Participant

Question

3 Questions from a Flash developer new to Captivate!!!

Forum|Forum|10 years ago
March 2, 2016
2 replies
393 views

Hi, we are Flash devs trying out Captivate 9 (primarily for its mobile HTML5 functionality)

1) We are wondering if there is a way to create a RightToLeft animation effect more accurately than by dragging the positional arrow? For example, in Flash we would type into a box or TweenMax function "move object -500px". With Captivate we see that you can use the dragger to set up your RightToLeft effect but we need to be pixel perfect instead of playing with a dragger....

2) Is there an inbuilt method to mask an object? In Flash we use masking to hide or show objects - this lets us slide them into and out of visibility from under masks and is how we produce things like the effects for image gallery sliders.

3) Is there a way to add persistent customisable menu buttons to our course from a Master page? (Everything we read seems to say that you can't properly customise Master page buttons in Captivate 9!)

If not, would modifying the published HTML files directly a possible fix to this (although our edits would get overwritten each time we publish)?

Possibly more questions to come! Thanks for reading!

captivate-9

This topic has been closed for replies.

RodWard

Community Expert

There's an AS3 widget you can use for masking:

About Masquerade Widget | Infosemantics Pty Ltd‌

Trial version downloadable here:

Free Trial Versions of Adobe Captivate Widgets | Infosemantics Pty Ltd

Lilybiri

Legend

Rod, I didn't point to your Masquerade widget, which I love and used many times, because of this sentence of the OP:

"(primarily for its mobile HTML5 functionality)"

That widget is SWF only, right?

RodWard

Community Expert

Ah...I saw the reference to them being Flash developers but missed the bit about HTML5. Too much stuff to do makes you rush through too fast sometimes.

My bad.

Lilybiri

Legend

I will try to answer, but am not a Flash developer (getting back to it, but liked Edge Animate better).

That is an old pain, I have been asking for having that ability since motion effects appeared. It still didn't make it to the priority list. Maybe you could help by logging a feature request? You can edit the XML file, but know that each effect is relative to the present position of the object. I often use a custom 'crosshair' to make positioning more accurate but that is a cumbersome work flow.
No masks. But that is pretty simple, here are two possible techniques:
1. Use Show/Hide, have multiple examples on my blog, was only possibility in versions before 9
2. Use states in Captivate 9
Shape buttons were totally customisable (with states) in Captivate 8. It is a bug in the present release of CP9 that you cannot add states anymore to shape buttons on Master slides. An alternative is to put the buttons on the first slide and time them for the rest of the project. More details in: Why I like Shape Buttons - Captivate 6! - Captivate blog

diegob18617968Author

Participant

Hey guys, thanks for the replies!

We are aware of your widget site Rod and youtube, might have another look sometime, cheers.

With regards to masking:

Lily, we've had a tinker with state changes and I'm not sure how one would go about producing an effect where an object slides into view gradually using state change.

In Flash we would create a mask to act as a window and slide the object under the window, giving the effect that it is gradually appearing or moving under the window.

I thought I read something that indicated that adding a highlight box to cover part of the image inside its state view might hide that part of the image but it didn't do that when I tried.

The obvious option to reproducing a mask effect would be to stick some smart object/s around the borders of the image I want to mask and arrange them to appear infront - that sort of thing (in practice this is a really bad/cumbersome way to do it though, if it works).

Does this correct or am I missing something to do with states that would allow animation from one state to another, such as sliding one state ontop of another or sliding a state gradually out of visibility?

I've submitted a feature request for RightToLeft accurate positioning and also one for a mask system such as that in Flash.

We also noticed that when using RightToLeft to slide an object onto the screen from off-stage, the object is invisible unless its starting position is in some fashion in contact with the stage area. Not a problem, but an interesting quirk..?

Thanks again

Lilybiri

Legend

If you want movement, I would use effects in combination with advanced actions (or micronavigation). It is indeed more cumbersome, but I often ask clients: will this 'cool' effect really make the learning more efficient? My preference is trying to find more engaging ways first of all, to make the learning more interactive than looking for animation effects (you can use OAM in Captivate, if you missed that). I know what a mask is, don't misunderstand me, used Rod's widget for masking but it is only for SWF output.

You have to realize that the first goal of Captivate is different from Flash's goal: it is an eLearning application in the first place. That means that it has a lot more and different features than Flash, you cannot expect it (like lot of users do) to have all the features of Flash, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, Edge Animate, Audition to mention only a few. Just kidding... You are asking for an image slideshow, it used to be a standard template in previous versions of Captivate but is gone, probably because not many people used it? You can have each image on a different slide and use slide transitions, but again, this will not be supported for HTML5. In this old post I have a short image show:

Blog after Posterous? - ClickClick - Captivate blog

BTW I mostly use custom motion effects, not the built in motion paths.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded