Month: February 2010

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Transparency and Flash in Dreamweaver

by Mark Snyder

Maybe you have been here before. You are asked to add a rotating photo gallery to the home page of your organization's website and they provide you with a nice set of horizontal photos. You size your flash movie to match the photos exactly and quickly timeline a nice fading rotation and place it on the homepage.

You are feeling pretty good about yourself until the boss decides to get creative and sends a bunch of photos. They are a horrible mess of randomly cropped images that don't fit your neat horizontal layout. You drop them in anyway and of course you are left with the background of you flash movie obliterating the stylish ghosted image or background color on the site. This is because by default Dreamweaver sets the window mode to "opaque."

Click here to see a sample showing the problem.

Don't despair, the solution is sitting right in the SWF properties palette in Dreamweaver CS4. Just choose transparent from the Wmode drop-down menu.

Choose transparent from the Wmode drop-down menu

The SWFs background will be ignored (the background color or background image of your site will show through). This process will even composite filters and transparency within the html file! Click here to see the result.

Note: This transparency option is also where you want to look if you are having problems with CSS/XHTML menus showing up BEHIND your flash movies. Just change the "wmode" parameter from "opaque" to "transparent" by editing the code or using the property palette and your problems will be behind you.

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Looking to master Flash CS4 quickly. Join Mark for a live, online instructor-led class. Click here for details.

***

About the author: Mark Snyder has been working in the computer graphics field for more than 25 years and has more than 20 years of instructional experience. He is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology and has been creating interactive multimedia in the Washington DC area since the early 90s. His clients include the Smithsonian, NASA, The Wilderness Society and many more. Mark is an Adobe Certified Flash and Photoshop expert and an Adobe Certified Instructor. He is especially adept at teaching very technical subjects in a fun and exciting way.

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Adobe RoboHelp 8: Avoid Recent Project Confusion

by Kevin Siegel  

So
there you are, looking at the Adobe RoboHelp recent projects list when
you run face-first into a confusing dilemma: you accidentally opened
the backup version of your project from the server. You closed the
backup right away but now both versions of your project appear in the
recent projects list.

RoboHelp 8 recent projects list

Hmmmm…
if you use your mouse to point to each of the project names in the
list, you will see the location of each project. Problem solved. Simply
read the destination and ensure you open the correct version of the
project. Of course, if you're like me, you are often in a rush to get
the project open and get your work done. It would be a shame to open
the wrong project.

Wouldn't it be better to simply remove the unwanted project from the recent projects list? I think so… and here's how

  1. Choose Tools > Options.
  2. On the General tab, select the project you do not want to accidentally open from the Most recently used project area.
  3. Click the Delete button (don't worry, clicking the Delete
    button will not delete the project… instead, it will simply remove
    the reference from the recent projects area).

    Delete a project from the recently projects list

  4. Click the OK button.

    And just like that, the project that was causing all of the stress will be missing from the recent project list.


 ***


Looking to learn RoboHelp quickly? Join my live, online and instructor-led RoboHelp class. Click here for more information.

Worried
about your class canceling? You'll be happy to hear that IconLogic
never, ever cancels classes (even if there's just one student
registered).

***


Follow Kevin on Twitter: http://twitter.com/iconlogic.

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Adobe FrameMaker: Working with Fixed Spaces in a Document

by Barbara Binder



When most of us think of spaces, we think of pressing the
spacebar and moving on. Did you know that FrameMaker supports additional
spaces? Em, en, figure, thin and non-breaking spaces are all available if you
just know how to ask for them. Unlike spacebar spaces, which are proportional to
the characters around them and can expand and contract when you justify a
paragraph, these five spaces are all fixed width spaces.

Here's a quick list for you:

Em space Esc spacebar m (or Control+Shift+ Spacebar)

An em space is typically the width of a capital letter M in any given
typeface. In FrameMaker, if your type is set to 12 pts, the em space is 12
points wide. I use them when I want a big fat space and I don't feel like
setting a tab. In the first image below, the run-in head is separated by a
spacebar space. In the second image, it's an em space.

em Space

En space Esc spacebar n (or Control+Alt+Spacebar)

An en space is half the width of the M space in any given typeface. For
example, in 12 point type, the en space is 6 pts wide. I use them when I want a
fixed space and I don't feel like setting a tab.
In the image below, the run-in head is separated by an en
space.

en Space

Thin space Esc spacebar t

The thin space in FrameMaker is 1/12th the width of an en space.
Continuing with the example of 12 point type, the thin space would be 1 point
wide. My personal preference is to space out my em dashes with thin spaces on
both sides. The first image below shows em dashes without any spacing around
them, the second image shows thin spaces on either side.

Thin Space

Figure space Esc spacebar 1 (one)

The figure space is the width of the number zero in any given typeface. This
one is really handy for scooting the numbers in a table over so that the
varying columns line up on the right hand side, when I don't feel like setting
a tab. In both images, the numbers all have a center alignment. In the first
image, the first two cells have fewer digits than the rest, and the center alignment
is apparent. In the second image, I inserted a figure space at the beginning of
the first two cells, and everything lines up perfectly.

