The Logical Blog

With the addition of variables, multiple button actions and advanced actions to Adobe Captivate 4, there is no limit to Captivate's abilities. Okay, maybe the possibilities aren't endless, but you can certainly do some pretty cool things with Captivate 4.

Have you ever wished that you could display the Captivate playbar, or not, depending on which slide is shown? That's an easy thing to do via the System variables. In the Properties of the slide, set the On Enter field to cpShowPlayBar to 1 (meaning YES) or 0 (meaning NO) to display or hide the playbar. Cool!

What about keeping track of how many times a customer selected a certain action? You can do that too by creating your own user variable via the Actions Dialog box and increment it when necessary. For example, you can count the number of times buttons are pushed in the lesson. Create a variable called ButtonPushTotal and set the On Success field of each button push to Increment ButtonPushTotal.

Ever wanted to do more than one thing based on a single customer action (such as count button pushes AND jump to a new slide upon clicking a clickbox)? Well now you can with the multiple action capability. Simply change the On Success action to Multiple Actions, select Increment and then select Jump to Slide. When the customer clicks, both actions will occur.

Multiple actions

Multiple actions are a powerful tool, but when you need more, look to ActionScripting. Let's say you want to create some interactive navigation. Something of the type that IF the user does action A, go to slide A but if the user does action B, go to slide B and once all necessary actions are complete, go to a quiz slide. Before Advanced Actions, this type of behavior would require many duplicate slides and a large and possibly complicated lesson. Now, it can be done by using one single slide, some variables and an action script. Click here to watch a demonstration of this concept.

Those of you who have completed our Captivate 4: Beyond the Essentials class got a little taste of actions. But there are many other things that can be done via actions. Do you have something you wish Captivate could do? Do you have a cool idea for an action, but aren't sure how to write it? Send your ideas to me. I am in the planning phase of a new online course for IconLogic dedicated to teaching you how to create advanced actions in Captivate. If I use your idea in the class, you will be eligible to take the class for free!

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

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

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About the author: Lori Smith is IconLogic's lead programmer and veteran Captivate developer. Lori holds a Bachelors degree from MIT and a Masters from George Mason University. She has been working in the field of software engineering for more than 20 years.

November 23, 2009

Changing Terminology: “User” versus “Customer”

by Jennie Ruby

User, n. The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot." -Dave Barry

The word "user," long used in the computer software industry to refer to the person who will be using the software, is now being called into question. With social media sites, such as Facebook, and sites with user-created content, such as Wikipedia and YouTube, the demarcation between the developer and the user has been blurred. The people using the application create the content of the site itself. We no longer have a clear model in which the developer creates a tool and people merely use the tool.

The term "user" has also been critiqued because it obscures the fact that people use software and web sites in different ways. Sometimes the "user" is a customer, sometimes a contributor, sometimes an employee, sometimes a learner. In many cases, one of these words would be more accurate than the catch-all "user."

In IconLogic's more recent "skills and drills" workbooks, the word "user" appears less and less. Instead, they refer to their "skills and drills" readers as "you" instead of "the user." Books that might have said "the user would then click the OK button" now say "you would then click the OK button."

In my own training, I have started using the word "learners" or the phrase "person who is learning the application." The transition took less than half a morning, and I think these terms focus attention more exactly on the relationship of the person to the training process than the generic term "user."

Nevertheless, if you read back over this article, you will find that at many junctures I still had to use the word "user" for the generic person who might be accessing a web site or software program. For that reason, I do not think the term is going to completely disappear. "Computer user" and "user-friendly" are probably here to stay, at least for a while.

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Join Jennie online December 18, 2009 where she'll be teaching Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts. This is the last class for 2009. It's not too late to register!

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About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

November 23, 2009

Creating Multilevel Lists in Adobe RoboHelp 8

One of the great new features in Adobe RoboHelp 8 is the ability to create complex multilevel lists (lists within lists), in which you can have many levels, much like those you can create in Adobe FrameMaker).

Amit Jha, a member of the Adobe RoboHelp Engineering Team, has written a helpful article that will guide you through the process of creating a multilevel list. Click here to read the article.

