Category: Uncategorized

• DITA conrefs get resolved properly
• Extended characters do not have a preceding space when using Arial Unicode MS font.
• Catalogs sort properly.
• Use of page range in Index does not randomly add question marks left and right in the generated index file.
• The NextPfgTag is correctly applied when pressing Enter at the beginning of the line. 

For more information about the new features found in the patch, click here. 

RoboHelp 7 Question: How Do I Get Topic Titles to Appear Instead of File Names

I am working through the Essentials of Adobe RoboHelp 7 HTML. On page 96, in the Link View section the image displays the title of the individual files and the linking structure. My computer is displaying the file names (which are a tad cryptic). How can I change this to display the title?

Answer

You are currently viewing the files by File Name. Choose View > By Topic Title and you should be all set.

RoboHelp 7 Question: How Can I Get Right-Clicking to Work on the Topic List Pod?

In chapter two, p. 45, or your Essentials of Adobe RoboHelp 7 HTML book, you mention that in the Topic List, topics should sort automatically.  However, in my copy of Version 7, there is not File Name/Title at the top of the Topic List.  Is there some way to turn this feature on?  Also, I’m unable to right click on any of the topics in the Topic List.  I know that it’s not a hardware feature because I’m able to right-click other areas in the application.  Any help would be appreciated.

Answer

To show the details of the Topic List pod, choose View > Details View. Your inability to right-click is another matter. I tested the Topic List pod and I was able to right-click topics in either list or detail view. Upon playing a bit more, however, I noticed that if the pod is not tall enough, right-click functionality doesn’t work if you are in list view, but does work in detail view.

Captivate vs. Presenter Question: What’s the Difference?

Do you know of any written comparison of same or different features Captivate and Presenter?  Our IT department is wanting us to try Presenter instead of Captivate saying it’s a better product.  Frankly I’m just now getting decent with Captivate and not excited about switching products.  Do you have any advice?

Answer:

The programs meet two entirely different needs. Adobe Presenter is used from within PowerPoint and allows you to basically create SCORM compliant presentations. Adobe Captivate allows you to create interactive software simulations.

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

Free Training Video, Part 3: Adding FrameMaker books and Documents in RoboHelp 

For the past two weeks, I’ve been telling you about free Technical Communication Suite training videos created by RJ Jácquez, Adobe’s Senior Product Evangelist. This week, I encourage you to complete RJ’s trilogy and watch Part 3, where you will learn about adding FrameMaker books and documents in RoboHelp as live links, and reusing FrameMaker content for creating Online Help systems, Searchable Knowledge bases, Performance Support systems and even Policies and Procedures.

Note: The video includes all exercise files needed for you to follow along with RJ.

Click here to watch the third video.

Question: Why Don’t My Branches Jump Backwards

Ripppp!!!! That’s the sound of my hair being yanked out in bunches! Please help! I’ve created branches in my Captivate 3 project. The buttons that go to the next slide work great. The buttons that go back to a previous slide do not work at all. When I click those buttons, the slide seems to refresh, but that’s it! Help!!! Wrrrripppppp! Help!

Answer

Unhand your hair… the solution is probably very simple. First, is the misbehavior occurring when you preview the project? Does the branch work if you publish the project?

Response from the Questioner:

Arghhhhh! I just got your response to my email and published the project as you suggested. The darned branch works wonderfully! What the heck??? I swear that the branch didn’t work when I previewed the slides prior to publishing. I spent hours on this thinking there was a problem! Rip, rip, rip! (One hair left.)

Dear Mr. Uni Hair:

You are not the first person to run into this. If you have a button on slide 10 that branches back to slide 5, but you only preview from slide 10, the button won’t be able to jump back to slide 5 since you didn’t include slide 5 in the preview. While previewing a few slides at a time is a great development strategy, keep in mind that branches may not appear to work unless you preview all of the slides in the branch.

Now, may I suggest Rogaine?

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

Two Questions: How Can I Lower My Captivate Published EXE Size and Can I Include the F-Keys in a Simulation?

We have a client that has some unique needs (including the need to have an active F11 key in the simulation, but wanting the learner to use their keyboard only for all entries).

We published the simulation as an EXE. This resolved the key stroke (F11) issue, but has created another issue. This same client as a maximum 500KB file size requirement due to bandwidth issues.  We typically meet this by breaking our simulations up and linking them together (this keeps the individual file size down enough to meet the requirement).

However, when we publish EXEs, our files grow incredibly large. Our developer tested publishing a simulation with just a few slides–the final file size was just over 1MB–which exceeds the size requirements. Any ideas? 

Answer

When you publish an EXE file, the Flash Player (required for your users to view the SWFs you publish) is included in the EXE. The player occupies around 800KB, which is why your EXEs are large, even if you only have one slide in the project. As far as I know, there is no way to prevent the Flash Player from being bundled when you publish an EXE, and therefore no way to reduce the size of an EXE to 500KB or less.

Given your size limation 500KB (which I feel is unreasonably low… even users with slow, 56K modems can work with a download smaller than a few megabytes), you’ll end up having to publish SWFs instead of EXEs. Understanding the problems you are having with the F-keys, I can only say that the F-keys have long been a source of frustration for many Captivate developers. Since browsers (such as Internet Explorer) reserve the F-keys, you shouldn’t include them as object shortcuts in your Captivate projects if you can avoid it.

