'Ugly' and broken roll-over slidelets

[shawninvancouver]

There must be a better way.... or I wish for Captivate to improve this feature...

There is a slide in my lesson which covers terms and definitions. Since some of the definitions are long, I thought it would be clever to turn them into roll-overs. That way the voice narration would occur at the students pace.

But I am still having a huge problem with the slide moving forward (to the next slide) on a roll-over event. Rick and I worked on this problem a week ago and Rick thought that it was solved by publishing in AS2. It seems this is not the case and it is driving me absolutely batty!

I encountered a similar problem with multiple buttons and the solution is to use advanced actions with rdcmndGotoFrame := rdinfoCurrentFrame. This works well but the caveat is that it is a lot of work to set up a button. Also, many buttons (or advanced actions) in one lesson quickly because overwhelming because they can be seen in every slide (for some absolutely nonsensical reason)!

Anyhow, back to slidelets... there must be a better way! I certainly don't want to be forced to create advanced actions for fifteen terms! That would be ridiculous!

On a similar topic, the slidelet pop-up really needs serious improvement. There is no padding option for inserted text inside the slidelet, "Show Runtime Shadow" has no options and renders absolutely UGLY, and the (X) close is not always needed... please provide an option to remove it.

Please see my screen capture.

Thank you

[Scout_s_mom]

When I use rollovers, I park a click box somewhere out of the way and tell the trainee to roll over and when they've finished, to click Forward to continue.

To add padding to text captions, put in non-printing characters: Alt-0160 (with Num Lock on, using your keypad, not the keyboard numbers).  --Leslie

[shawninvancouver]

>When I use rollovers, I park a click box somewhere out of the way and tell the

>trainee to roll over and when they've finished, to click Forward to continue.

That is what I have already.

Thanks for your reply... but I think I figured this out. Someone please correct me if I am wrong (though it does seem to work now).

For the roll-over area properties: under the Advanced Tab, choose "No Action" for "On roll over". That seems to fix the problem.

The only other part of this I cannot figure out is the option, "If the user clicks inside the Rollover Slidelet", the option, "Stick Slidelet" only works for the length of time you have set for displaying the slidelet. What if you want to slidelet to really 'stick' until another slidelet is activated or the (X) close slidelet box is clicked? That doesn't seem to be an option.

>To add padding to text captions, put in non-printing characters: Alt-0160 (with Num

>Lock on, using your keypad, not the keyboard numbers).

Thanks for this suggestion, I will try this. Still, this really needs to be addressed in the next version.

I have seen the alpha preview for MAC Captivate 5... anyone know if the Windows version of Captivate 5 is also in simultaneous developement? I haven't heard a peep about a new Windows version.

[shawninvancouver]

I have also addressed the 'ugliness' and the lack of text padding of the roll-over slidelet standard pop-up boxes.

To achive this new look (see attachment), in open the properties for Text Caption, in the Text Caption tab, pull-down menu "Caption Type" and choose your new caption type (my example uses the "adobe popup" type).

Unfortunately, there are a few caveats and I hope someone more knowledgable can provide some insite:

1. Since I have overlayed all my slidelets on top of each other, there doesn't seem to be any provision for individually selecting a specific caption (if you need to edit the caption text). It seems that only the top level slidelet can be edited. In order to edit the other text captions hiden under the top one, you will have to temporarily shrink the text caption box and move it or send it to the back (via the "Order" command). This is a lot of unnecessary work!

2. Related to #1, if your new text caption is maximized in the slidelet box, you cannot move the slidelet/text caption without first reducing the size of the text caption so that you can 'grab' the attached slidelet.

In my attached screen capture, the blue box around the text caption can be made invisible by changing the slidelet colors.

So my question to the experts.... is there another way to select a slidelet box without having to do the above?

[Scout_s_mom]

Try right-clicking > Order > Send to Back (or Backward).  Better than resizing, if it works for you.  --Leslie

[shawninvancouver]

Hello Leslie,

I should have been more detailed about the problem with changing the order. It's not 'that' simple. In order to do this, all the slidelets have to be larger than the embedded text captions. You need to select the slidelet to change its order. If the slidelet and the embedded text are the same size, it is impossible to select the slidelet.

