Multi lingual software simulations

[haroldlentink]

Dear fellow e-learning developers,

At the moment I'm still looking if Captivate would be the right solution for us. So maybe some experienced users could shed a light on our situation. Which is the following:

We have a software application. For this application we would like to create e-learning with probably a lot of software simulations. Because we think its important to let people experience the software during training (setting up test environments is not an option). But we face the fact that we have multiple languages in our software. What would be an efficient workflow. I'm under the impression that I can swap video's in Captivate. Let's say I've recorded a English scorm. Finished it up with all the extra slides hotspots everything. I then want to make an German version as well. I can record a new recording (with a mouse recorder for instance), which is "exactly" the same as the English version time wise. The only difference is the display language of our software. Could I then simply swap the video?

Like to hear your experiences on this.

Thanks in advance,

Harold

[Lilybiri]

Not sure to understand what you want. Will you be creating software simulations in training mode or, as your last sentence seems to tell, only passive video screencasts?

[haroldlentink]

Simulation in the training mode. But if I record these with capitvate can I then replace the screenrecoding with another (language recording). I noticed if you click on the video in the asset library, you cannot simply replace the file like for instance in Premiere or After Effects. Does this make sense

[Lilybiri]

Sorry, still don't understand. You are again speaking about a 'video' in the Library. For software traibing, the Library has background, not videos except maybe for FMR slides. The Backgrounds are static images and they can be edited/replaced provided you keep same name. However, you also have the Hint/Success feedback messages which are appearing.

Both PP and AE are video applications, which is something totally different.

[haroldlentink]

Captivate, makes a screenrecording. After that It gets imported into your captivate project as a training (or at least not a demo). Captivate creates slides and places the hotspots etc over the screen recording. What if I would like to replace the complete screen recording with another. Could this be done (with just a click). Does Captivate store the screenrecording somewhere on the PC, so that it can be replaced via captivate or maybe even via your windows explorer.

The reason that I ask is to try to find an workflow that is as effective as possible. So I might be in the wrong direction. But since we have to deal with all these translations and the frequently updates of the software that we sell, Scorm packages and screen recordings have to be created/changes on a 3-6 months base. Therefore I'm trying to get the best results with the least work.

And the discussion might be even turned around like.

What is the best workflow in our situation when we eventually are talking about 40-60 scormpackages per languages in at least 5 languages with changes on a 3-6 monthly base. Does this make sense?

[Lilybiri]

That is a very complicated situation. I have been creating software simulations in several languages, but always with the same language in the software. Even that work flow took a lot of time. It will never be a single-click operation, probably because of the rather complicated software which is Captivate. Recording a video is rather simple, compared with  Captivate's work flow of creating a software simulation, where not only click boxes (hotspots) but also Text Entry Boxes, hint/success messages are inlcuded during the capture.

A cptx-file is really a zipped folder.  Try to unzip such a file and you'll see the total structure with all the objects included in that folder. When publishing to HTML5 you also end up with a structured folder.  Maybe there is a way to exchange the necessary files in the cptx-folder, but I have no experience with that type of hacking, I'm just a Captivate user.

I already pointed to the Background images in the Library, which are statiic, no video.  Those can easily be exchanged, which would take care of the background and of the click boxes. However the labels in the popup messages and for the Text Entry Boxes are normally defined before recording by choosing the language in the Preferences, Recording, Settings. The used texts can be found in .rrdl files (maybe anohter idea for hacking?). Or you can use the export/import option

I am used to add instructional slides to a software simulation. Text on such a slide can be exported and re-imported after translation either using Word or XML.

Sincerely hope that a user with more programming skills will pop in to help you better than I was able to do. My apologies.

[haroldlentink]

I do understand your point of view. And it's certainly helpful to get a better understanding. So thanks for that.

[RodWard]

Captivate can record a series of screens in one of two ways.

It can certainly record a seamless video of the actions that you perform when you do the recording.  That's what Captivate authors refer to as a Video Demo.  But it's only really suitable for the end user to watch, like any other video.  It's not interactive.

The original method Captivate used for screencapture, and for which it is still best known, is to record a series of static images of the screen at points where the operator clicked something or in some other way interacted with the software interface being recorded at the time. These captured images then become the background graphics for each slide.

This type of screen-by-screen capture can be in one of three flavours.  There can be no interactivity and the screens simply progress from one slide to the next with captions and highlight boxes appearing at intervals to point things out.  Or it can be interactive with Text Entry Boxes, buttons, Click Boxes etc set up on top of the background screenshots to allow the user to practice the task.  And this second type can also then be configured for scoring and reporting to a quiz result.

So what my colleague Lilybiri has been trying to find out is which of all these types you are referring to. 

Since you mentioned the concept of having hotspots over the top of the screen recording, the assumption would normally be that you were referring to the screen-by-screen (slide-by-slide) method. But this means there is no single thing that can be replaced to create a different language version.  You would need to replace each and every background image on the captured slides.

[haroldlentink]

RobWard,

Thanks for your reply as well. Since I'm not so into these terms yet, I could not come op with the term slide by slide. But this is indeed what I meant. An I indeed came to the conclusion that apparently what I want seems impossible. That is unfortunate since replacing each and every background is a tedious job to say the least. So the search for an efficient workflow remains. but on this matter I at least have some answers.

So thank you as well. 

[RodWard]

To be honest, if I had your specific challenge to cope with, I would be looking into using that mouse recording software you mentioned earlier and set up some kind of automated process that I could run at any time that I needed to create an updated version of the screencapture in a given language.

I have used Captivate for many years (since before version 1 came out) but if you have to make many updates to an existing recording task, then re-recording from scratch again is probably quicker than trying to modify the old one.

There are some on this forum that routinely have to deal with publishing course content in many languages, so hopefully one of those users will give you their personal take on how they do it.  But it's certainly not going to be a piece of cake.

[haroldlentink]

Ok thanks you.

Kind regards, Harold