November 20, 2009

Acrobat 9: You Might Need an Acrobat Class, The Sequel

by David R. Mankin, the Acrobat Czar

The Czar! My first "You might need an Acrobat class" column went viral on Twitter. I had so much fun writing it and seeing it tweeted and re-tweeted, I decided to come up with a second installment. Enjoy–and please do sign up for an Acrobat class if this strikes a tone of reality to you. Acrobat is feature-rich, and more people need to know of the flexibility and depth that the PDF file format offers.

If you think a bookmark is only made out of cardboard … You might need an Acrobat class.
If you think the Tasks Bar is in Cancun… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you think you must use a pen to sign a document… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you think you must call your lawyer to certify a document… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you think a security policy is crafted by a gathering of politicians on Capitol Hill… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you think layers are only for Photoshop and cakes… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you feel all tags must be removed before wearing… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you automatically go to Expedia.com to create a destination… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you think the Typewriter Tool is something that Olivetti, Royal & IBM technicians kept in their toolboxes in the 1960s… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you want to call a steamroller operator to flatten your PDF files… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you think web capturing has something to do with butterflies… You might need an Acrobat class.
If your Acrobat toolbars have vanished, and you have no idea how to get them back… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you miss the First & Last Page Buttons sorely… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you think you have to visit FIFA.com to deal with headers and footers… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you automatically reach for your scissors to split a document… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you're planning on waiting for the Summer Olympics in order to track results… You might need an Acrobat class.
If you've right-clicked everywhere and still can't find the Forms Toolbar in Acrobat 9… You might need an Acrobat class.
If history is only a subject you hated in high school… You might need an Acrobat class.

Learn what PDF technology is all about, and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit and enhance your PDF files. Click here for more information and class dates.

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About the author: In addition to being the nation's Acrobat Czar, 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.

November 19, 2009

Adobe FrameMaker: Automatically Assigning Custom Master Pages

by Barbara Binder

We talked last week about custom master pages. I use them in my FrameMaker documents to suppress page numbers on the opening page of a chapter or anytime I need a layout that differs from those of the default left and right master pages.

Once you have set up your master pages, you can assign them manually by choosing Format > Page Layout > Master Page Usage. That's great, but is there a better way to apply a master page to a document page? Absolutely.

In one of my publications, each new chapter starts on the next blank page (and not on the next right page, like so many others). I use a custom master to set the opening look for each chapter, but I need one for right page opening pages, and one for the left page open pages. Years and years ago, I had to do this manually, and inevitably missed a few during last minute edits.

What's a developer to do? How about setting up a Reference Page table to do the work for you? By setting up the MasterPageMap table, you can assign master pages to body pages that contain specified paragraph tags. I learned pretty quickly that if I delegated the master page assignments to FrameMaker, I'd never again make the mistake of not applying a master page.

Here's how you can automatically assign a custom master page to a document page:

Create a custom Master page. I created two called FirstRight and FirstLeft. (If you aren't sure how to create a custom Master page, feel free to click here and read last week's column.)
Navigate to Body Page 1 and click on your chapter title format.
Jot down the exact spelling of the format. If you use the default FrameMaker paragraph formats, this will probably be called "Title."
Choose View > Reference Pages.
Click the Next Page button until the five-column UnstructMasterPageMaps table appears. If you don't see the table below, move on to step 6. If you find the table below, skip to step 7.
If the mapping table does not appear in the reference pages, choose Format > Page Layout > Apply Master Pages.

Click OK to proceed and then click OK to create the new table on the reference pages.
For Book Update (Yes or No), type Yes or No to determine whether the specified master page will be applied when you choose Apply Master Pages from a book.
Under the Paragraph Tag Name column heading, type the name of the paragraph tag to which you want the master page to be applied.
In my example, I am using Title. You must spell the paragraph tag name correctly, using the same capitalization that the paragraph tag uses.
In the second column, type in the custom Master page for all right pages that have a Title tag.
In my example, I'm applying FirstRight.

If necessary, do the same thing for the left pages, but use the left opening page.
Under the Range Indicator column heading, type Single to apply the master page only to the Body page on which each paragraph tag appears. (Type Span pages to apply the master page to the entire span of pages to which the paragraph tag is applied; or type Until changed to apply the master page to all pages, until the next Body page with a different paragraph tag listed in the mapping table is encountered.)
Optionally, add notes to the Comments column.
Text you type in this column does not affect how master pages are applied in any way.
When you are done, choose View > Body Pages.