Figure Spaces

Non-breaking space Esc spacebar h (or Control +space)

A non-breaking space is used to keep two words from breaking across lines.
In the first image, the number 6 is all alone on the line. In the second image,
a non-breaking space was added between May and the number 6, so now they both
move to the next line together.

Non-breaking space

***


If you are new to FrameMaker and want to get up to speed quickly, join IconLogic's instructor-led, online Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 9 class. Too elementary for your skill level? How about the Advanced FrameMaker 9 class? Hope to "see" you there.

***


About the author: Barbara
Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara
has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by
Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

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Reader Feedback: PureText is Pure Heaven

Last week I ran an article about removing text formatting from Captivate text captions. That prompted this email from
Bill
Creitz:

I,
too, used to run copied text through Notepad to remove the formatting. I eventually
stumbled across a free utility, PureText, that replaces the multi-step Notepad approach with a single keyboard
shortcut. With this utility, the routine is [Ctrl] [C] to copy, then
[Windows] [V] to paste unformatted text. It's a rare day that I don't use
PureText at least a few times.

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mLearning: A Lesson in Real Estate

A principle real estate theory: buy property in a less valuable, but up and coming neighborhood at a cheap price and reap the benefits down the road when everyone else catches on to the area's value. Relatively common knowledge that should perhaps be applied to the mLearning craze?

According to T+D's January issue, despite the buzz around mLearning, programs delivered on mobile learning devices are still the least frequently used of the eLearning practices, which seems to signal that there's been much ado about nothing. Basically businesses are looking at these mobile technologies and saying, "Wow, that's great. But we're still not gonna use it."

But not so fast.

According to The New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE's 2010 Horizon Report, mobile computing is slated for universal adoption in a year or less. Some educational institutions have already implemented mobile learning as par for the course. Purdue University's Hotseat encourages students to participate in open source discussions both in and out of the classroom as well as enables class participation in lecture halls, etc via mobile device.

At Abilene Christian University, all 2009 incoming freshmen were issued an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch for personal as well as academic use. Students are able to participate in impromptu quizzes, ask questions and use a dictionary wiki in class to enrich their learning experience.

The latest from Gartner predicts that by 2013, web-enabled phones will exceed PCs worldwide, 1.83 billion to 1.78 billion. And, not long after that, in 2015, phones will be the most popular method of Web browsing.

Complete mobile takeover isn't here yet. But, without a doubt, it's coming.

Moral of the story: now's the time to get a firm hold of mLearning before the new three-story shopping mall pops up down the street from the new Super Walmart and you have to fight for parking in your own neighborhood.

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About the author: AJ George, a cum laude graduate of Towson University, is IconLogic's lead Technical Writer and author of the book "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and the soon-to-be released "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials." You can follow AJ on Twitter at http://twitter.com/andrayajgeorge.

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Adobe Captivate: Captivate vs. Presenter

This question arrived in my inbox last week:

Question:

In your Advanced Captivate class you talked about importing PowerPoint files into Captivate. I am curious as to what the advantage of doing this is over using Adobe Presenter.

Answer:

Generally speaking, you would use Presenter if you wanted to take existing PowerPoint presentation into an LMS (with SCORM data and even include a quiz). You would import PowerPoint presentations into Captivate (bypassing Presenter) if you wanted to use Captivate to add interactivity not available in PowerPoint, and then make the content SCORM compliant (for uploading into an LMS). For more information, review this page and see how Captivate and Presenter are compared.

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Adobe Captivate: Need an Unlisted Symbol?

Need to insert symbols into your text captions and don't see them listed among the available symbols? Check this out… you can insert the symbol in Microsoft Word, copy the symbol to the clipboard and then paste it back into the Captivate caption. Alternatively, export the captions from Captivate to Word, insert the symbol in Word and then import the captions back into the Captivate project.

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Green Screen on a Shoestring: Part IV, Captivate Implementation

by John Gillmore and Bucky Dodd  

In the previous three parts of this series, we explained the general green screen production process, provided a purchasing checklist for obtaining the equipment and software needed to produce green screen videos, and discussed the process for recording, editing, processing, and encoding videos with a transparent background.
In this fourth and final section we outline the process and best practices for using a produced green screen video in an Adobe Captivate 4 project.

STEP 1: Open your Captivate 4 project, navigate to the slide where you would like to insert the green screen video and choose Insert > Flash Video.

STEP 2: On the Flash Video tab, choose the type of video you would like to add. There are three types of FLV files you can import: Progressive Download Video, Streaming Video and Flash Video Streaming Service.

Progressive Download Video. These are external FLV files that load and play back when users view the video. (The video will begin playing as soon as the first part has been downloaded and cached to the user's computer. Since the video is external and not actually inserted into the project, it's relatively easy for you to update the video content.

Streaming Video. These videos play from either your own server running the Flash Media Server or from a host Flash Video Streaming Service. When viewing your video, students use a connection to the Flash Communication Server. Using Streaming Video, you could include a live video feed in your Captivate project.

