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Gania
Gania
Inspiring
January 8, 2015
Question

Captivate Demos in RoboHelp11

  • January 8, 2015
  • 1 reply
  • 319 views

I haven't used RoboHelp for years, but I am evaluating TCS5 for my company. I'd like to ask, is there a way to link a demo into a topic (like "show me") that will only appear if the user wants to view. I can see how to import the demo but it starts as soon as the topic is opened.

Thanks

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1 reply

Jeff_Coatsworth
Community Expert
Jeff_CoatsworthCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 8, 2015

Two ways of handling this – include play controls in the Captivate output so that it won’t start auto-playing when the topic is opened (best solution IMHO) or create a separate topic, add the video to it and add a link to the topic container from the main “real” topic so that users can click on it if they want.

Captiv8r
Captiv8r
Legend
January 8, 2015

Well, actually more than two ways.

Sorry Jeff, but simply ensuring the Captivate has playback controls will do nothing whatsoever to keep it paused. What the Captivate author has to do is to ensure an object such as a Click Box, Text Entry Box, Button, or Smart Shape configured as a button has been placed on the first slide and has been configured to pause playback. Or, in the preferences, configure the project to begin paused. But that's all on the Captivate developer's side.

So you are correct in that if the Captivate is placed in its own topic and the topic is linked to, that would solve the issue.

If you don't want the user to open a completely different topic to watch the demo, you could also insert the Captivate demo into a Dynamic HTML Drop Down. That way it will be hidden until needed. And it won't begin to play until the user clicks the link to reveal the drop down.

Actually, there are a myriad of possibilities with this. It all depends on exactly what Geri is looking for as far as behavior. For example, the Captivate may have been created so large that it simply cannot be used properly if inside the DHTML I spoke about. So maybe it does need to be on its own page. If so, you really don't need to create a topic and insert. You should instead import the HTML page created by Captivate.

And it gets even more fun and confusing with the advent of folks scrambling to move toward HTML 5 as well as Responsive. Mostly what was discussed earlier would apply to SWF output only.

Cheers... Rick

Jeff_Coatsworth
Community Expert
Jeff_CoatsworthCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 8, 2015

Jeff - Are you the person creating the SWF demos?

Is it possible that you inserting these into Frame, then they flow into RoboHelp? I've never seen any setting in RoboHelp with inserting Captivate where you specify whether it has controls or not. So your report is confusing to me.

Then again, I seem to get confused easily since becoming an old man. LOL

Cheers... Rick


Yes, I create them – it’s all done inside Captivate and stuck directly in a RH topic; your memory is correct that there’s no tweaking possible in RH ;>)

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