Simulate a windows scrolling bar

[Jujote]

How to simulate a Windows scrolling bar in captivate 5.5?

Any idea?

[RodWard]

If you're talking about making it interactive and controlled by the user, this is not currently possible with standard Captivate functionality.  It would require custom Flash programming or widget development.

[Tara Aukerman]

I have done some "faking" when I need to simulate scrolling and clicking and dragging... It's not fancy (and I'm using Captivate 4), but satisfies most clients. I'm stuck training/simulating an application that, for many reasons, I can't always record with video/FMR.

You can:

1. Lay a click box over the whole scrollbar (excluding the arrow that goes the wrong way).
   • In the published version, the slide will pause and let the user click or (click, drag, and release) to progress.
2. On success, play a video of yourself clicking and dragging or show the mouse moving while you fade a series of screenshots (whichever makes more sense).

You can also have the user click the down/up arrow in the scrollbar - either multiple times, with the background updating each time, or once for all (one click to scroll all the way to your destination).

Neither is elegant - I'd love to hear if anyone else has a non-Flash/widget solution (or simulation).

[Guest]

You need to create an animation of the window you wish to scroll.  After you create the animation, insert it onto the stage.

Here is an example of an scrolling animation that I created for my Captivate project.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2P9pPzFic7jSVV4VmdFZHpKN0k

[RodWard]

Infosemantics will be demonstrating a new widget at the Adobe Learning Summit in Las Vegas at the end of this month that DOES allow you to simulate a scrolling window in Captivate.  The widget is not yet available for sale but should be ready in a month or so.

[Jujote]

How did you make it works in captivate? I can create such animation but I don’t know how to get it following the mouse.

De : ayenir

Envoyé : 11 octobre 2012 17:37

À : Jujote

Objet : Simulate a windows scrolling bar

Re: Simulate a windows scrolling bar

created by ayenir <http://forums.adobe.com/people/ayenir> in Adobe Captivate - View the full discussion <http://forums.adobe.com/message/4767812#4767812

[Guest]

Easy. 

Right click the slide and choose Insert -> Animation. 

Ensure that the animation is at the top of the stack.  You can do that by doing either of the following:

Right click animation and choose Arrange -> Bring to Front.

or

In the timeline, grab the animation and drag it to the top of the stack.

[Jujote]

Yes but how do you create the scrolling bar animation that works with the mouse? I can create animation showing windows being scrolling but it is not interactive. How to get the interactivity?

De : ayenir

Envoyé : 12 octobre 2012 18:38

À : Jujote

Objet : Simulate a windows scrolling bar

Re: Simulate a windows scrolling bar

created by ayenir <http://forums.adobe.com/people/ayenir> in Adobe Captivate - View the full discussion <http://forums.adobe.com/message/4770593#4770593

[RodWard]

I think Ayenir created his scrolling example in Flash and exported it as an SWF that you could then insert into Captivate.

To create an interactive scrolling example in Captivate alone, you would need that widget I mentioned before.  It's not yet available.  But it will allow you to take a screen capture of a web page or application screen, and allow the user to drag a scrollbar to simulate what they could do in the browser or app.

[Guest]

Rod,

Correct.

Further, I cannot wait for your new widget.  You event handler and drag and drop widgets are of great use to me.

[Guest]

I am facing a bit of a dilemma.  Is there a way to track the properties of the exported SWF in Captivate?

I ask this question, because Captivate click boxes obviously does not scroll with the exported SWF.  I want to enable/disable a click box based on the position of the scroll bars.

Does your widget address these issues?

[RodWard]

Our widget allows you to have click boxes positioned over areas of a scrolling background graphic (e.g. a screenshot of a web page with hyperlinks and buttons on it) and have those click boxes move up or down to match the position of the scrolling screenshot.  I'm not sure about your wanting to enable or disable a clickbox based on position of the scroll bars.  Why would you need to do that as long as the click box was in the right position to be clicked no matter where the background was?

[Guest]

Jujote,

After reading the following tutorial, you should be able to add interactivity to your animation.  I have very little Flash/AS3 experience (got my experience from YouTube, Widget King and random stuff on the Web), and was able to grasp and tweak the lesson to add horizontal scrolling ability to the existing code.

http://theflashconnection.com/book/export/html/186