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I'm working on converting some Captivate courses I inherited, so that they'll play in HTML5. The original creator used tons of rollovers, which I'm busy replacing with click boxes. One way they used rollovers was to optionally show definitions for words that were in orange text in a block of other text, if the user needed to be reminded of the definition of that word.
I have no problem replacing the rollover with a definition text box and a click box that shows that text box. However, I'd like the definition text box to disappear a few seconds after it shows, rather than persist on the page. How do I do that? I tried setting a 3-second duration on text box, but that made no difference. (Reading the manual and Googling this question has not yielded an answer for me.)
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Note: I'm using Captivate 9, because that's the only version my company will allow me to use right now, so please don't chastise me for not using a newer version! Also, please don't chastise me for not having converted these to HTML5 sooner....the Adobe Connect server showed these courses on the Content page with a "Yes" in the "HTML Compatible?" column, so I thought they would be good to go, the same way the Adobe Presenter courses with a "Yes" in the "HTML Compatible?" column were.
There have been a lot of improvements for HTML output with versions 10, 11 and 11.5. But that is not helping you of course. HTML output is available in your version, but apparently the output has been still SWF. Indeed, some objects are not supported for HTML output. However, if your learners do NOT use mobile devices, but only desktop/laptop, Rollovers will continue to work, with the exception of Rollover Slidelets. Just FYI.
Do you have multistate objects? Here is a very simple workflow using
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There have been a lot of improvements for HTML output with versions 10, 11 and 11.5. But that is not helping you of course. HTML output is available in your version, but apparently the output has been still SWF. Indeed, some objects are not supported for HTML output. However, if your learners do NOT use mobile devices, but only desktop/laptop, Rollovers will continue to work, with the exception of Rollover Slidelets. Just FYI.
Do you have multistate objects? Here is a very simple workflow using a multistate object, but I fear that you still don't have the command 'Delay Next actions by..... ' in your version to be used in shared/advanced actions? It would be ideal to extend this workflow:
http://blog.lilybiri.com/click-slash-reveal-interactions-back-to-basics
The action would have to be:
Go to Next state ...object
Delay Next actions by X secs
Go to Next state ... object
Supposing you don't have that command, why not use the Success feedback message of the Click box? That may seem crazy but is probably the simplest way:
Beware: click boxes are not allowed in a fluid boxes responsive project. But there I am sure: they don't exist in our version.
If each text is in a shape, you could convert the shape to a button instead of using a click box over the text. That will not work of course if you need click reveal for multiple words in the same shape.
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Thank you for your response! The Success feedback seems like an interesting workaround....I'll have to check that out!
These courses were last published to both SWF and HTML (which is, I think, why the Contents page indicated that they were HTML compatible), but they didn't launch.....all that showed was a blank screen and a separate tab showing all of the non-HTML5-compliant features, including rollovers. (We didn't publish these to be used on mobile devices...the rollovers are not working in the latest version of Chrome on my Windows 10 machine.) Oh, and the click boxes are just sitting on top of text boxes....not "in" anything, and the text is not in a shape.
I've had no problem converting the rollovers to click boxes (other than time and aggravation -- I'll have a total of 130 of these to do across six different courses) and, the two courses I already completed the conversion work for play fine with those replacement click boxes. The only reason I'm even wanting to have the definition disappear is that there are other click-to-see-text elements on this page and space is limited. For those two other elements, which work based on clicking a click box that sits over a text box that looks like a button and shows detailed info about the label on that faux "button," I figured out how to create advanced actions that would hide the other faux button's corresponding detailed info before showing the most recently clicked-on faux button's detailed info, so that the detailed info text boxes for both faux buttons could use the same space on the slide. But I wanted to treat the definition text box differently, hence my original question!
At any rate, thank you VERY much, again, for your suggested workaround to deal with my issue! 🙂
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The dual publishing did lead to always showing SWF output on laptop/desktop and HTML output on mobile devices. Now that Flash player is dead, you have issues with watching the desktopt/laptop version. But you seem to work on courses with very outdated workflows. Sorry, maybe I will get cursed again.
Text captions is such an old workflow, you can see in Preferences that all feedback message are by default Shapes, not text captions anymore. My proposed workflow, using the Success message, is also possible for Rollover Images, since you can fill a shape with an image. Just FYI.
