Slide Progress Bar

[Guest]

Hi We are working on Adobe Captivate 6.

We want the progress bar in the playbar to be for each individual slide rather than the entire project.

Eg. Instead of showing say, Slide 1 to 100, we want it to show slide duration.

[RodWard]

Captivate does not have a system variable that will give you the number of frames on the current slide or the frame number that begins the next slide. So I do not see how you would be able to achieve your goal of ensuring jumping ahead 5 seconds did not sometimes inadvertently jump the learner into the next slide.

[JamesAtLLOUD]

Well, since we are talking workarounds instead of keeping the product request alive - why not publish one slide at a time?  Start in ur LMS - go to slide one - scrub and quit back to ur LMS, then next slide.  I mean why not?

Or we could continue to ask Adobe for something that we 'less informed' users seem to want - as unreasonable or un-logical as Adobe may think it to be.

[ElaKat]

@ B-ace:

I agree with Rod and Lilybiri that there's no straightforward way to do that with system variables (alas, a frame count per slide would indeed be helpful).

I tried to come up with a less elegant approach involving another user variable and an action at the start of a slide that jumps back one or two frames if the user overshot when skipping five seconds forward, but unfortunately it didn't work consistently when combined with the backwards skip button. (Captivate insisted on updating the StartFrame user variable associated with the backwards button whether I told it to or not... perhaps I'm missing a silly error, or the file got corrupted...)

I do wonder if it would actually be easier to implement using JavaScript, bypassing advanced actions altogether. (Sometimes programming logic can work better than the more limited advanced action logic.) But it's been a while since I used JavaScript...

@ JamesAtLLOUD:

Have you submitted a feature request? (I think the link is here https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform) That's the only real way to make a product request. In these forums you'll mostly just get us fellow Captivate users suggesting workarounds

[B-ace]

Thanks for trying to think of a solution, ElaKat. I tried to do more or less the same thing with some more variables and expressions but I stranded as well.

I can use your solution for going back a couple of seconds without leaving the slide. This is already a huge improvement compared to having to rewatch the whole slide. Perhaps that's good for now and I'll leave the "forward 5 seconds button" out (allthough the uneven navigation buttons will nag me to no end).

[TLCMediaDesign]

I've created progress bars that are for slide length only and the progress bar is clickable for the portion that has been viewed or for the whole slide. It automatically pauses the slide at the end also. You can PM me here.

[B-ace]

Apparently I can't PM you because you're not following me. (I think These Adobe websites are always very hard to figure out).

Would you be so kind to do that or provide me with another option to get in contact? I'd like to see some more info on your solution.

Thanks

[TLCMediaDesign]

You can contact info@tlcmediadesign.com if you cannot reach us through the PM here.

[MJPettitt]

Hi TLC. I'd be interested in this solution and tried to get in touch but it said your inbox was full. Can you get in touch if possible? michael.pettitt[at]educare.co.uk

[Lilybiri]

Thanks for your nice comment about my blog.

It depends of course on the way the slides are designed, but is a simple Rewind button for each slide not an alternative? Problem with rewinding to whatever frame in a slide (micronavigation, another word I 'invented' for my blog) is that not everything will work as you want.

Micronavigation could also allow to rewind to some frames in a slide, but is it worthwhile? Splitting up slides that are too long, or too complicated in multiple slides with that Rewind button could be all you need, without the confusion and inconvenience of a playbar.

[Lilybiri]

Maybe my post about micronavigation could help: http://blog.lilybiri.com/micro-navigation-in-adobe-captivate

But you have to be aware of the fact that due to a possible small delay, the correct frame will not always be captured. It can be one or two numbers besides the correct one. There is a system variable cpInfoFPS that can be used to calculate the number of frames with an Expression command.

Lilybiri