Month: January 2018

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ADOBE ROBOHELP: Publish to SharePoint

by Willam Van Weelden, COTP

You can host output from Adobe RoboHelp on multiple hosting platforms. When your company uses SharePoint, you can even leverage the power of SharePoint to host your help.
 
Leveraging SharePoint has a major benefit: Access control. Using SharePoint’s access control of document libraries, you can control who in your organisation can view your help system. Note that access is limited to people who have access to SharePoint, so that generally rules out clients and customers without a login to your corporate network.
 
Before you publish to SharePoint, make sure you have a Document Library in SharePoint where you have read and write rights.
 
Set up a SharePoint output
 
To create an output for SharePoint, the best results are achieved with Responsive HTML5 special SharePoint output. In the Single Source Layout settings, go to the SharePoint page. At the bottom, expand the Advanced Options section and select Generate SharePoint Native Output before Publishing.
 
 
Simply generate your output. RoboHelp will create two folders: the normal output and the SharePoint output:
 
 
Publish to SharePoint
 
RoboHelp has a built-in feature for publishing to SharePoint. Unfortunately, it only supports SharePoint 2007 and 2010/2013 on premises. If you are using SharePoint Online, the best option is to open the document library, and drag and drop the RoboHelp output. Alternatively, use the Upload Folder feature in SharePoint to upload the project.
 
 
To access the Help system from within SharePoint, open index.aspx. The help looks and works just like a regular help output. You can copy the URL of the index.aspx file to allow others to open the help immediately.
 
 
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Willam van Weelden is a Certified Online Training Professional (COTP), veteran Help Author, RoboHelp consultant, and technical writer based in the Netherlands. He is an Adobe Community Professional, ranking him among the world's leading experts on RoboHelp. Willam’s specialties are HTML5 and RoboHelp automation. Apart from RoboHelp, Willam also has experience with other technical communications applications such as Adobe Captivate and Adobe FrameMaker.
 
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ELEARNING PRODUCTION: iOS 11 Makes Mobile Demos a Snap (or a Tap)

by Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP

Not so long ago we were tasked with creating an eLearning project that included a software demonstration of an iPhone mobile app. We experimented with several techniques for capturing the app including using a program that reflected the iPhone onto the computer. (To reflect our iPhone to the computer, we used a program called, wait for it, Reflector. Once the phone and computer were on the same wireless network, it was fairly easy to get Reflector to show the mobile device on the computer. And once displayed on the computer, it was a breeze to capture the reflection. We used Adobe Captivate, but any eLearning tool will work including Articulate Storyline and TechSmith Camtasia.
 
As an alternative to reflecting the mobile device and capturing what's shown on the computer, you can create individual screen captures of an app directly on the mobile device; then you can send the images to yourself via email, Dropbox, or any one of a several file transfer capabilities available on today’s mobile devices. (Just about every modern mobile device allows you to create screen captures.)
 
The only problem with manually creating screen captures is, well, you’ll need a lot of screen captures for a software demonstration. And that brings me to the latest and greatest innovation I’ve seen in iOS 11: video demos can now be created natively on the iPhone, saved, exported just like an image (only the video is an mp4), and then imported into your favorite eLearning development tool. 
 
Here's how easy it is to record a demo on an iPhone via iOS 11: In this scenario, I'd like to demonstrate the process of enabling the Personal Hotspot feature on an iPhone. To enable recording, swipe up from the bottom of the phone. Tab the button indicated below and, three seconds later, you're recording everything you do on the device.
 
 
When finished, tap the red bar at the top of the device and your recording will be saved among your other videos and photos as an MP4. In the image below, you can see the demo I captured as it appeared in the Camera app on my iPhone.
 
 
To add the video to a Captivate project, choose Video > Insert Video. In Camtasia, go to the Media Bin, right-click, and Import Media. And in Storyline, go the Insert tab on the Ribbon and, from the Media group, click the Video drop-down menu, and then chooseVideo From File.
 
Here's the video I captured and put into YouTube. (I imported the video into Camtasia and shared it. I didn't make any edits to the video but could have easily added audio, music, callouts, animations, you name it.)
 
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Looking to learn how to create eLearning in any of the top development tools (including Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, and TechSmith Camtasia)? Check out these live, online, and highly interactive classes.
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Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the U.S. Coast Guard and in private industry, Kevin has spent decades as a technical communicator, classroom and online trainer, public speaker, and has written hundreds of computer training books for adult learners. He has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.
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LIVE, ONLINE TRAINING TIP: Highlight Your Mouse Pointer

by Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP
 
During a recent Certified Online Traning Professional certification course, I was showing my screen and telling class attendees about a cool technique I use when I want to ensure learners can see my mouse pointer.

In the animated gif image below, check out the circle that appears around my mouse. Pretty nifty, eh?

 
 
I am able to make my mouse pointer perform this little trick by simply pressing the [ctrl] key on my keyboard. Of course, this behavior isn't enabled in Windows by default. If you'd like to play along, bring up your computer's Control Panel > Change Mouse Settings (you can search mouse settings on your PC if you cannot find it right away).

On the Mouse Properties dialog box, Pointer Options tab, select Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key. Click the OK button and you're done.

 
 
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Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the U.S. Coast Guard and in private industry, Kevin has spent decades as a technical communicator, classroom and online trainer, public speaker, and has written hundreds of computer training books for adult learners. He has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.
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ELEARNING PRODUCTION: Integrating GoAnimate Animations

by Jennie Ruby, CTT, COTP

Our reader Linda Tromanhauser of ADP (Automatic Data Processing, Inc.) writes: "We often use GoAnimate videos in eLearning. One thing I discovered on my most recent project is that in Storyline, you can insert a GoAnimate and have clickable items on top of it, on the same slide. So the video plays, and then the learner can select an option. I thought that was cool."
 
That does sound cool! I have a project under way in which I will add the same kind of functionality in Captivate. But in the meantime, I figured out I could do something similar in Adobe Presenter! 
 
Adobe Presenter is a PowerPoint add-in. Taking advantage of GoAnimate’s ability to import PowerPoint, I used GoAnimate to create an animated teacher for a grammar lesson. She talks, moves, points, and discusses text that appears on the slide with her. And then at the end of the video, my animated grammar teacher introduces a quiz.
 
To integrate the video with the quiz I had created in Adobe Presenter, I first created a button image in GoAnimate. Then I have my animated teacher point to the button and say, “Click here to take the quiz.” To bring functionality to the button, and to bring my learners into the quiz, I took a screen shot of the GoAnimate character pointing to the button at the end of her scene.
 
 
That screen shot serves as the first slide after the video in Adobe Presenter. In Presenter, I placed a transparent, clickable shape over the button, and assigned it a hyperlink that takes the learner to the next slide: the first question in the quiz. 
 
The learner then takes the quiz, the quiz is scored, and the quiz reports its results to the LMS. From animated lesson all the way to SCORM-compliant reporting. There is a lot to love about integrating GoAnimate with eLearning, regardless of which eLearning software you use.
 
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Looking to learn GoAnimate? Check these live, online classes.
 
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Jennie Ruby, CTT, COTP, is a veteran eLearning developer, trainer, and author. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer and Certified Online Training Professional. She teaches both classroom and online courses, and has authored courseware, published training books, and developed content for countless eLearning projects. She is also a publishing professional with more than 30 years of experience in writing, editing, print publishing, and eLearning.