October 2008 – Page 3 – The Logical Blog

October 13, 2008

Questions of the Week

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Can Captivate 2 Open Captivate 3 Project Files?

One of our team members is using Captivate 2 and one is using Captivate 3. Money is tight so we'd rather not upgrade across-the-board to Captivate 3 right now. Can Captivate 3 write files in Captivate 2 format?

Answer

Nope. Captivate 3 can open Captivate 2 (and update the version 2 project to version 3). However, Captivate 3 is in no way backwards compatible.

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: How Can I Get a Name onto a Certificate?

We need to prompt for a student name and then embed the name in a "certificate of course completion" and in an email to the training administrator (saying that this student completed the course). I gather that extending Captivate with Flash is one solution, but if there's an obscure but brilliant way of doing this in Captivate then I'd like to know about it.

Answer

You can create a text entry box with no correct answers. Students would be instructed to type in their name. After that, set your Quiz preferences to include User interaction. When you look at the emailed or posted results, you will see what they typed. I have an article about this on my BLOG.

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Can I Stop Question Slides from Numbering?

I wonder how I can delete that information "Question 1 of 10" or "Question 10" from the bottom of Captivate Quizzes. Could you possibly help?

Answer:

Show your Quiz Preferences. Under the Settings category, deselect Show Progress.

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Can I Gray Out Part of the Screen?

I am currently working on a project where I am walking staff through a new Portal being implemented across our department. I will be using the actual portal and walking around the features for a portion of the modules and although the pages of the portal are well designed and set out, I am looking for a way to make my captions and actions, stand out over the other features of the page.

I know and have used the highlight function previously, but rather than just place a box and effectively increase the transparency of the highlighted field, is there a way to increase the transparency of the whole screen, keeping the highlighted area in sharp focus?

Answer:

You are referring to a "reverse" highlight box. Show the Properties of a highlight box and select Fill Outer Area. Let me know if that accomplishes what you are trying to do.

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Can I Customize the "About" Screen?

Is there a way to remove the Captivate splash (seen via the "I" button on the playbar) and replace it with your own corporate identity?

Answer:

You can do it, but you'd need Flash and Flash/ActionScript skills to get the job done since there isn't a solution directly through Captivate. Instead, consider loading a playbar that does not display the "I" button. You can download the playbar here (click the last link on the page).

MenuBuilder Question: Is There Anything Out There for Creating Menus Besides MenuBuilder?

I'm building some training CDs out of materials that we already had completed and I'm using MenuBuilder to make the cd menus. It seems a bit limiting and I was looking into other menu building software. Any suggestions?

Answer:

Here is a link to the only other tool I can think of (short of creating one yourself in Flash or via a Web application like Dreamweaver).

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Is There a Standalone Publish Format for the Mac?

I've developed a movie that our users (financial advisors) can send on a CD to their clients to help explain life planning. I've also done a SWF file that advisors can use on their Web site. This weekend, I ran the movie by a good friend of mine for his critical evaluation. He ran it on his MAC, which had to start Windows to play it. Is there any way that I can save a Captivate movie (and MAC equivalent of an .inf file) so that my .exe file plays on a MAC? If so, could I have both the .inf and .exe files and the MAC equivalent on the same CD? I would like our advisors to be able to send out the CD and have it run seamlessly, regardless of what kind of computer their clients have.

Answer:

Older versions of Captivate had a standalone format you could publish for the Macintosh (HQX instead of EXE). The HQX format was removed in Captivate 3 (I do not know why). Your only option for the Mac user is to publish SWFs.

Question: Can I Have Captivate Email What Users Type in a Text Entry Box?

I need to have Captivate, at the end of a project, email me not only the scores from a quiz but also the answers that were entered. Basically this is like a survey project where there's no right or wrong answer. However, the only thing I can get it to send me in an email is scores. Is it possible to make this happen without some kind of LMS system?

Answer:

Yes, you can set your Quiz preferences to include interaction. Also, set your LMS reporting to email. If you select attachment, and use your email address, you will receive the quiz results in the form of an email attachment (an ATT file). You can then use our utility (CaptivateMyData) to grab the data in the attachment and drop it into Excel, Access or a text file.

Got a question you'd like answered? Email me.

October 13, 2008

Reader Feedback

From Russell Lash, Cisco Systems

"Regarding the Captivate 3 article in the last newsletter about the dotted or dashed lines instead of solid lines from a background image…

"The problem is not a corrupt background, but the wrong quality setting on the slide properties. Most of the time, people select High Quality from the Quality drop-down menu on the Slide Properties.

"By changing the setting down to JPEG, the problem goes away and the lines will appear normal.

"This problem usually only occurs with horizontal lines that are only 1 or 2 pixels in thickness. For projects that are demonstrations or simulations of an application, I would recommend setting the Quality to JPEG for the entire project (use the "Apply to all" setting to change the new Quality setting to all backgrounds in the project)."

