The Logical Blog by IconLogic

Adobe FrameMaker 10: Repeat the Last Operation

by Barb Binder 

Here's another simple, yet powerful feature that is new in FrameMaker 10. If you pull down the Edit menu and start reading from the top, you'll find Undo, Redo, History and then new Repeat command. Its job is simply to repeat your last activity. This includes:  

• Type text
• Paste
• Delete
• Apply a character format
• Apply a paragraph format
• Insert a graphic object (i.e., Arc, Ellipse, Group, Inset, Line, Math, Polygon, Polyline, Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, TextFrame, TextLine, and Unanchored Frame)
• Insert a table
• Set Object Properties
• Set text properties (i.e., Plain, Bold, Italic, Underline)
• Insert Footnote/Anchored Frame
• Find/Change
• Apply a condition tag

The two items I care most about personally are applying character and paragraph formats. When I'm tagging a long document, I'd much rather tag the first Heading1 for example, and then just tap F6 (that's the Function key shortcut for Edit > Repeat) to tag the remaining Headings. Being able to repeat Object Properties on multiple frames is a close second.

How do you use the Repeat command? We'd love to hear from you.

Note: There are a variety of activities that you can perform that will stop the Repeat function in its tracks. Click here for the complete list.

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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 has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

 

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Looking to learn Adobe FrameMaker We offer Beginner and Advanced classes.

Adobe Captivate 5: Display Resolution and Snap to... Watch 'em Both

by Kevin Siegel

I received an email from a fellow Captivate developer who was distressed. He had captured several software simulations using Captivate's Application option. He had a huge monitor and had maximized the application he was capturing. And he had Snapped to the Application window. 

In the image below, I've set my Captivate Recording Size options to match his options (except I was capturing Notepad). Notice that I've selected both Application and Application window.

 

 

Why the developer's distress? A lesson recorded at a higher resolution, and set to capture a maximized Application window, will result in one very large video. Sure enough, the developer's customers soon complained that they had to scroll way too much to interact with his simulations.

Selecting the options mentioned earlier isn't necessarily wrong, assuming you don't make the Application window too big... and that your display resolution isn't too high. 

 

What perplexed the developer was that the published videos looked perfect on his computer. He learned too late that most of his customers had smaller displays and lower resolutions. Since he recorded his Captivate videos using a maximized Application window, and he had a higher resolution than his learners, they were not able to see his entire video screen without the dreaded scrolling.

 

I told the developer how to resize the projects smaller (Modify > Rescale Project). While the technique worked, there was a drawback: the screen icons, which were already on the small side because of his high screen resolution, were now much too small for the average person to read.

In the end, the developer's boss insisted that the lessons be re-recorded at a lower display resolution and smaller Snap to area. Ouch!

 

To ensure that you don't find yourself in a similar situation, I offer the following information about Screen (Display) Resolution and the Snap to area. I'd recommend that you review this information before you record a single video using Captivate.

 

Screen (Display) Resolution

 

A computer monitor is measured in pixels--a little square that is the basic component of any computer graphic. If a monitor is set to show more pixels, it is known as increasing the resolution. Graphics look better, but smaller. The fewer pixels you request, the lower the resolution, and the larger the screen elements appear.

 

Consider the following Web browser statistics (compiled by w3schools.com):

• Mozilla FireFox is the most popular web browser at 43.5%
• Internet Explorer is second at 25.8% followed closely by Google Chrome at 25%.
• Safari (the Macintosh browser) is a distant fourth at 4% 
• Most computers today are using a screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels or higher.

While the last bullet above says that "most computers today are at 1024x768 or higher," you will need to know what is typical at your organization and take that resolution into account. And keep this in mind: a learner with a display resolution setting of 1024x768 pixels, and a maximized browser window, will only have approximately 1000x700 pixels of usable screen space left when you factor in typical toolbars and scrollbars.

 

Snap to

The Snap to area is the part of the screen that you will be recording (also known as the Recording Size or area). When you record a Captivate video, you will see the Snap to area as a red box on your screen that includes resizing squares.

