#1 2009-01-23 13:11:27

**_pafell_**

Displaying Captivate playback controls within Adobe Presenter

We want to include a Captivate 3 simulation on a slide in an Adobe Presenter 7 presentation and allow the Captivate controls to be displayed (so that users can move forward or backward within the sim, if desired).

It appears that when we publish from within Captivate that we get a separate file with "_skin.swf" in addition to the main .swf file which we are inserting onto the slide in PowerPoint.  I'm assuming that the reason the playbar isn't appearing is that Presenter doesn't see this "_skin.swf" file.  Is there a simple way to make the skin be incorporated into the main .swf or some other way for Presenter to know that it is there?  Perhaps I'm missing something obvious.

We do have the Slide Manager properties set to "Advance by User" so that the slide in Presenter doesn't advance before the user is finished working with the sim.

Many thanks,
Paul

**_Jorma_at_RealEyes_**

Re: Displaying Captivate playback controls within Adobe Presenter

The only way that I know of to get this to work (Rob found a solution but I think it didn't translate to Presenter 7 [url]http://www.robrode.com/yabb/YaBB.pl/[url]) is to put a hyper link on your PPT slide (which still has a wait command on it) to the Captivate presentation (published to your Connect server). The Captivate presentation then plays in a new window (and because you set the presentation to close the window when the user completes the simulation), when after it plays the window closes and reveals the Presenter presentation behind it that the user can then click play and continue on.

Otherwise it's just the simulation with no play bar.

**_pafell_**

Re: Displaying Captivate playback controls within Adobe Presenter

Hi Jorma,
thanks for the quick reply.  I do have to say that I'm disappointed if that's the best way to have the controls for a Captivate sim inside of a Presenter presentation.  I'm sure that would work but it's FAR from elegant.

Do you (or anyone else) know if Captivate 4 handles these types of issues any better or if there is a 3rd party tool which aggregates the multiple SWF files generated into a single SWF that Presenter would understand and interact with?

I don't think my team will be too excited about having a slide with a link that opens up the Captivate sim on our Connect server.  (This also would mean you couldn't burn to CD-ROM either.)

Thank you for the suggestion though.  If there isn't another way to do it, this will have to be it.

Kind regards,
Paul

**_Jorma_at_RealEyes_**

Re: Displaying Captivate playback controls within Adobe Presenter

Paul,

You could burn to CD-ROM, the Connect server was just an example. You would just need to package published CP file with the Presenter presentation.

In my playing with Cp4 it is no longer outputting the _skin.swf file, unless you tell it to do it separately. So in theory you can put the simulation in with the play bar.

I'm sure you know this but be careful with inserting flash with it's own play bar because it tends to confuse users to have two play bars, especially since only one will interact with the object on the slide.

**_pafell_**

Re: Displaying Captivate playback controls within Adobe Presenter

I agree that having the Captivate playbar in addition to the Presenter playbar is confusing but it will probably be a necessary evil for what the trainer who is developing this particular sim is wanting to do.

I'm intrigued that Cp4 is able to publish it without outputting the _skin.swf file.  Could that option also be in Cp3 and I just haven't stumbled upon it or is that something new in version 4?

Thanks again for your help!
-Paul

**_mark2741_**

Re: Displaying Captivate playback controls within Adobe Presenter

Jorma/Rob's solution is the best I came up with, but my advice is to rethink your approach. Specifically - if you have Captivate, why are you using Presenter? Why not just use Captivate for the slide-based content too?

I highly recommend moving to Captivate 4. Captivate 3 is unusable to me after playing with v4 for just a short time.

**_pafell_**

Re: Displaying Captivate playback controls within Adobe Presenter

That was an idea we had considered as well.  The trainer working on this project has a couple of Captivate sims that she would like to bundle together as a group so it seemed like putting them into a Presenter package would be the most aesthetically pleasing.

But you're right, the approach we're taking given that limitation is clearly not the best one.

Not sure how eager management will be to spend money on Cap 4 considering we just moved to Cap 3 late last year but I may download the trial version and experiment with it a bit.

Thanks!

**_mark2741_**

Re: Displaying Captivate playback controls within Adobe Presenter

I struggled with the same problems you're struggling with. I think, unfortunately, there is no real easy way to get one big content package on the Connect server and expect both the delivery to be smooth and the look to be good. The best way I've found is to have a separate Captivate for each module/topic and upload each of those to the Connect server as a content object. Then, wrap them all in a curriculum.

My manager hates this, and I don't like the idea of the user having to open and close new _blank windows to move between modules, but it's how all of the LMSs work.

Of course, if you're not using voiceover/audio then the files will be so small that it won't matter - just lump em together into one content object.

My two cents, for what they're worth...

mark
www.elearninglive.com

**_Jorma_at_RealEyes_**

Re: Displaying Captivate playback controls within Adobe Presenter

Mark,

Great point about just using Cp3 to build the project. While it is nice to have the Presenter sidebar, Captivate is a more capable program on many fronts.

Your Trainer may want to consider building the Cp portion of the presentation with some buttons that allow navigation in the presentation without the use of the play bar or set up a Table of Contents that branches out to different places in the project but those "chapters" return to the TOC after they play. This will allow your users to review portions if they feel a need.

