SCORM API and APIType

[NielRevelle]

Using Andrews Chemey's article on using SCORM and Captivate I'm working on a javascript SCORM API to integrate Captivate results into a web application. I made a shell API and used the sample from the article and it works perfect in FireFox. When I switched to IE I can see API calls for Initialize, Commit, and Terminate, but none of the other calls ever make it to my SCORM API. I was looking at the Simulation.htm in the SCORM 2004 Non-Pif directory and found that if I foreced g_intAPIType equal to 1 (getURL) it worked fine in IE.

I'm assuming there are reaons that when it detects IE it was switching to 0 (fscommand). Can anyone shed some light on this? Is there a setting in Captivate I need to instruct my content developers to use to force it to always use 1?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Newsgroup_User]

NielRevelle,

I'm confused with what you are trying to do...

However - the Captivate tracking mechanism is a two-way mechanism that needs
to work in as many browsers, Flash Player versions and Operating Systems as
possible. This "two-way" mechanism takes advantage of IE/ActiveX and uses
the setVariable method to pass data into Flash. However, other browsers and
OSs don't support ActiveX so it uses a different mechanism to send data into
Flash. That's why g_intAPIType is used (if 0 - it uses setVariable for the
ActiveX control; if it's 1 - it uses a different mechanism that supports
other OSs and Browsers, but still supports IE).

Finally, I can understand why Initialize (and Commit and Finish/Terminate)
is supported but nothing else. If a SCORM-compliant LMS is not available or
the SCORM API can't be found or the LMS can't initialize - the other SCORM
calls aren't made. Now - you have to determine why you think the LMS should
have been initialized but wasn't.

Can you provide more information on what you are trying to do? Does a stock
Captivate file launch/track from your LMS?

Regards,

Andrew

[NielRevelle · Accepted solution]

I'm just trying to develop a JavaScript SCORM API for our LMS. I was using the sample Captivate from your article (Internet Privacy Assesment) to test the API and it is failing under IE but was was working with FireFox. I was able to make it work by manually changing the APIType to 1. I had one my content creators make a new Captivate file with SCORM 2004 enabled and now it's working fine with that content in all browsers. Maybe it was a version issue from when you first create the article? Any way, even with that problem the article was very helpful. Thanks for the response.