2006-09-08T12:30:00.000+01:00

Today, instead of looking at the Edit view, I have decided to share the Excellent Captivate 2 file created by Adobe Captivate 2 Quality Engineer - Randeep Singh.

This rocks and shows the type of amazing presentations you can create with Adobe Captivate 2! A big thanks to Randeep for letting me link to this.

Adobe Captivate 2 - Quiz Sample

2006-09-07T14:11:00.000+01:00

For all those who create quizzes in Captivate here is a sample Quiz created in Adobe Captivate 2.

>Creating quizzes used to drive me nuts, you could never get contents of the question slides to align correctly and although you could apply a background image to the questions because the Results slide was only generated at run-time (when you preview or publish) typically many Captivate users would just leave this slide with it's default white background color.

Well, with Adobe Captivate 2 all that changes, as you now have the ability to position all your slide objects with pixel-level precision and most importantly the Results slide is now included in the Edit view so adding background image and aligning your result object in their desired locations is no longer a problem.

Adobe Captivate 2 - Recording - Pt 2

2006-09-07T09:07:00.000+01:00

Full Motion Recording in Adobe Captivate 2
The biggest full motion capture improvement is that technically, there isn't any maximum length; essentially the only restriction is the performance of your computer system. If your full motion recording is very long, Captivate will simply split the full motion recording into multiple slides.

Adobe Captivate 2 also includes the ability to automatically create full motion recordings using mouse wheel actions.

Monday: The Edit view

First Adobe Captivate 2 Sample file

2006-09-06T19:52:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I couldn't wait any longer. Here is the first Adobe Captivate 2 sample file. To see the file in action, just click on the image shown below.

In this example I show the following

The new Adobe Captivate 2 Skin and menu feature
The Zoom Area effect
Fill outer area Highlights
Closed Captioning with Interactive objects such as Click boxes.

A big thanks to Joseph Lowery - Author of the Dreamweaver 8 Bible for letting me use one of the original Dreamweaver 8 Bible techniques to demonstrate these features.

Adobe Captivate 2 - Recording - Pt1

2006-09-05T20:44:00.000+01:00

With the announcement of Adobe Captivate 2 and having received permission from Silke (Product Manager for Captivate) I am delighted to be able to create my first post on key new features in Captivate 2.

Below is the first list of key new Recording features:

Pause during Capture: In Adobe Captivate 2 you can press the Pause key on your keyboard to move the red capture rectangle and then resume the capture by pressing the Pause key again.
Instant Text Entry Boxes: With Adobe Captivate 2 whenever you are auto-recording you can automatically add text entry boxes for text boxes.
Record actions in real time: With this new feature if it takes you 20 seconds to click on say a button then the resulting slide will be 20 seconds long.

Tomorrow - More on Recording.

Introducing Adobe Captivate 2

2006-09-05T09:20:00.000+01:00

Well it is official, Adobe has announced Adobe Captivate 2. This is an amazing new version of Captivate and the main reason why I decided to create this blog! Over the next few days and weeks I will be posting lots of exciting information on Captivate 2 and samples, so, stay tuned!

Congratulations to all members Adobe Captivate 2 team, you have done us proud. A special word of thanks to Kenneth and Silke [you know why :-) ] I really appreciate all the support you have provided!

Update: The Adobe Captivate 2 product page is now live!

Right-Click menu article for Captivate

2006-09-04T15:48:00.000+01:00

Today whilst trawling around the Captivate Developer's Center, I came across a new Right-Click menu article - Using Animations to Extend Macromedia Captivate for Right-Click Capability. This technique uses an animation to enable Captivate users to add right-click functionality to their projects. If you haven't seen this one yet, it is definitely worth taking a look! I've only done some basic testing on the techniques used but so far, so good!

Macrofireball Lives

2006-08-29T08:53:00.000+01:00

In preparation for some exciting news about one of my favorite Adobe applications Macromedia Captivate, here is the first post from my new blog "Macrofireball"