 

You can select several Snap sizes from the drop-down menu and, assuming you haven't selected Application window, you can stretch the Snap area to any custom size you need. Most of the lessons that I record use one of two Snap sizes: 640x480 or 800x600. Either of these sizes result in published videos that view well over the web or an intranet.

 

 

The Bottom Line:

 

I recommend that you record your Captivate videos at a display resolution setting that matches the display settings of a typical learner in your organization. In addition, a Snap to area of 800x600 is ideal, assuming the application you are recording comfortably fits inside an 800x600 window. If it won't, use the smallest Recording Size that will work. When it comes to the Snap to size, I typically tell my Captivate students and developers that they should capture the smallest possible area of their screen, but that they should go as big as needed to get the job done... just not too big.

 

Writing & Grammar: Name That Error--The Answers

by Jennie Ruby

Here are the answers to last week's grammar challenge. Were you able to name the errors? Did you fix them correctly? Some of these problems may have more than one correct answer. For example, the sentence fragment can be corrected many different ways. If you have questions about any of these, I would love to hear from you.

1. Using the new iPad app, the best erosion control method can be found quickly.
   
   Using the new iPad app, engineers can find the best erosion control method quickly. You can correct this dangling participle by adding a subject that is described by the introductory participial phrase.
   
   
2. A basic telescope can allow you to see Jupiter and its moons but for more distant objects such as the Crab Nebula you need more serious gear.
   
   You can correct this run-on sentence by adding a comma after moons.
   
    
3. The new second-generation processor delivers improved resolution, it transforms your ordinary video into a stunning feast for the eyes.
   
   You could correct this comma splice by changing the comma to a semicolon.
   
    
4. Improving the computer's speed on benchmark tests by only 2.4%, graphics were still slow to upload after the upgrade.
   
   The upgrade improved the computer's speed on benchmark tests by only 2.4%, so graphics were still slow to upload. You could correct this misplaced modifier by moving the word being modified closer to its modifier. In my correction, I converted the modifier phrase starting with improving into a complete clause by adding the word upgrade. 
   
    
5. To prevent hacking of the present system and work toward a long-term solution while saving money along the way.
   
   We can prevent hacking of the present system and work toward a long-term solution while saving money along the way. You can fix this sentence fragment by adding a subject or by adding a complete independent clause.
   
    
6. While one may need an industrial-grade personnel training solution in the long term, you can still address basic needs with an entry-level system today.
   
   While you may need... I fixed this unexpected change in person by changing one to you to match the pronoun you in the second part of the sentence.
   
    
7. This training forum allows you to discuss newly developed materials, upload samples for beta testing and to receive detailed feedback from your colleagues.
   
   You could fix this lack of parallelism by adding the word to before upload. And depending on your style guide, you might add the optional serial comma after testing.



8. Building management gave the task of self-publishing the materials to all of the development office staff, including myself.
   
   You can correct the incorrect pronoun usage by changing myself to me.

 

My next live, online grammar class is a one-day review, May 10. Bring your actual problem sentences, hyphenation questions, and other grammar conundrums and have them answered once and for all. Sign up now to allow time for your copy of Abrams' Guide to Grammar to arrive before the class.

 

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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. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

Adobe FrameMaker 10: Why Should I Care About the New Background Color?

by Barb Binder 

Some time ago, a client was considering using Adobe FrameMaker for a project and wanted to be able to electronically highlight text. That existing version of FrameMaker couldn't do it so the client decided to use Adobe InDesign. Because of that one incident, I was keenly aware when Adobe added background colors into FrameMaker 10.

In FrameMaker 10, you can now add a background color behind your text through both the Paragraph and Character Designers. This would have solved my student's highlighting needs. He could have set up a character format called Highlight, and then used it to highlight strings of text.

 

 

OK, that takes care of that one application, but what else can you do with a background color when highlighted text isn't a priority?

My personal favorite is to use it for a condition tag indicator. I was never a fan of using underlines, strikethroughs and overlines as a style indicator, though I certainly understood why I needed to. With FrameMaker 10, I'm happy to retire the lines and switch to colors.

 

Speaking of colors, I always add a color to my user variables so that I can keep an eye on them during layout and editing, even when I'm zoomed out. Now I can use a background color instead.