Still, it makes much more sense if I could select/edit each slidelet or its text caption from the timeline window.

It's been a nagging question for a long time.... I am wondering if I am one of the few educational developers using Captivate 4 in this manner? Every Captivate 4 demonstration I have seen, relies primarily on video with simple button control. In contrast, am using Captivate 4 for primarily interactive text and multiple buttons per slide. 

[Noellet]

Hi Shawn,

Just in response to your bottom comment, I too am using Captivate in the same way--and not enjoying all of the roadblocks I'm encountering. I'm working on my first project and am really frustrated by things that should be so simple--but are not. Just fighting to keep the video from moving to the next slide before you want it to wastes hours of my time! You can tell that Captivate is still fairly far away from an all around e-learning product. I think they are heading in that direction, though so more suggestions from people like us will hopefully help.

I, too, would love to see some examples of e-learning in Captivate that don't involve software capture. Anyone have any to share? It's the best way to learn.]

p.s. I, too and in Canada. Maybe it's a Canadian thing? haha

[shawninvancouver]

Hello Noel,

So we are both dealing with similar issues. Hopefully, we can learn from our collective experiences.

I think you are correct or at least it appears that most people are using Captivate with its basic functions. I don't mean to deminish anyone's efforts in this forum, I only say this because I have yet to see anything similar to what I am doing... That is, multiple buttons, pop-up boxes, etc.. on a single slide, embedded animations (software simulations), customized quiz section (well... I just changed the layout and fonts), I'm not using a time slider bar.

When you begin to do more than a few basic buttons and software simulations, you will begin to encounter areas where Captivate 4 breaks down. It's going to be either bugs or very unwieldy/difficult controls that will catch you.

It seems that everytime I find a solution to one problem, I then 'discover' another. On the bright-side, I am getting closer to a working project. I've overcome most of my earlier problem.... not that every solution was elegant... but it works!

Feel free to share you worst issues and I will be happy to assist you.

Hopefully, the next version will have a few improvements.

Canadian thing? Maybe we are just the biggest complainers.... or we know how to push this tool to infinity and beyond?

[Scout_s_mom]

Hey, hey hey.  We in the US can push too!  (And complain, as well.)  <-;  

Sometimes you can solve problems with more slides, branching navigation, etc.  Then, of course, some projects are really best accomplished with, say, Flash.  Captivate definitely has its limitations. 

I'm always happy to take a gander at representative parts of projects and offer whatever help I can.  --Leslie

[Scout_s_mom]

Shawninvancouver,

It sounds as if you have some really complex interactions.  Have you thought about foregoing the slidelet approach and use branching?  I'd be happy to take a look at some representative slides from your project and offer whatever help I can. --Leslie

[shawninvancouver]

Hello Leslie,

With Rick's help, I was able to resolve the slidelets issue a while ago. 🙂

My [last] two stumbling blocks in Captivate 4 are:

- Embedded animations not working properly (they go black after about 1/2 way)

  I purchased Michael's widget, which fixes that problem but fails when I publish to Connect Pro.

- Fonts (I only use Verdana 10, 11) are not consistant throughout the project (in preview or published mode).

Once I find a solution to these two problems, I will be a happy camper!

[Scout_s_mom]

shawninvancouver,

What 'flavor' are your animations?  swf?  flv?  I've had a similar problem in the distant past and recall that using a different animation type solved the problem.

Re: the font issue.  Are you finding wrapping where you don't expect it?  If so, that seems to be a "feature" of Captivate.  Although it's a pain, I fix this during my final QA.  I run the published file on one monitor and work on the .cp file on the other.  I usually reisize the text caption box just a tad or put hard returns (Enter) or soft returns (Shift-Enter) to control line breaks.

Good luck! --Leslie

[Captiv8r]

Hi Leslie

Shawn is inserting smaller Captivate created demonstrations inside of larger Captivate slides and referring to them as animations.

Cheers... Rick

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[Scout_s_mom]

Re: "stick slidelet".  To have the slidelete appear to stick until the user clicks another slidelet, have the original click go to the next slide with a graphic of the "stuck" slidelet.  Does that make sense?  --Leslie