Having a click box over an image or text (what you call faux button) is MO ridiculous, since you can do this with a shape, either filled with text or image, used as button. Shapes appeared with Captivate 6 and my practical mind cannot understand why people still use workflows from Captivate 4 or older.
Please, to close the thread, you need to mark the most relevant answer to your question as being correct. That can help other users looking at this thread.
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Sorry if my "workflow" is too archaic....I haven't actually created an e-course from scratch with Captivate for many years and, when I did use it previously, it was for systems training, which was centered around video captures, not "concepts" training. When I create the kind of "concepts" courses I'm trying to fix now, I use Lectora, which I think is far superior to Captivate for that type of training, in terms of ease of use (and maye even robustness). The Captivate 9 manual is horribly written, too, and has been of only minimal help. (Adobe Presenter is also a useful tool, when I don't need too much in the way of interactivity or engagement.) I'm really just trying to get these courses back to some kind of working status as quickly as possible....I don't have the time or incentive to go back for some in-depth training to learn better "workflows" to create the kind of training I'd never use it for in the first place.
I do, however, frequently recommend Captivate to folks at my company who are looking to create systems training, which is what I think it really excels at. Interestingly, though, I'm finding more and more folks at my company are ending up opting to use Camtasia over Captivate, because they find Camtasia easier to use. I've always discouraged that, since I know Captivate is more robust than Camtasia, but I have to say that I'm feeling a bit more sympathetic to them now...
BTW, I'm not sure what you were referring to when you said "...maybe I will get cursed again." Who/what cursed you before? Certainly not I! But I can imagine that happening on this forum (even if I don't agree with behaving that way), since I've noticed an unusually high propensity for experts here to unpleasantly chastise, or talk condescendingly to, those less expert for their ignorance or for other things, without taking into account that there may be reasons for those other things (which is why I felt it necessary to include that "side note" in the text of my original question). I don't get a particularly friendly vibe overall here, especially towards newbies, like I do from other e-learning forums that I've participated in or read through. That said, I've been positively impressed with the quickness of the experts' responses and, as I've said several times already, I am grateful for your help with the issue I posted in your thread.
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Completely understand that colleagues prefer Camtasia over Captivate if they only need software capture. It is easier but has too much limitations for real elearning assets. My personal opinion.
I have used and liked Lectora. However its learning curve when you go to more complicated elearning courses is certainly not easy. It may be more robust, but recently I hear less and less about Lectora. Maybe I am missing the right channels, but even in comparisons of eLearning authoring tools it rarely appears. I remember a presentation I once did with a Lectora expert where we compared same workflows in the two tools. That was great fun, and attendees found it useful.
My real nature is 'teaching', that is why I talked about 'old' workflows which always are saddening to me. I am sure you don't use a calculus anymore (have been using that long time ago, and was very useful) but a calculator? For accountancy you will not fill in long books with numbers but use an accounting application or maybe just Excel?
Now I understand - due to your background with software sims - why click boxes are on top of your list. My concern is that I expected already since quite a while to have that specific item disappear (same with text caption) from Captivate. At least for Fluid Boxes responsive design, that is already the case. Why use two objects when you can do it with one object? At this moment you may not create responsive projects yet, but being prepared may be time saving in the (near) future. I am NOT talking about in-depth training at all (although that may be a time saver) but about very basic new workflows.
I offered you a very simple solution, which I would use myself in this particular use case. I took into account that you are not using the most recent version. But some users find it condescending when I try to push them at least to look at better basic workflows which have proven their usefulness. Shapes ad multi-featured objects and multistate objects (to replace many hide/show workflows) are only two examples. When I would mention shared actions compared with duplicate advanced actions, you could talk about more in-depth features. Not for shapes nor multistate objects.
Hope this answers at least a little bit your concerns. Thanks for not insulting me, I appreciate it. However you may expect similar 'pushes' if you post a question after having gotten an answer.
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The sucess box did exactly what I wanted....thanks again!!!
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Sorry, our mails were posted at the same. Thanks for marking the correct answer. You remembered me that I need to post more about the conversion swf to html because more and more questions appear now that Flash player is really dead.