Flash Video Streaming Service. This is the most effective way to deliver FLV files to the largest possible audience without having to worry about setting up and maintaining your own streaming server hardware and network. (Caution: The FLV files will not play if your finished project is hosted on a Windows 2003 Web server.)

Note: If you have hired a company to develop Flash animations for you, make sure that you let them know that FLV files intended to be imported into Captivate must contain metadata for the video player to function correctly and play the videos. If you create FLV files with Flash Communication Server 1.5.2, FLV Exporter version 1.2, and Sorenson Squeeze 4.0 (included with the Flash Video Kit), the metadata is automatically added.

In this case, we used the Progressive Download Video option since we were not using a streaming server.

STEP 3: Use the Browse button in the File Link area and open the Flash Video you want to use.

STEP 4: Select the type of play bar skin you would like to place over the video. You can also choose None to remove the playbar.

STEP 5: Set the size of the video to something smaller than the size of the slide. When resizing, be sure Constrain (which allows the video to be re-sized while keeping the correct aspect ratio) is selected.

STEP 6: Select the Auto Play and/or Auto Rewind options by selecting the checkbox for the options you would like to enable.

Flash Video import dialog box

STEP 7: On the Options tab, ensure Visible is selected (you would only deselect this option if you want the video to be hidden when the slide opens).

STEP 8: Modify the Timing options for your lesson. Ensure Pause slide until end of video is selected.

STEP 9: Change the Transition effect option to No transition (transition effects can cause myriad fade-in and fade-out problems on your slides) and then click OK.

Conclusion

This series has discussed the process and best practices associated with producing and using green screen video content in Adobe Captivate projects. While the production process for green screen video can be detailed, the instructional rewards are significant.

Here are some links to additional information and examples of green screen videos:

Green Screen Production information sheet

Are You Ready 4 Online Learning?

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Looking to create killer eLearning lessons with Adobe Captivate? Join one of IconLogic's Captivate classes, or contact IconLogic for custom group or onsite training rates. Click here for more information about IconLogic's 2-day Captivate Essentials class. Looking for more Advanced Captivate 4 training? Click here for more information.

Worried about your class canceling? You'll be happy to hear that IconLogic never, ever cancels classes (even if there's just one student registered).

***

About the authors: John Gillmore is an Instructional Technologist with the University of Oklahoma's Center for Professional and Distance Education (CPDE). In this role, John researches, analyzes and evaluates new technologies for potential applications in instruction; promotes the implementation of technological innovations; creates demonstrations of instructional applications of technologies; and provides assistance to faculty, staff and administrators who have instructional technology needs. In addition, John teaches freshman information systems courses at UCO. John has a B.S. in Business Information Systems from the University of Phoenix and an MBA from UCO.

Bucky Dodd is an instructional designer at the Center for Professional and Distance Education at the University of Central Oklahoma.  His professional interests include innovation in eLearning, workplace learning and performance trends, and instructional design.  Mr. Dodd has instructional design and consulting experience in both public and private organizations.  He holds a B.A. in Corporate Communication and a M.Ed. in Adult Education from the University of Central Oklahoma.

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Acrobat 9: Changing Properties of Multiple Objects

by David R. Mankin

I recently had a student in an Acrobat class pose an excellent question. She was a teacher. She had a PDF file of a student's work. Other students had posted comments on the file as critiques. The file's author was unknown to the critical participants, but each comment left on the file was easily identifiable by an author's name.

Once the comments were completely applied, she wanted to remove any unique author's name from the comments. She knew that she could change the author's name for each comment individually by right-clicking a comment, selecting Properties and changing the author's name on the General tab. Not hard, but her file had dozens of pages and more than 100 comments. She was stumped, and knew she didn't want to apply the changes one at a time.

My solution was to have her open the Comments panel. I had her select any of the comments in the Comments Panel. Next she pressed [Ctrl] [A] to select all of the comments.

By right-clicking the now selected comments and choosing Properties, the Properties dialog box represented (and controlled) the properties of the selected comments.

Finally, I had her type Anonymous into the author field of the General Tab. This step quickly changed the Author for all of the comments.

Anonymous Author

It's worth noting that with the comments all selected, one could universally change the icon, color and opacity of the selected comments.

Quick and easy. Without this trick, she would have spent hours adjusting comment properties individually. With this trick… done in a flash!

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Looking for Acrobat training? Join David for a live, 2-day online class. Click here for more information.


***
 
About the author: David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. And if that wasn't enough, of course David is an Adobe-certified expert in Adobe Acrobat.
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Mobile at a Glance

I'm a visual learner. To truly grasp a concept I need to have it displayed right in front of me. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a mobile industry ticker showing me, in real time, just how fast mobile technology was expanding? Indeed, it probably would. And I suppose Gary Hayes of Personalize Media agrees, as he created a Mobile Industry Counter that tracks up to the minute statistics on such things as the number of new mobile phones shipped, number of iPhones sold, and the number of hours of video watched using mobile devices.

~ AJ George