How to display elapsed time / total time on published Captivate tutorial

[sandy.pflug]

I am trying to display the elapsed time / total time on my published Captivate tutorial and can't figure out how to do it. Like you see on a YouTube video, for example 1:31 / 5:30. I checked the skin editor and don't see it there. I checked the list of variables, and only see an elapsed time in milliseconds. Does anyone know how to do this? Thank you!

[RodWard]

It appears at the bottom of the Table of Contents, not on the playbar.  Do you have the Table of Contents on?

[sandy.pflug]

Thank you for the response. I really don't want a TOC on my project. It's a 2 minute training about one topic, so a TOC is irrelevant. There's no way to display this like Youtube or all other video players? That's really what I need.

[Lilybiri]

You are confusing two different times. I label them as:

1. Developer's time, which is what Rod points out as appearing in the TOC
2. Learner's real time spent on the course; the system variables you are referring to are from that category. The timer and hourglass interactions also show that type of time

I have created several blogs about showing time. Here is one link:

http://blog.lilybiri.com/display-time-cp2019

[sandy.pflug]

Thank you for the response! I guess it's developer's time that I'm looking for, but there is no need for a TOC on these small projects. They only cover one topic each, so it's irrelevant. I'm just looking to turn on a simple timer like you see at the bottom of YouTube videos.

[Lilybiri]

A passive video is rather different from an interactive course.  For a passive video there is only one 'time', but that is not at all the case for an interactive course. Reason why I offered you the link to a blog post.  Which time do you want to show?  Total project time (developer) is easy: calculate cpInfoFrameCount/cpInfoFPS and you have the total number of seconds. 

Information only about developer's time can be very confusing to the learner, since 50% developer's time can be 90% learner's time. 

Here is another blog, which will give you a percentage of developer's time, even if you have branching (non-linear project):

http://blog.lilybiri.com/percentage-progress-indicator-non-linear-course-solution-2

[ChrisG LMS]

Are you wanting to show:

progress in the current slide / total time of slide

OR

progress in the overall course / total time of overall course

Sounds like your course may only be one slide long.

[sandy.pflug]

Hi, I'm looking for progress in the overall course / total time of overall course. It is more than one slide.

[Lilybiri]

Apparently you do not understand what I explained. Nor did you look at those blogs.

Typically a slide without audio has a duration of 3 seconds. But that slide may have a pausing point, because you want the learner to click/reveal several buttons and read/watch all what is popping up. It may take the learner 1-2 minutes to do that. Which time do you want to show???? What is the progress of the learner at that moment if your complete developer time is only 2 minutes but they already spent two minutes on one slide????

Both blog posts talk about time display for a complete project, never for one slide. Even the expression:

    cpInfoFrameCounts/cpInfoFPS     gives you the complete project time in seconds.

[sandy.pflug]

Lilybiri, my last response was answering Chris' question and I did read your blog. And I do understand that interactive tutorials take longer than the slide length when they are not linear and do not contain voiceover. This tutorial is linear and has voiceover, so it should be straight forward: it's the length of the complete project. How would I use the variables you suggest? I tried $$cpInfoFrameCount$$/$$cpInfoFPS$$ but just displays 1371/30 in my published project. Thank you.

[Lilybiri]

Whether they take longer is not due to not being linear, but to interactivities. If you only create non-interactive tutorials, you have exact the same (lack of) efficiency for learning as a passive video. No need for an eLearning tool in that case. Use output to Video and put it on YouTube or another platform. 

I wrote that you have to calculate with the Expression command, and that is also full explained in the blogs I offered. Maybe you never wrote an advanced action?  You just displayed the variables, you didn't calculate the division result.

[sandy.pflug]

Yes, I've written advanced actions, but never using variables. I'll try it out. Thank you for your responses.