 

But the real reason I think Adobe added support for background color is for PDF comments. This has got to be one of the most life-changing features for me. (I'm referring to importing PDF comments, not specifically the new support for background color within PDF comments.) If you are using FrameMaker 9 or 10 and don't know about it, definitely take five minutes to read about it here. We can now import comments that have been added with text highlights in Adobe Reader or Acrobat, and not just the basic editing tools.

 

 

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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 has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

Adobe Captivate: No More Autosizing, Thanks!

by Kevin Siegel

Maybe I was imagining things... but I set a pesky text caption to a specific size. Later on, when I re-opened the slide, the caption was much smaller. I attributed the episode to drinking too much coffee.

But then it happened again!

I resized a text caption to a very, very specific size--no doubt this time. At some point I used the spell check feature (Project > Check Spelling). There was a typo flagged in that very same caption, which I naturally allowed Captivate to fix. And bam! The caption resized.

Has this happened to you? It's not a bug... it's not your caffeine intake... it's a feature... and one that I'm not very fond of. If you resize a text caption or button in Adobe Captivate, and then edit the object's text at all, the object will do you a favor and resize. If you're someone who doesn't appreciate this particular kind of "favor," here is how you disable the feature.

1. Display Captivate's Preferences (Edit menu for Windows users; Adobe Captivate menu for Mac users).
   
    
2. From the Global group, select Defaults.
   
    
3. From the General area, consider removing the check marks from Autosize Buttons, Autosize Captions and Calculate Caption Timing.
   
   
   
   With these three options disabled, Captivate will no longer resize your objects and change object timing on the Timeline. Careful though. From this point forward, it's possible that your captions can be too small and that the end of the text can get cut off. You'll need to ensure the captions are big enough to accommodate the text. On the other hand, you'll be able to return to your previous caffeine level. 
   
   Note: The General preferences you set above will not affect legacy projects. If you set the preferences prior to creating a project, all new projects will follow the preferences. The existing projects will need to be altered, one at a time. 

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Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

Writing & Grammar: Name That Error

by Jennie Ruby

"Why did you change my sentence? I liked it the way it was." If you edit other people's writing, you will face this question at some point. To be prepared to answer it, you need to know the names of common grammar errors that a writer can make. And, of course, it helps to know how to fix them. Here are some examples of sentences with problems. Can you name the grammar and punctuation errors? Can you fix them? I'll bring you the answers next week.

1. Using the new iPad app, the best erosion control method can be found quickly.
   
    
2. A basic telescope can allow you to see Jupiter and its moons but for more distant objects such as the Crab Nebula you need more serious gear.
   
    
3. The new second-generation processor delivers improved resolution, it transforms your ordinary video into a stunning feast for the eyes.
   
    
4. Improving the computer's speed on benchmark tests by only 2.4%, graphics were still slow to upload after the upgrade.
   
    
5. To prevent hacking of the present system and work toward a long-term solution while saving money along the way.
   
    
6. While one may need an industrial-grade personnel training solution in the long term, you can still address basic needs with an entry-level system today.
   
    
7. This training forum allows you to discuss newly developed materials, upload samples for beta testing and to receive detailed feedback from your colleagues.
   
    
8. Building management gave the task of self-publishing the materials to all of the development office staff, including myself.

My next live, online grammar class is a one-day review, May 10. Bring your actual problem sentences, hyphenation questions, and other grammar conundrums and have them answered once and for all. Sign up now to allow time for your copy of Abrams' Guide to Grammar to arrive before the class.

  

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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. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

Adobe Captivate: SWFs Not Playing in Articulate Presenter? Here's Why...

This question came in last week:

Question: I have a question about Adobe Captivate 5 and Articulate Presenter '09.   After adding Captivate 5 SWFs into Articulate Presenter, the SWFs do not play. Everything worked with our Captivate 4 SWFs. Do you know if there are compatibility issues?

Answer: The issue is with AS2 vs. AS3. Captivate 5 SWFs only publish in AS3. Articulate Presenter requires AS2. Review this article for details.

Camtasia Studio: Why Do You Get Missing File Messages When Opening Projects?

