Background 'blink' with recorded typing in form

[LIreland2]

Hi

I'm working in Captivate 4 and doing some manual recording of completing text fields.

Everything is recording ok except for the start of the text input.

For some reason the very start of the text input animations blank out half the form for a fraction of a second and then the form comes back as the typing appears. It's very noticable and off-putting to see.

I've tried to get around it by copying the form as an image and pasting it to overlap with the troublesome part of the animation, but it's not always possible to get the overlap right - sometimes I get the blink, sometimes I miss the first keystroke.

Is there a setting that I can change to stop this from happening?

I've had a similar issue in C3 but that just cropped up from time to time - in C4 it's doing it every time.

Thanks in advance

Lynn

[LIreland2]

Additional information:

The problem is much worse when recording a screen that contains a pop-up window.

Instead of recording the form in the pop-up window and showing the typing, it is copying the bottom field of the form and pasting it over all of the other fields.

So, for example, the fields should be Name, Address etc, with the bottom field saying Number of Results 500.

What I'm getting is a screenshot full of Number of Results fields.

This problem is making me have to constantly re-record my demonstrations - without knowing until I've finished what on earth it has recorded.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

You might choose to totally ignore recording typing during the recording process. After you have recorded, edit the slide(s) where you wish to show typing and insert a Typing Text animation that handles the task.

For the existing recordings, I believe you may right click and choose to convert the typing to Animated Text.

Cheers... Rick

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[LIreland2]

Hi Rick

Thanks for the suggestion.

Sadly the software that I am recording is being very fiddly with the fonts and so far I've been unable to replicate the typing so that it blends in well enough with the existing text.

As an experiment, I've just tried recording the same screens with Captivate 3 (we're in transition between the two so I have both on my machine), it recorded the form ok, but with the blink.

I had quite a few random buggy problems with C3 in the past (after editing a colleague's file that they'd had bug trouble with), including recording settings that reset whenever they felt like it and lots of random problems with caption styles.

I'm wondering if it is possible that whatever has happened to my copy of C3 has somehow damaged the C4 version.

I'd like to try to sort this by removing C3 from my system completely - will the Add/Remove Software tool be able to do this or will it leave random files?

Regards

Lynn

[LIreland2]

I've found out what the problem was.

Turns out it wasn't actually Captivate after all - it was merely capturing a bug in the system that I was recording from.

I had a play with the form without recording it, and there is an almost inperceptible flicker when you start typing in the fields.

So all Captivate was doing was to magnify what the software was doing.

Hopefully the rest of the forms that I need to deal with will behave better!

Thanks for the help

Lynn

[shawninvancouver]

I am experiencing a similar problem with recording typed text.

It seems only the first key typed is being recorded.

I tried Rick's suggestion but this is a very poorly thought out feature. Not only is it very difficult to obtain a close font match, it also doesn't place the animation anywhere near the correct location, it also doesn't know what the original typed text is.

I guess Captivate 4 doesn't record the actual text being typed.

Let's hope the next version of Captivate improves this.... (among many other things..)

[jod-zeee]

I've had horrible problems with the background "blink" as well as it changing colors. I'm not certain, but I think I found out that the color changing was happening when I applied a design template to the slides in a simulation I'd done, then pasted them into the master I was working off of. Off topic ... most of the time, if I attempt to apply a design template to just a few slides, it only lets me apply to all, so that's why I kept the simulation separate!

Back to the point ... the way I've been able to fix it is to find the background in the library, open (edit) it in Photoshop, save as a JPG, then go back to Captivate and import the new JPG over the original. Seems to work but I can't guarantee it will work next time it happens.

Captivate is the most buggy piece of software (being polite here) that I've ever encountered. Had I known this before I got so far into the project, I would have found an alternative. I can't believe how much it costs for such a problemmatic piece of ... software!

Jo