Ready for the magic?

Open your Book window.
Import the mapping table to the other files in your book.
Update your book. (Be sure to select Apply Master Pages before you click update.)

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If you are new to FrameMaker and need some training, I've got an instructor-led, online Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 9 class on December 2-3. Too elementary for your skill level? How about the Advanced FrameMaker 9 class on December 9-10? Hope to "see" you there.

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About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and was recently recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide for 2007.

November 18, 2009

Adobe Captivate: Customize Accessibility Text for Slide Objects

by Kevin Siegel

You can easily make your Captivate eLearning lessons Section 508 compliant by choosing Edit > Preferences. In the Category panel, expand Project and select Publish Settings. Then select Enable Accessibility.

Your published project will be 508 compliant for navigation. However, you will also want to ensure that slide objects are compliant so that screen readers (assistive software) can "read" elements on the screen to visually impaired customers.

You can easily add accessible text to individual objects on a Captivate slide. When the object appears on the screen, the screen reader reads the accessible text aloud. If you do not specify accessible text for an object, the screen reader reads the default text. For example, if the object is an image, the screen reader says Graphics Image–which isn't very helpful.

Objects other than text captions and text entry boxes do not contain text. By adding accessible text to non-text objects, you can help customers understand the purpose of the object in the lesson.

Here's how you add custom accessibility text to an object:

Right-click the object you would like to customize and choose Properties.
Click the Accessibility button.
Deselect Auto Label.
In the Item Accessibility dialog box, do the following:
Accessibility Name: Type the accessibility text. For a button, you might type Continue Button.

Accessibility Description: Add a description to clarify information for the person using the screen reader. For example, consider the button that has the Accessibility Name: Continue Button. You might type the following description text: This button, once activated, will allow you to continue the lesson.

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

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

November 17, 2009

Acrobat 9: Need a Quick PDF? What a Drag!

by David R. Mankin, the Acrobat Czar

The Czar! You have a file that needs to be converted to PDF format. You're in a hurry, and the thought of waiting for your document's native application to load and convert the file to PDF is making you crazy under your rushed deadline.

Here's a very cool trick that is extremely handy. Create a shortcut on your desktop of the Acrobat 9 executable (acrobat.exe).

After creating the shortcut, all you need to do to convert a file to PDF is simply drag the file's icon over the Acrobat.exe shortcut and drop the file.

Drag, Drop, PDF!

The file will be converted to a PDF, and Acrobat will automatically start once the conversion is complete with your new PDF file. Drag multiple files… get multiple PDFs! The files will then need to be saved, so this gives you the opportunity to write the files to the destination of your choice. Mac users? No problem. Create an alias of the Acrobat executable & start dragging & dropping.

A pleasant surprise is waiting for you if you use the PDFMaker (MS Office file to PDF Conversion Tool). If you drag a Word document over the Acrobat icon, Acrobat uses the PDFMaker's settings for the conversion, allowing your new PDF file to have your Word style-based Acrobat bookmarks created on the fly! Sweet! Now that's a drag I don't mind one bit.

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Looking for Acrobat training? We run an online Acrobat class once each month. Click here for more information and class dates.

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About the author: In addition to recently being named the nation's Acrobat Czar, 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.

November 11, 2009

Adobe FrameMaker: Custom Master Pages

by Barbara Binder

New FrameMaker documents have default Master Pages. Single-sided documents have one, called "Right," and double-sided documents have two, called "Left" and "Right."

We use these pages to place the objects we want to repeat on all the Body Pages, things like our running heads, page numbers and repeating graphics.

But what do you do when you need a different look for a Body Page, on a repeating basis? For example, no page number on the opening page of each chapter? You set up a custom master page. Here's how:

Choose View > Master Pages.
Choose Special > Add Master Page.
Select which master you'd like to base the new one on, and give it a logical name.
Make any changes that you like to the new master (i.e., remove the page number for the opening page), and return to Body page 1 by choosing View > Body Pages.
Did that work? No! FrameMaker is very powerful, but still can't read your mind. If you are going to create custom master pages, you will also have the obligation to apply them to the Body pages. Here's the easiest way:
Choose Format > Page Layout > Master Page Usage.
Select your custom master from the drop down list at the top, and the page range from the bottom, and click Apply.

