Interactive animations and hover effects

[SanMas]

Hello, I'm an Adobe Captivate newbie who is trying to understand the limitations of this software. I'm primarily interested in whether or not I can recreate 'fancy' hover/mouse over events in Captivate 9 using Flash or Animate Edge, for example. I have already attempted to import a 3D flip card hover effect made in Flash that was to be used for a memory game, however the animation file failed to load. Was there a problem with the ActionScript? Should I have created it as a Widget? Or are these kinds of interactive features not supported in Captivate?

Thank you for your help!

[RodWard]

How did you import the Flash animation and what publishing output were you using?

Did you test the published output locally on your PC or did you try uploading to a web server and testing from there?

[SanMas]

Hi, I imported the animation file by selecting Media > Animation. I tested the output locally, as well as on a web browser. I also downloaded a demo file containing a similar 3D flip card effect to test to see if there was simply something wrong with my coding, however that demo file went haywire when I tried to play it in Captivate - it was very strange. My animation just doesn't show and a quick error message pops up that is hard to read. I do feel as though what I created isn't compatible with Captivate.

[SanMas]

Hi again. I created a new animation using TweenLite and it actually works! The card flips when the user clicks on it, however, I also would like for a textbox to appear when the user completes this action. Is that possible using advanced actions?

[Lilybiri]

To trigger advanced actions you need an 'event'. End of an animation is not an 'event' at all. Put the 'textbox' (is this a text caption, a shape with text or a Text Entry Box) staggered on the timeline of the slide, so that its start is just after the end of the animation. Are you aware of the fact that those SWF's will not play in HTML output?

[SanMas]

Hi Lilybiri, I apologise if I am misunderstanding, but the issue I see with your suggestion is that I am trying to code the animation to act as a toggle button and therefore there is no end to the animation in this case. I suppose I was hoping that the 'event' could be the mouse click. I am aware of the obsoleteness of SWFs and wish to replicate this effect in HTML5, but for the time being I more comfortable working in Flash. 

With that said, I have been successful in producing the desired effect entirely in Flash, however, it is a little fiddly as I have to estimate the positions of the objects in another program. 

[Lilybiri]

That information was lacking in your question, right?

How do you communicate between that toggle button and Captivate? Using JS? I'm wondering why people are using such a complicated setup when Captivate has now multistates and shape buttons, eventually even effects? You wouldn't have any position issues neither if you used the built in features of Captivate. This blog post was written, more for the use of the shared action than for the design of the toggle buttons:

1 action = 5 Toggle Buttons - Captivate blog

Of course my goal for Captivate output is to have an interactive efficient eLearning asset. An animation can look nice, but there is not something really more interactive about it than pressing the button.

[SanMas]

My apologies, my initial question was only meant to be a general inquiry regarding the potentials of interactive elements imported into Captivate. I am no coder, but I was hoping that maybe it was possible to utilise JS to command the animation to function as a button within Captivate. I see now that I was a little over my head. As for why I was thinking of something so complicated – I suppose it is because I am a graphic designer with a background in animation and one who is very new to using Captivate. I will try to familiarise myself with what the program has to offer.

Thank you so much for linking me to your blog post – it was very helpful!

[Lilybiri]

OK, understand, no need to apologize. People come to Captivate from a lot of different backgrounds, and it is not always an easy transition. Communication between Captivate and Flash was 'easy' when you created widgets. Since Flash-output to SWF is now EOL (at least for this kind of integration on courses and websites that can be watched on mobile devices), there is not yet a replacement for this way of communication. You can insert OAM's in Captivate, but for the communication you'll need JS-skills. BTW: Animate CC, released yesterday (formerly Flash Professional) can publish to OAM. I will try it out and post if they can be embedded in Captivate.