***

Excellent point Russell and thanks for sending your email. Your solution is certainly quicker than mine, and less severe. However, I would recommend that developers keep my steps in the back pockets… on more than one occurrence I've seen mysterious behavior on a slide (such as a button push) that were resolved by following those steps. -kas

***

Note: Russell is a veteran Captivate developer, going back to the days of RoboDemo (RoboDemo was renamed Captivate when Macromedia acquired eHelp). Good to see that there are still a few of us veterans still out there. Remember the good old days of RoboDemo 4? There wasn't a Timeline and you couldn't even Undo mistakes–but those of us using RoboDemo still thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread!

October 13, 2008

Announcing Our Newest Book…

Integrating Adobe's Technical Communication Suite

The Adobe Technical Communication Suite (TCS) is a complete solution for authoring, managing and publishing technical information and training content in multiple formats and languages. The suite combines four powerful programs:

Acrobat 3D
Adobe FrameMaker 8
Adobe RoboHelp 7
Adobe Captivate 3

Our new book, Integrating Adobe's Technical Communication Suite will introduce you to Adobe FrameMaker, RoboHelp and Captivate and then get you up and running with the integration process. To learn more about this book, click here.

October 13, 2008

Link of the Week

Adobe Developing Flash Player for the iPhone

If you're a Flash developer who has dreamed of providing content for the iPhone, your wait may be over. According to a report published by ChannelWeb, "Paul Betlem, senior director of engineering at Adobe Systems, confirmed that Adobe is working on getting their product onto the iPhone."

The article quotes Shantanu Narayan, CEO of Adobe, as saying: "We've evaluated the SDK we can now start to develop the Flash Player ourselves. And, we think it benefits our joint customers so we want to work with Apple to bring that capability to the device."

Click here to read the entire article.

October 3, 2008

Adobe Captivate 3: What To Do When Good Backgrounds Go Bad

by Kevin A. Siegel

A fellow Captivate developer emailed me about a bothersome issue that was causing much stress. Here's the story… the whole story, and nothing but the story…

The developer (I'll call her Amanda), was working on a particular slide without issue–the background looked just fine, thank you. In fact, below is a portion of the slide background in question. It certainly looks okay.

However, when previewing or publishing the project, Amanda noticed that the slide background displayed a series of horizontal or dashed lines.

Try as she might, Amanda could not get rid of the lines (they did not appear on the slide, the slide's background, or the Timeline). It was a real gotcha! So what is a developer to do? Read on…

I've seen this kind of thing before in my own projects. I am not sure what caused them. I'm betting that the problem is likely caused by a corrupt screen capture being used by the slide background. I know, that sounds really bad. But no worries, you won't have to re-record anything to fix the problem.

Insert a blank slide after the slide with the problem
Right-click the slide with the problem and choose Copy Background
Right-click the blank slide you inserted and choose Paste as Background
Go back to the problem slide and copy all of the slide's objects from the bad slide and paste them onto the new slide
Hide the bad slide
Preview the new slide–the background issues should now be gone
Delete the hidden slide and you should be good to go

Do you have a Captivate production problem that's making you pull your hair out? Email your problem and let others learn solutions from your experience.

Want to learn more about Captivate? Click here.

October 3, 2008

Grammar Workshop: When is an Optional Comma Not Optional?

by Jennie Ruby

Use of the comma is notoriously resistant to rule-making because there are many exceptions. Once you try to set up rules for commas, you quickly find yourself in the area of grammar and usage that is more of an art than a science. Now I, for one, don't like that. I find it is much easier to write and to copyedit according to clear rules than to have to evaluate each sentence as a unique case. My method for addressing exceptions is to punctuate according to the rule and then evaluate whether the sentence really warrants an exception.

Here are two sentences I found in a recent article in The Economist:

Until recently Moreno Valley was one of the fastest-growing cities in America. (Clear)
Until recently increasing trade could be counted on to prop up the economy. (Confusing)

The phrase Until recently at the beginning of a sentence should not require a comma. The rule is that a short prepositional phrase of time or place does not require a comma. That works just fine in the first sentence. It is clear than Until recently sets up the timeframe for the entire sentence. However, in the second sentence the absence of the comma leads to misreading. The word recently can be read as modifying the participle increasing, and a reader can read eight words into the sentence before discovering that it does not. In fact, a reader can read right to the end of the sentence and be left wondering what it was that used to happen up until the time when recently increasing trade could be counted on.

A well-placed comma could prevent all that:

Until recently, increasing trade could be counted on to prop up the economy. (Clear)

Next time: more on commas needed for clarity.

About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Essentials of Access 2000" and "Editing with MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7" to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

Want help with a grammar issue? Email us your troubles and we'll turn Jennie loose!

October 3, 2008

Questions of the Week

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: Can I Score Multiple Quiz Questions on One Question Slide?

I am trying to put 5 questions and 5 (drop-down) answers in a Fill-in-the-blank slide. But if I make an error (select one of wrong answers), the score for all the 5 answers will be scored as 0. It seems that one slide is considered to be one question. Is there any way to assign an individual ID or objective ID to each question so it is handled as an individual object.

Answer:

As far as I know, you cannot do what you are trying to do on a Question slide because each question is an all or nothing proposition. However, you can assign different point values to the questions, making these kinds of questions more valuable than others. Alternatively, you could create a slide with a text entry area, enable reporting for the object, and accomplish much of what you are trying to do. In that case, the slide would not technically be a question slide, but if you enable reporting, the object would be included as part of the quiz.

