Allowing your learners to press the [tab] key is a great way to allow navigation in a Captivate eLearning lesson… when it works. However, if you have ever tried to include the [tab] key as a shortcut in your lessons, you have probably noticed that pressing the [tab] key can quickly take your learner right out of your lesson and all around the browser window. How frustrating! If you'd like to regain control of that pesky [tab] key read on, I have a solution for you!
The behavior that's frustrating you is called Seamless Tabbing and it allows repeated pressing of the [tab] key to extend beyond your published lesson, down to your lesson's playbar, then to the browser's address bar, toolbars and beyond.
Seamless tabbing is on by default. You can turn it off with a simple edit of your published lesson's .html file.
- Open the html file in Notepad.
- Locate the line that defines your flash movie. It will look similar to:
var so = new SWFObject("youProjectName.swf", "Captivate", "640", "511", "10", "#CCCCCC");
- Right after that line, insert this line:
so.addParam("seamlessTabbing", "false");
- Your code will now look similar to this:
var so = new SWFObject("yourProjectName.swf", "Captivate", "640", "511", "10", "#CCCCCC");
so.addParam("seamlessTabbing", "false");
Open the html file in your browser and start pressing the [tab] key. Tabbing will cycle through objects in the lesson but not jump out to your browser. The only drawback here is that you do need to edit the .html file every time you republish the project–a minor annoyance if it gets rid of a major headache.
If you know you will always want this behavior in all of your published projects, you can change the file on which your .html output is based. That file, named standard.htm is typically located at C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 4\Templates\Publish\standard.htm.
About the author: Lori Smith is IconLogic's lead programmer and Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in Adobe Captivate.
I’m working on a lesson where I would like the learner to press Ctrl + T to advance to the next slide. But in MS Explorer that opens a new browser tab. Do you know of anyway I can stop the new tab creation?
I’m working on a lesson where I would like the learner to press Ctrl + T to advance to the next slide. But in MS Explorer that opens a new browser tab. Do you know of anyway I can stop the new tab creation?
I’m working on a lesson where I would like the learner to press Ctrl + T to advance to the next slide. But in MS Explorer that opens a new browser tab. Do you know of anyway I can stop the new tab creation?
Hi Jay,
Sorry to tell you that I do not know. I’ve seen others want to bypass function keys that the browsers grab and the like. If I discover a solution in the future for issues like these, I will surely blog about it.
Hi Jay,
Sorry to tell you that I do not know. I’ve seen others want to bypass function keys that the browsers grab and the like. If I discover a solution in the future for issues like these, I will surely blog about it.
Hi Jay,
Sorry to tell you that I do not know. I’ve seen others want to bypass function keys that the browsers grab and the like. If I discover a solution in the future for issues like these, I will surely blog about it.
I’m having an issue where when the Tab key is pressed, it functions properly, but with two “side effects”.
1) It highlights the Rewind button on the Captivate navigation play bar, and
2) It causes a rollover text caption to pop up and then disappear really quick (on slides where there is a rollover caption).
Any idea why this is happening or how to fix?
I’m having an issue where when the Tab key is pressed, it functions properly, but with two “side effects”.
1) It highlights the Rewind button on the Captivate navigation play bar, and
2) It causes a rollover text caption to pop up and then disappear really quick (on slides where there is a rollover caption).
Any idea why this is happening or how to fix?
I’m having an issue where when the Tab key is pressed, it functions properly, but with two “side effects”.
1) It highlights the Rewind button on the Captivate navigation play bar, and
2) It causes a rollover text caption to pop up and then disappear really quick (on slides where there is a rollover caption).
Any idea why this is happening or how to fix?
Unfortunately Dave there is no elegant way to stop this behavior. Web browsers are merely allowing for tabbed browsing as required for keyboard accessibility. I encourage eLearning developers to avoid the TAB key and the function keys as keyboard shortcuts for this very reason. The behavior of several keyboard shortcuts varies from browser to browser and is going to force you to pull your hair out. Even if you can effect a change in IE, the change will have little or no effect on Chrome, Firefox or Safari.
Unfortunately Dave there is no elegant way to stop this behavior. Web browsers are merely allowing for tabbed browsing as required for keyboard accessibility. I encourage eLearning developers to avoid the TAB key and the function keys as keyboard shortcuts for this very reason. The behavior of several keyboard shortcuts varies from browser to browser and is going to force you to pull your hair out. Even if you can effect a change in IE, the change will have little or no effect on Chrome, Firefox or Safari.
Unfortunately Dave there is no elegant way to stop this behavior. Web browsers are merely allowing for tabbed browsing as required for keyboard accessibility. I encourage eLearning developers to avoid the TAB key and the function keys as keyboard shortcuts for this very reason. The behavior of several keyboard shortcuts varies from browser to browser and is going to force you to pull your hair out. Even if you can effect a change in IE, the change will have little or no effect on Chrome, Firefox or Safari.
I continually create e-learning for a program that uses TAB for almost everything. I have been using the “seamlessTabbing” code with great success for close to 6 months. Up until now I always published to a zip file that includes just the .html, .js and .swf files. Now however,I need to publish to Adobe Connect Pro so we can track who has completed the training. As soon as I publish this way (even though I still add the line of code to the .html file) the TAB key starts jumping to the IE address bar,etc. Any idea what I need to do to make this work when publishing to Adobe Connect Pro?
I continually create e-learning for a program that uses TAB for almost everything. I have been using the “seamlessTabbing” code with great success for close to 6 months. Up until now I always published to a zip file that includes just the .html, .js and .swf files. Now however,I need to publish to Adobe Connect Pro so we can track who has completed the training. As soon as I publish this way (even though I still add the line of code to the .html file) the TAB key starts jumping to the IE address bar,etc. Any idea what I need to do to make this work when publishing to Adobe Connect Pro?
I continually create e-learning for a program that uses TAB for almost everything. I have been using the “seamlessTabbing” code with great success for close to 6 months. Up until now I always published to a zip file that includes just the .html, .js and .swf files. Now however,I need to publish to Adobe Connect Pro so we can track who has completed the training. As soon as I publish this way (even though I still add the line of code to the .html file) the TAB key starts jumping to the IE address bar,etc. Any idea what I need to do to make this work when publishing to Adobe Connect Pro?
I’m not an Adobe Connect Pro user so I have no idea why seamless tabbing doesn’t work there. Have you posted this to the Connect and Captivate forums? Great people there so I’d give that a shot.
I’m not an Adobe Connect Pro user so I have no idea why seamless tabbing doesn’t work there. Have you posted this to the Connect and Captivate forums? Great people there so I’d give that a shot.
I’m not an Adobe Connect Pro user so I have no idea why seamless tabbing doesn’t work there. Have you posted this to the Connect and Captivate forums? Great people there so I’d give that a shot.
This code is not working for me. As a matter of fact, when I try to open the edited htm file in a browser all I see is the htm background color I chose.
This code is not working for me. As a matter of fact, when I try to open the edited htm file in a browser all I see is the htm background color I chose.
This code is not working for me. As a matter of fact, when I try to open the edited htm file in a browser all I see is the htm background color I chose.
Hi, all:
If anyone has a solution that works with Captivate 6, please share it!
Thanks!
Hi, all:
If anyone has a solution that works with Captivate 6, please share it!
Thanks!
Hi, all:
If anyone has a solution that works with Captivate 6, please share it!
Thanks!