There you go. You are allowed 100 master pages in a single FrameMaker document, so you can make as many as necessary. I usually create one for the opening page of my chapters, one for the "This page intentionally left blank." pages, and one each for left and right Landscape pages in my portrait documents.

Tune in next week for automating the custom master page application!

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If you are new to FrameMaker and need some training, I've got an instructor-led, online Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 9 class coming up December 2-3, 2009. Looking for advanced FrameMaker training? Click here to see our upcoming Adobe FrameMaker 9 Advanced dates. Looking for other online classes? Click here.

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November 10, 2009

Order in the Sentence: Introductions

by Jennie Ruby

The basic sentence in English is noun-verb-object: The player hit the ball. But we seldom leave it at that. We add things on the front. We add things on the back. We interrupt the sentence to say something else, and then come back to the sentence. We vary the basic sentence structure. And, in the most extreme cases, we substitute other things for the noun, the verb, and the object. All of this gives us great flexibility in creating sentences, but this very flexibility leads us to the problem of which variation to choose, and why.

Let's look at introductory elements. Placing an introduction on the front of the basic sentence can do some important things. It can tell the reader when the sentence occurred or applies:

At the bottom of the ninth, the player hit the ball.
After tone adjustment, the screen displays more accurate colors.
When you receive this error message, click OK.

An introduction can tell the reader how much credence to give the information:

Supposedly, the player hit the ball.
As we all agreed, the large type was more readable.
In every case, the deadlines were met.

Introductory elements can provide a transition from the previous idea or concept to the next one:

We all expected the game to end with the next pitch. However, the player hit the ball.
The default setting is 12-point Roman, nevertheless, Arial is the preferred typeface.

An introduction should not present information that the reader cannot use or interpret before reading the rest of the sentence:

In the File, Insert, View, and Tools menus displayed at the top of the screen by default when the default settings are in effect, side menus are present.

Here the reader has to absorb an entire list and a condition before knowing why these are being listed. Instead, put the explanatory information first, and then the list:

Side menus appear in the File, Insert, View, and Tools menus.

Some of the information that was supposedly introductory was actually worthy of a sentence of its own:

These menus are displayed at the top of the screen when the default settings are in effect.

Remember that introductory elements have specific purposes, and avoid using them to do the work of presenting the bulk of the information in your writing. Use sentences for that!

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Join Jennie online where she'll be teaching Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts.

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November 9, 2009

Adobe Captivate 5: Sneak Peek!

by Kevin Siegel

I'm attending Adobe's Learning Summit
in San Jose right now. RJ Jacquez, Senior Product Evangelist just wowed
the crowd with a sneak preview of the upcoming Adobe Captivate 5 for
the Macintosh.

Here are some of the highlights:

Captivate
is being recreated from the ground-up. The new software is being
written in C++ instead of Delphi (which was the programming language
used for the other versions of Captivate). As a result, the Macintosh
and PC versions will be the same.

Captivate 5 works natively on a Macintosh. If you are a Mac fan (like me), this is a huge, huge deal! Sweet!!!!

Captivate 5 features the same common user interface as the
other Adobe applications. For instance, can dock panels anywhere on
your screen. Once you set up your screen the way you like, you can save
the environment as a Workspace. From that point forward, you can
quickly switch between one Workspace and another.

There won't be any dialog boxes in Captivate 5. For the first
time, you will use pods (available in your workspace) to change the
properties of selected objects.

While recording, you will now see a countdown (3-2-1) just
before the recording begins. Nice improvement since in the older
versions of Captivate you weren't always sure when the recording
process actually began.

For the first time, you can work in one Captivate project,
open another or create a new Captivate project and move content between
the open projects.

Improved Photoshop support. While you could import Photoshop
files and include the layers in Captivate 4, the process has been sped
up so much that if you blink you'll miss it. This is a nice improvement
over Captivate 4.

Insert multiple Question slides at the same time. The improved
Question Types dialog box got the biggest applause during RJ's
presentation. You can now elect to add 3 Multiple Choice questions, 2
True/False slides, etc. Anyone who has had to add question slides, one
at a time, knows how cool this new feature is.

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

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