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: How Many Characters will Fit in a Text Animation?

Can you tell me if a Captivate Text Animation has a maximum character allowance? I am trying to use 60 characters in one barcode animation.

Answer:

I have never tried to reach the upper-limit for characters in a text animation. However, 60 characters will not be a problem (I just tested that and it worked fine). Keep in mind that you'll have to lower your font size so that the text fits on your slide, and you will need to break the text into multiple lines by pressing [shift] [enter] at the end of each line (otherwise the text will simply be cut off on the right of the slide). And you'll need to extend your timeline to accommodate the text animation (if it's not long enough, your text animation will not have time to play).

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: How Do I Get the Results of Text Entry Box Sent via Email?

I want to include the user name within a quiz score. I've created a text entry box for the user to type in his/her name at the start of the quiz. How do I get the quiz results to include user name in my email results?

Answer:

You would set up your quiz preferences to include the user interaction.

Got a question you'd like answered? Email me.

October 3, 2008

Creative To-Do Lists

by Quinn McDonald

To-do lists can nag you or make you crazy. There are many ways to handle them, including making a list and assigning a priority number to each one, and keeping a list connected to your computer or cell phone that rings as a reminder. Neither of these works for me, as I want something really, really simple in a to-do list. While both my computer and iPhone have task lists, I use paper lists. They are portable, easily retrievable without waiting or sorting, and I can see everything at once, not on a screen.

Here are two ways to use a to-do list. Both involve 3 x 5 index cards, or 4 x 6 cards if you write big. (I turn the cards and work on them portrait-orientation.) I work on several projects at a time, so I use one card per project. Each project's name is written on the top of the card, and the to-do list underneath. When I complete an item, I cross it off so that I can read it, and put the completion date on the left side. That way I know what I completed and when.

This method lets you put all the project to-do lists next to each other and see how much work you have and which project needs to take priority. When you have a lot of projects going at the same time, it's wonderful to be able to re-arrange cards to switch priorities, without re-writing any of the cards.

When you get involved in many projects, assign one color to each project, and color code the cards to match the project. (You can also use different color cards.) Color coding gives an overview and helps you draw conclusions faster. ("A lot of blue cards, do I need to farm some of this out?" "The yellow project is due in a week. Why so few yellow cards? Am I done early, or is there something missing?")

Then there is the worry list/to-do list. If you wake up at night, unable to sleep and start worrying, make a list of things you are worrying about. Having written down the worries, you can go back to sleep. The next morning, tackle the things that need to be done.

The last to-do list is called the tag-cloud to do list. Use the same method as tag clouds–the more important a task, the bigger your handwriting. If you don't want to get involved with increasing the size of your handwriting, simply draw a box around each item on the list. The bigger the box, the more important (or worrisome, or pressing) the item. That gives you two facts at once: the item and the importance, all in one glance.

You can use a mix of these methods. Color-coding works with tag-clouding very well. Tag-clouding works with worry-list well, too. And no matter what method I choose, writing down all the things that need to get done helps me free up more memory cells.

And now, you AND your to-do list are multi-tasking.

About the Author: Quinn McDonald is a writer and nationally-known speaker who has achieved the "Professional" designation from the National Speakers Association. Contact Quinn through her website, QuinnCreative.com.

October 3, 2008

Adobe Technical Communication Suite: Recovering When RoboHelp Crashes

I've taught my Integrating Adobe's Technical Communication Suite class several times now. It's a tough class to teach because we bounce from Captivate to FrameMaker to RoboHelp and back again as we test the integration features. Most of my students would agree that taking FrameMaker book files into a RoboHelp project works very well, and is very cool.

However, I'd be less than honest if I said the integration process always goes smoothly. In fact, as I've taught the integration process to more and more clients, I've come across some RoboHelp crashes. Here is one in particular that I can help you resolve.

Just after importing a FrameMaker book file into RoboHelp by Reference, or just after updating the imported book file's settings, RoboHelp crashes.

Upon restarting RoboHelp and attempting to reopen the project, RoboHelp crashes again, and again, and again. (Or maybe the project will open but you are presented with a message about a corrupt CPD file.)

If this happens to you, follow these steps to resolve the issue (it has worked for me nearly every time):

Prior to opening the RoboHelp project, navigate to the project folder and delete the CPD file (the file will likely have the same name as your project file)
Note: Prior to deleting it, you might want to make a backup copy of the CPD file and keep it in safe place. By deleting the CPD file, much of your project structure will be lost when you reopen the project.
Start RoboHelp and open the project (this time you should not see the message about the CPD file since you deleted it… when you open the project, a new CPD file will be created)
On the Project Manager pod, delete the reference to the FrameMaker book file
Reimport the FrameMaker book file by reference and you should be set
You will need to redo your import settings and maps for the FrameMaker file, but I've found that the process takes just a few minutes and is more annoying than it is lethal.

Want to learn more about integrating Adobe's Technical Communication suite? Click here.