Question of the Week:
"I was told never to record a Captivate movie higher than 800 x 600. I don’t recall the reasoning behind this. What are the advantages to recording at this height and width? Will the resolution make the output file bigger?"
Answer:
Determining the resolution and capture area settings for your Captivate movies is one of the most important first steps before recording any movies.
The issue of resolution is really one of usability. If your screen resolution is 1024×768 and you capture the whole screen (1024×768), users will have to scroll to keep up with your demonstration. (Even if the user’s resolution is 1024×768 since the browser’s scroll bars and menu’s will take up a chuck of that space.)
If the user’s screen resolution is 800×600, their experience is not typically a good one. The settings I recommend are a screen resolution of 1024×768 and a capture area not to exceed 800×600. Using these settings you get the best of both worlds. If 800×600 is not possible due to target software limitations, use the smallest capture area that does work.
As for file size, certainly the larger the capture area, the more pixels you capture and the larger your movies will be. However, the primary culprit behind “project bloat” is animation and, to a greater extent, audio.
Shortcut of the Week:
Kudos to Gregg J Wanciak who stumbled upon this Captivate shortcut:
"I haven’t seen this documented anywhere yet," said Gregg. "In Edit view (not Storyboard or Branching), as long as your focus is not in the Slide Notes pane, typing the letter D on your keyboard will bring up the Slide Properties."
Interesting. D for Properties. Makes perfect sense to me! How did you discover that one Gregg? You weren’t kidding about the whole "stumbled" thing, were you? It works, though. Thanks for the tip.