This question came in last week:

Question: I'm using Camtasia Studio 7. I copied my project files to a new laptop. Every time I open a project created on my old system, I get an error message about missing files. I can locate the missing files, so everything ends up ok. But what's up with the messages?

Answer: When you add images and other assets to the Camtasia Clip Bin, the path used in Camtasia does not update should you change systems. Since the path name to those assets is different on each system you use if you import from, let's say, My Documents, Camtasia can't resolve the path. To avoid these kinds of error messages, I always work on my projects directly from my C drive (C:\). When I move the projects from system to system, I never get those messages (assuming I drop the project files at the root of the hard drive on each system).

Adobe RoboHelp: Reclaim Those Missing Images

by Kevin Siegel

I was recently working with a client to convert a large RoboHelp for Word project into the latest and greatest version of RoboHelp HTML (version 9).

The process of upgrading a legacy RoboHelp for Word project is simple enough. All you have to do is start RoboHelp 9, choose File > Open, navigate to the RoboHelp for Word project folder and open the project file (an HPJ file). RoboHelp HTML will automatically convert the RoboHelp for Word project into RoboHelp HTML.

Once the upgrade was complete, I noticed something strange. Most of the topics contained at least one image. However, on the Project Manager pod, none of the images appeared. Normally, images that appear within a topic also show up on the Project Manager pod

Take a look at the image below. The icon_topics folder contains two folders--you can see both folders. There isn't anything beneath the last folder shown (icon_ops).  What you cannot see, based on the image alone, is that each of the topics within the folders contains at least one image, And that's the problem. If the topics contain images, the images should be visible in the root folder (or at the very least, you should see a sub-folder containing the images).

I opened some of the topics using RoboHelp's Design window. The images were fine. The images previewed correctly and the project generated without any trouble--it was just that those pesky file names didn't appear on the Project Manager pod. Since it isn't a requirement that the images appear on the pod, I could have left well enough alone and moved on. However, if I wanted to change the name of an image, or drag an image into another topic, I really needed the images to appear on the pod.

On the Project Manager pod, I right-clicked the icon_topics folder and chose Explore. The folder opened in a Window and I saw that the images were actually contained within a folder called icon_images.

For whatever reason, RoboHelp was not showing the icon_images folder on the Project Manager pod. Nevertheless, the fix was simple. Within the icon_topics folder on the Project Manager pod, I created a new folder (right-click > New > Folder) called icon_images. Once the folder was created, the images magically appeared on the Project Manager pod... and all was right with the world.

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Looking to learn Adobe RoboHelp? I'll be teaching a RoboHelp class later this month online. Both RoboHelp 8 and 9 users can attend.

Adobe Captivate: Internalize or Externalize?

by Kevin Siegel

The common way to publish a completed Captivate eLearning video is as a SWF (small web file). When the publish process is complete, you will end up with three files: an HTML file (which is what your learner will need to open the lesson in a web browser), a JavaScript file (called standard.js) and the SWF containing your lesson. 

The three-file output is typical. But it is possible to publish your Captivate video so that the Skin, Widgets, FMR's and Animations are split apart from the SWF. Doing so would mean that you would need to keep track of more pieces when uploading the lesson to your web server. It would also mean that your lesson might not work correctly with your LMS. However, I have heard from more than one Captivate developer that they have been asked to do so to keep the size of the main SWF down; or maybe it is a requirement before uploading the video. Keep in mind that smaller files mean faster download times for your learners... which means they will be consuming your content faster.

If externalizing your project files is a requirement in your organization, here is how you do it.

1. Choose File > Publish Settings.
   
   The Captivate Preferences dialog box will open. By default, none of the project resources will be externalized, meaning you will end up with fewer, but larger output files.
   
    
   
    
2. Select the resource you'd like to externalize and click the OK button. 
   
    
3. Publish the lesson as a SWF. 
   
   If you open the folder containing your published files, you'll notice that three is no longer the magic number. You'll end up with three plus the number of resource files you requested. Keep in mind that when uploading your lesson to your web server, all of these files must be kept together, and in the same folder. Leave one of the resources behind, and the lesson will not play at all. 
   
    

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Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.