Publishing with Captivate 2017 in both Flash and HTML5 at the same time

[argopellter]

I was wondering, if you publish with both Flash and HTML5 which will the browser use if it can do both? We used to do it in Captivate 9 and HTML5 would go as first choice. But in Captivate 10 Flash is coming first choice. What is supposed to happen and did something change between the two versions?

[Lilybiri]

I find pulishing that way and using the multiscreen.html to launch is not working well anymore and quit publishing hat way.

The choice was made based on the used device: if it was a dekstop/laptop Flash was chosen and HTML for mobile devices. However since even some desktop webbrowsers now don't install Flash Player plugin by default, I recommend to publish to HTML only.

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

When you publish a Captivate project with SWF and HTML5 both checked it creates an index.html file, [NAME OF PROJECT].htm and multiscreen.html

• index.html you will launch the HTML5 version of the course
• [NAME OF PROJECT].htm will open the SWF version of the project, and
• multiscreen.html will check if the browser has Flash Player and run the SWF version and then only run the HTML5 version of the course if Flash Player is not available (i.e. disabled, not installed or on a mobile device)

I have found that most SCORM compliant LMS will launch multiscreen.html by default but as Lilybiri points out this is not always the case. Many LMS will let you override this and point to either of the other two files if needed. Of course, if that's the case there is little point in publishing in this hybrid way. I recommend to my clients to only publish to HTML5 at this point since most organizations are now banning Flash Player from being installed on their client devices.

[RodWard]

One slight correction: The code inside the multiscreen.html file is not checking whether or not the user's browser has a Flash Player, but is checking whether or not the user's browser is a MOBILE browser, i.e. a browser found on a mobile device.  (There is code inside the published HTM file that launches the SWF content which checks to see whether or not the end user has Flash Player.  But this code will redirect the user to the Adobe site where Flash Player can be downloaded, not to the HTML5 version of the course.)

Only if the multiscreen.html file sees a mobile browser will it redirect to the HTML5 version of the course.  The issue with this is that there are now plenty of desktop users with HTML5-compatible browsers and NO Flash Player because it has been removed from their current browser version.  If so, many users will not see any content at all with the dual publishing setup.

Bottom line is that until Adobe chooses to modify the "sniffer" code in the multiscreen.html file, it's wiser to be using only HTML5 publishing, not dual publishing.

[Lilybiri]

Rod, that was what I wrote as well.... choice made based on the used device. Moreover the difference between SWF and HTML output has become greater as well.

[Erik Lord]

I think the multiscreen file just looks at the browser size - or at least used to. I'm pretty sure (in testing a few years ago) it was fairly easy to have the HTML version show if the browser (or maybe screen) size was small. I could be wrong

Either way, agreed with overall - you should really not be publishing to SWF anymore at all if possible.

If you have legacy equipment/software that requires Flash, then find all instances of 'multiscreen.html' in the published IMSmanifest.xml file and change that to the [name of project].htm file, so the LMS launches that instead of the multiscreen file...that'll force Flash (shudder ).

[RodWard]

If you look at the code inside the multiscreen.html file itself you will see a function called isHandheldDevice which is checking for specific devices such as the following:

var lDevicesUserAgents = ["blackberry","android","iphone","ipad","symbian","smartphone","ios","windows ce","webos"];

So it's look at whether or not the end user is viewing the content from a mobile (handheld) device.  That's what determines whether or not it redirects to HTML5 or SWF.

[argopellter]

Thanks, guys. We have decided to just not publish the swf file. We only kept that on for an old version of internet explorer, that none of our users use anymore anyways.

The company that originally created the interface to our LMS had created a special multiscreen.html file that we had to load into our template folder when we installed Captivate 9. That is probably why it reacted different when we published both swf and HTML5.

Thanks for the help and information.

[Lilybiri]

Wise decision!