Adobe Captivate 3: What to Do When Links to External Projects Break


I've received a significant number of emails from Captivate developers who
are having fits linking one Captivate project to another.
 
While linking projects together is a relatively simple process, and can be
accomplished in more than one way (via a button, click box or end of project
settings), the broken link problem won't present itself during the testing
phase.
 
After publishing the project and the external projects, and then testing
the links, many developers report that they are greeted with a less than
friendly "Page Cannot Be Displayed" message. Why? More often than not, the
culprit behind the broken links is one of the following:

  1. Published files go to different folders. The source project
    and external projects must be published to the same root folder. (External
    projects, also known as targets, are those projects being
    linked to.)

    For example, if you link Project1 to Project2, Project1 is
    the source and Project2 is the target. You
    will need to publish both projects into the same folder.

    However, what
    typically happens during the publish phase of development is that Captivate
    projects are published into individual folders. In that case, clicking a link to
    the target from within source will not work. Why? The link inside the source
    won't be able to drill into the folder containing the target.

    The
    solution:
    Publish both source and target projects into the same
    folder.

  2. The Project Titles are wrong. When creating the link to an
    external project, the published file name of the external project MUST be the
    same as as the one used in the source project. While this sounds like a simple
    thing to keep straight, every time you save a Captivate project with a new name,
    the name that appears in the Project Title area changes too.

    Here's the
    scenario: I wanted to create a link in Project1 that
    automatically opens an external project called
    Project2.

    Here's how I did it:

    I opened Project1
    and chose Edit > Preferences.

    On the Start
    and End
    category, Project end options
    drop-down menu, I selected Open other project and then selected
    Project2.

    Open other project

    After that, I published the source
    project.

    All I needed to do now was publish any and all target projects
    and do a little testing.

    I opened the target project
    (Project2) and saved it with the name
    Project2_v2. (I tend to save my projects with updated names
    throughout the development process.)

    I knew I needed to publish the
    project with the Project Title Project2 because that's the name
    I used back in the source project.

    Upon clicking the
    Publish button, the Project Title changed to
    Project2_v2. Dohhhhh! If left alone, the link back in Project1
    (that will be looking for a published file called Project2) will fail during
    testing.

    Project Title (in the Publish dialog box) 

    I changed the Project Title to Project2
    and published. During the testing process, the links between the projects worked
    as expect.



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 Adobe Captivate 3? Click here.

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