If you must include the F-keys, it is possible to create a JavaScript in the HTML files that accompany your published SWFs. The JavaScript would, in theory, override the browser’s use of the F-keys (I have not tested the results so cannot make any warranties).

Here are some links with discussions about the subject:

• Link 1
• Link 2
• Link 3

Question: What’s the Best Microphone for Audio Recordings?

What specific advice can you give about the kind of microphone to purchase for making good quality audio narrations to accompany my Captivate training sessions, minimizing echo and other audio problems? It needs to connect to my Dell laptop PC.

I would prefer the versatility of a standalone microphone on a stand that could sit on my desk, rather than a microphone built into a headset. I had in mind trying to limit the cost to around $100, but if that isn’t reasonable please tell me.

The two main questions that come to mind are:

1. Which connection to my PC is going to provide the best audio quality (or at least minimize any reduction in audio quality) — USB; the microphone jack; 802.11 wireless; Bluetooth?
2. Is there a specific microphone technology, or some common microphone buzzwords, I should look for? Or something specific I should avoid?

Answer

Excellent question! I prefer boom microphones build into the headset since I think the boom keeps your mouth a consistent distance from the microphone. However, audio and the related hardware and software is not my expertise. When it comes to audio, I rely on a team of professionals to create audio files that my clients will love.

I’m going to open your question up to your fellow readers. If anyone has some advice on microphones, please send me your comments. I’ll be happy to post any comments here in a future edition of the newsletter.

by Quinn McDonald

WordPress does it, and so does Yahoo. So I’ll have to adjust. It’s counterintuitive for me, though, and I think the people who live in this time-warp live in a non-time-based world.

Here’s what I’m talking about: When I’m moving through posts and emails, I think of "next" as those more recent than the page I am on, and "previous" as those earlier in time. So, for me, my next email will come soon, and my previous post was yesterday’s.

Not so with WordPress and Yahoo indexes.  If I have moved backwards into March’s posts, clicking on "next" moves me further back, into Februrary’s posts. Clicking on "previous" means the previous page, pushing me into the future, into April’s posts.

The reason, I suppose, is that "next" and "previous" don’t refer to the time the posts were written, but placement in a list–which page they are on. To me, this means that the coders or IT developers are not thinking of how their audience uses the software, but how they see it. A programmer sees information on pages, and the placement of the pages themselves are important. Most users, I would guess, see the date and time they wrote it as important, or perhaps the content, which doesn’t come up as an issue at all.

If you are looking for a post, or a check, or a file on your computer, and you can’t use content as a locater, you will use the date you wrote it, often in conjunction with other dates or events.

"Let’s see, I wrote that right after I saw the movie Atonement, but before we painted the kitchen," is a time statement. I can’t imagine someone saying, "I stored that on the third page back from the beginning," because that isn’t a set place. The more posts you add, the farther back the posts slip.

It’s an information design question, and the user-friendly ones will stay time-based. We can use the arrows to move to the last page seen, but "previous" should retain the meaning it’s always had–"before this moment in time."

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.

Free Training Video Part 2: Getting Started with Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite

Last week I told you about the Technical Communication Suite training video created by RJ Jácquez, Adobe’s Senior Product Evangelist. That video introduced you to the power of Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite. If you had a chance to watch the video, I think you’ll agree that it was very informative.

The world loves a sequel… and RJ has created a second training video for the Technical Communication Suite. In Part 2, you will learn how to supplement your technical and instructional design documents with engaging Adobe Captivate demonstrations, simulations and quizzes in the Flash format using the Adobe Technical Communication Suite.

Note: The video includes all exercise files needed for you to follow along with RJ.

Click here to watch the video.

Question: Where Can I Find Good Library of FLVs?

I would like to open my Captivate movie with some women, men, teenagers, seniors…  all looking puzzled with "thought captions" over them stating the different decisions confronting them… What car to buy… what college to go to… which applicant to hire, etc.

I have searched Google, using maybe with the wrong keywords, trying to find libraries of stock characters in Flash animations. Other than the few available on Adobe’s site under resources, I can’t seem to find any others. Do you know of any sources for increasing my library of these kind of things?
 

Answer

Excellent question. While there are many sites selling royalty free and inexpensive stock photos (BigStockPhoto is one that I’ve used in the past), it does not appear that there are many sites offering stock Flash video. I managed to find some videos at istockphoto.com, but there wasn’t a great selection. Let’s see if any of your fellow readers know of some good sites. If anyone can recommend resources for stock FLVs, please email me and I’ll post your responses here.

Question: How Do I Open a Captivate Template?

I’m perplexed by Captivate templates. I’ve been using and sharing a template for some time at my institution, and we recently decided to change our default screen resolution from 800 x 600 to 1024 x 768.  Unfortunately, I’m finding that this means that our template’s screen capture now only grabs a small chunk of the screen.  I can’t find any way to resize the screen capture to accommodate our new resolution.  What the heck?  Do we need to build a new template every time we want to resize our screen capture window? (And if so, how can we do that?  I’ve seen well-designed templates in the Exchange, but I can’t reverse-engineer them because they’re saved as .cptl files.  Are they created in Flash and then exported somehow to Captivate?) Thanks for any light you can shed.

Answer

You can open a Captivate template (CPTL) via File > Open. Once the template is open, you can increase the capture area from 800×600 to 1024×768 by resizing the project (via the Project menu). Keep in mind however that if there are background images in the current template, increasing the size will likely result in a loss of resolution.

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