**_robva65_**

Re: Displaying Captivate playback controls within Adobe Presenter

Hey guys,

saw this thread and wanted to weigh in on this....(bare with me, it's late but i'm going to try to do this as best I can...)

First, Captivate content should be able to be incorporated in Presenter content...I've been doing this for some time, but it does come with some homework on our part and quite frankly, Adobe needs to do a better job of software/application integration.  Keeping my fingers crossed!

Here's the deal:

True, by default, Captivate will produce a set of files when published; most notably will be the "skin".  Believe it or not, that's really the key.  If you attempt to import your Captivate swf (meaning the actual content and not the skin), what you've effectively done is strip the connection between the skin component and the content as it was generated during the Captivate publishing process.

The thing to note is that you can play the content swf WITHOUT the skin...but you CAN'T do the reverse.  The skin file is absolutely dependant on the content, otherwise you won't see ANYTHING if the skin swf is clicked, enabled, etc, etc, etc.

The fix:
Rather than importing the content swf in Presenter, import the skin swf.  Before you call me crazy, follow me for a second....

If you then publish your Presenter content, what will happen is that any imported flash content will be dropped into a resources folder.  And that, my dear gentlemen, is the ticket.  Knowing that the skin swf is DEPENDANT on the content flash file, all you need to do is add the content to the resources directory after publishing your Presenter/PPT file.

As a practical matter of demonstrating this technique, I created a dummy file that you can view here:

http://www.robrode.com/Breeze_demos/Cap … skin_test/

Bottom line, if I read Mark and Paul's commentary correctly, you needed BOTH the skin AND the content to appear on a slide in PPT.  Granted, the example above will show Breeze 5.1 material, the net effect is still the same regardless of Presenter 6 or 7.

Jorma, I'd love to have the group validate...because God knows I HATE offering any input/advice/suggestions when it comes to this kind of junk, but from my standpoint, without having 7 installed on this machine, I can only go so far.  I've tried this exact same approach w/ P6 (on my vista machine) and the same results keep coming up.

So there you have it guys!  Perhaps I need to post this on my forum as well eh?

All kidding aside...please give this a shot and let me know if additional exploration is req'd here.

Night all!

Rob

Visit my forums at
http://www.robrode.com/yabb/

**_mark2741_**

Re: Displaying Captivate playback controls within Adobe Presenter

Hi Rob,

Your approach will absolutely work in v7, but I still think that Presenter is way too limited as compared to Captivate and as you said, the integration between them is lackluster. The features of Captivate 4 are such huge improvement over earlier versions that, to me (*and apparently to Adobe), if you have Captivate 4 then it is best to just ditch the limitations of powerpoint and do everything in Captivate.

Case in point - in Presenter you have a serious limitation in regards to screensize/recording rendering. Even in your example, the text in the cells is barely readable it's so fuzzy. PowerPoint slides are really small resolution-wise, and to record at that size in Captivate is futile because you can only capture such a small portion of the screen. Then, invariably, when you bring it into Presenter that app does something else to it to make it distort/fuzzy.

Prior to Captivate 4 I had given up on Presenter completely out of frustration and did everything in Flash. Finally, just this month, there is a workable solution to getting tracking from custom Flash content to Connect Pro, so there isn't a reason to use Presenter if you can script in Flash. The text rendering and graphics in a Flash-authored piece are crystal clear as compared to the fuzziness Presenter will produce. Now, with CP4, Presenter is completely out of the question as a rapid tool in favor of CP4 (can you tell I'm a fanboy of CP4? : )

To the OP - the best solution I found (which sucked, but is still better than distorted rendering), was to store the Captivate content as a separate content object in Connect and link to it from the PPT so that it opens in a brand new window. You rid yourself of the screensize limitation. It sucks to have to bring the user out into yet another _blank window, but it's better than presenting a fuzzed up turd.

My 2 cents, fwtw...

mark
www.elearninglive.com

Last edited by **_mark2741_** (2009-01-25 10:45:04)

**_Jorma_at_RealEyes_**

Re: Displaying Captivate playback controls within Adobe Presenter

Rob,

I'll test out that idea as well and let you know how it works in V7 for me. Glad it worked for Mark.
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I think the biggest thing to be aware of with Presenter vs. Captivate is the optimal situation of when to use which product. It seems like if you know the abilities and limitations of each, then you will find uses for each product. Captivate is a far more capable product than Presenter, but it addresses a different need. If the information is best transmitted through text and audio, then Presenter is the best vehicle as it is simple and quick to author the content. Anything more complicated should be done through Captivate.

Captivate 4 has brought forward many new useful features (thank you to Adobe for finally making Closed Captioning NOT the most difficult thing to do in Captivate), but it is still not the tool to work with PPT content.

As a final rant, remember that Presenter is an Adobe product within a Microsoft product, so that means that they need to play by some Microsoft rules. That is something that Presenter will never be able to get around, short of Adobe creating a product that can create simple slides to deliver information to end users. Wait for it... that is what Captivate does. So if  you don't like Presenter and how it works, but like how Captivate works then by all means use it. In the end, with Captivate you are playing by Adobe's rules alone (which are much more friendly than Microsoft's).