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Hi there
Normally a video requires some form of a player. Hence what you see when viewing YouTube. Can you provide more detail on where the video came from, how you are inserting it into the project and how you are trying to view it?
Thanks... Rick 
Hello again
As you are seeing, it looks insanely simple on the surface. And I totally agree, it *SHOULD* be much more simple than it presently is. Because of that, I would strongly encourage you to add your voice to mine and others by completing a feature request so Adobe will see it.
Click here to file a feature request
Got that done? Good!
Now, here is what I would recommend. When you produce your video from Camtasia, you have many options. Hopefully you chose the option that uses the "Smart Player". If not, just produce again and choose that option. You also probably want to ensure this all ends up in its own folder. That will simplify it. What you will then do is to add the Camtasia files as Baggage and insert that into RoboHelp.
This is likely best if I just show you a video on how to manage it. So hang tight and I'll be back with a link to watch one.
Cheers... Rick
Whew! Took more time than I thought it might. But see if the video linked below helps.
Cheers... Rick
Hmmm, okay
More questions.
Plays from the RoboHelp preview, but not the compiled project. That would seem to indicate there are no missing files. So one thing I'm wondering here is where exactly is the project when testing? Are you testing immediately after compiling? Or are you testing from a server? If from a server, you might need to check with your web server folks to see if they need to add a MIME type for the video.
Cheers... Rick
I know I'm not Willam, but indeed, 2017 as well as the earlier 2015 release offers much more flexibility in this regard.
It's not fully uploaded yet, but once it completes, I created a video to demonstrate this.
At the moment it's 9:35 for me (central time)
Might be ready in perhaps ten minutes from now or so.
Cheers... Rick
LOL on the beard wars. First, I have no beard. I have a goatee. And mine is much more grey than that young whippersnapper Willam's is.
I just tested linking from the TOC to the video and directing the link to open in a new window. After I generated, it did work. But I had no control over how large it was or whether it opened in a separate player. It appeared to just open in a new tab in my Google Chrome browser and play as large as the window seemed to allow.
I think the answer to "which is better, inserting into a topic or linking to just the video?" is unfortunately another question. One I first heard from my dear friend Peter Grainge. And that question is: How long is a piece of string?
The answer, of course, is always: It depends, no?
So it likely boils down to how you wish to present things to your user.
Personally, I have created a Master Page that I use when adding videos to my RoboWizard site.
Cheers... Rick
Okay, I'll do my best.
- Do I still need to add the Camtasia output folder/supporting files as baggage?
- I have interactive hotspots at the end of the video to launch the help at a particular topic (from before it was decided to include the video in the help when we thought the video would be launched separately from an email notification). Will these still work? Obviously I would change the call to not launch the help because I'm already in the help, but is there a way to link to a topic from the video in this way? <slowly talking myself off this ledge...>
Based on your second bullet point, the answer is yes. When Camtasia produces its output, it produces a video file in the format you specified. Generally it's most often in a MP4 container. But there are other options as well.
You might recall that when you generate output from RoboHelp, if it's web based output such as WebHelp, or WebHelp Pro, or FlashHelp, or FlashHelp Pro, or Multiscreen, or Responsive HTML 5, you end up with a substantially larger number of files than you have topics. And the reason for this is that it takes additional support files to make everything work as it does.
Likewise, when you produce a Camtasia video where you have a playback control showing and you have those interactive hotspots that pause video playback and do things when you click them, or have quizzing elements being presented, those are all governed by the additional folders and files. So if you want those to be operational in RoboHelp, you do need to add them all to the Baggage Files.
In RoboHelp 2015 Release and earlier, this was a pain in the wazoo, because you had to carefully replicate the Camtasia folder structure. Then you had to carefully insert the Baggage Files into each folder so the structure was re-created. But in RoboHelp 2017 Release, Adobe has now given us the ability to import folders! w00t! So all you need to do now is create a base folder for your video (assuming you don't want things in the root level of your project) and right-click that base folder and point at the Camtasia folder. All subfolders and content of all folders and subfolders you pointed at will then be added to your RoboHelp project in one fell swoop!
- If not, and if we decide to just embed the video in a help topic, I could just include the links below the video.
As I said earlier, how you choose to approach this is totally your call.
Cheers... Rick
Thanks for setting me straight, Rick.
I thought I had it all figured out until we changed course and the car fell apart...
Looks like a new car is necessary as well as pretty.
LL
Ahhh I see. Sorry, my bad.
If you are adding Captivate SWF files, you shouldn't have to worry about Baggage Files. You basically just point at the SWF and you're done. When you choose the SWF from the dialog that is presented, it is added to Baggage for you.
Perhaps it would be helpful if you could describe the process you are following.
Cheers... Rick
Perhaps there is a simple misunderstanding here.
When you produce an Adobe Captivate project as a SWF and you have a video. That video remains separate and is loaded and played when it is called upon by the SWF. It is an additional file that must be supplied wherever your SWF is being used.
I'm going to horribly over simplify things here. Assume you have a SWF. (I'm over simplifying, because there are likely other files involved)
So if that SWF links to a single video, you would need to insert the Captivate. Then as a separate action, add the MP4 as a Baggage File in the same location as the SWF. Once you did that, things *SHOULD* work.
Sounds to me as if perhaps you are thinking the video is inside the SWF and that's why it cannot be found.
Cheers... Rick
Hi Rick,
I thought I would go ahead and throw my issue in with this thread, because it seems to fit well here. I am also having issues with inserting media, as well as some video content no longer playing after making the switch to RoboHelp 2017. Our company has been using RoboHelp for years. Actually for so long that no one is quite sure who initially set up the help in the first place. I am going to begin talking about the videos that are no longer working since the switch.
1. As part of the help we have some tutorial videos.
These come with no baggage files and are a .avi format. I do see that in the folder where they are contained there is a .fpj file with the following format...
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rhpml majorversion="7" minorversion="13">
<topics>
<topic>
<name>Keep_Hydraulically_Most_Demanding_Area.htm</name>
<comments></comments>
<frameset>0</frameset>
</topic>
<topic>
<name>Move_Given_a_Distance.htm</name>
<comments></comments>
<frameset>0</frameset>
</topic>
It goes on like this, but I think you get the picture with this snippet.
Now that these files are being generated in HTML5 for RoboHelp 2017, these files appear as an empty book that says "ActiveX Control" in the top-right corner inside of the RoboHelp project.
When I preview or generate this file it says,
2. I have just attempted to add a new video into RoboHelp, and that's how I got into this whole can of worms I just opened up where I realized our videos are no longer working.
I downloaded a simply little software called CamStudio, because it creates .avi's and seems like it will suit our needs. These are very short, no audio videos that simply show how to use a tool or function.
I started by trying to insert multimedia, but then I came to this forum and learned about baggage files. I uploaded the folder with the CamStudio software as baggage and TADA! My video is playing when I go to preview the file.
This is what it looks like inside of my topic in RoboHelp:
But then when I actually generate the topic this is what I get:
No amount of waiting causes this media to load.
I have tried to make the file smaller, but that doesn't seem to have an effect. It seems to have to do with the type of output.
Any solutions for this?
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