Embedded animation always stops at slide 18 of 24 (but there are 38 slides!!)

[shawninvancouver]

I am trying to embed a software demonstration (walk-through) animation, created with Captivate. It has a total of 38 slides, and works perfectly on its own.

However, when I publish, and insert the resulting swf into my main Captivate lesson, it always stops at slide 18 (displays 18 of 24)... clicking the forward button shows blank screens after 18 and all the way to slide 38 (it displays slide 38 of 24 in the preview window)!!

Again, this animation works perfectly (either in preview or published) on its own.

I hate to keep asking so many questions lately. I do search the forum before I ask but nothing ever seems completely applicable!

[shawninvancouver]

Hello Michael,

Thanks for your quick reply.

If I just go ahead and pay for the widget, is the download automated?

Also, can you recommend any sources for writing widgets?

I don't want to compete with you....   Rather, there are soooo many things that I believe I can do better (there are so many inadequacies in C4)... I wonder how much control I would have over Captivate via a Widget?

I found the following resources:

Link one

Link two

Link three

I don't care if people give away their widgets or charge for them.... I'm just happy that people are making useful widgets that fix or extend the capabilities of Captivate 4.

[shawninvancouver]

Hello Micheal,

I went ahead and purchased your widget. Even if it doesn't work for me.... considering this a 'thank you' for your tireless efforts in this forum.

One question, is there a technical limitation that prevents the ability to preview animations associated with this widget?

If the ability to view animations from preview mode is possible.... I would be happy to pay an enhanced version of the widget.

[www_cpguru_com]

Hi Shawn,

Thanks a lot ;o)

Unfortunately it's a technical limitation that makes it impossible to view the animation in preview mode. This is because when you preview from Captivate it actually creates the Captivate SWF and stores that in a temporary address on your PC. Since that temporary address changes for every project it's not possible to take this into account in the widget.

I have one workaround though. If you create a slide in your project at the very end and import all your animations to that (the regular way from Captivate) then it will also publish those animations to the temp dir and the Loader Widget would be able to pick them up. You would need to preview with F4 the first time to "publish" the entire SWF and assets to the temp dir. When you are done working on your project you can just delete that last slide and publish regularly and copy the animation SWFs to the published directory.

As for developing widgets there really isn't that many resources available that I know of. The way forward is to look at the stock widgets supplied by Adobe and then try and see how they work. Once you understand these you can begin creating your own.

Rod and Tristan Ward from Infosemantics also created something called Widget Factory. This is a new approach to AS3 widgets so that might be worth checking out for you as well. Here is the link: http://www.infosemantics.com.au/?q=node/26

This is how I got started but I must admit that for 80% of my needs I just create the functionality in Flash and totally skip the Widget API. It's just much quicker and much more stable. For some reason things tend to go a little bit crazy when you are developing stuff within the Widget API restrictions and it's extremely difficult to debug since the Widget wont work at all if it isn't played from within a Captivate movie.  Most of the functionality that you can have in Widgets can be done directly in Flash as well and then you just import it as an animation. The advantage of Widgets is that a developer who can't use Flash can modify the behaviour directly in Captivate but if you have and know Flash then it's easier to change that in Flash directly.

/Michael

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Visit my Captivate blog with tips & tricks, tutorials and Widgets.

[shawninvancouver]

Hello Michael,

Are you able to share the flash code for this loader? I am just wondering what is so special about it.

Thanks