#1 2009-06-18 00:21:04

**_thedoc2k_**

Embedded Flash not following its timeline.. please help!

Our company recently picked up Presenter and Connect Pro for our e-learning requirements..

so iv been playing around with a test tutorial for our Intranet site.. so with that said, i created a fancy PowerPoint presentation which more or less has a paragraph of text at the top and i created a Flash file (which is a screen capture more or less) showing the user how to navigate our intranet,

well my problem is, when i view the SWF on its on it plays as it should which is as follows:

- starts with a "Play Tutorial" animation
- STOPS on that frame and waits for the user to click PLAY
- Then its supposed to goto next frame and play the tutorial movie.

My problem is, its completly skipping the initial PLAY animation and jumping right to the Tutorial.. it doesnt show it at all?? but as i mentioned above it plays correctly when i run it in Flash Player.

I used Flash Pro CS3 with AS 2.0

does this have something to do with the Actionscripting in 2.0? So far i have found Connect Pro a little to picky on embedded flash requirements..

Any help would be greatly appreciated.. i have to have this test presentation up and running soon to pitch this to the global company.

**_mark2741_**

Re: Embedded Flash not following its timeline.. please help!

A couple of things.

First, a probable solution to your problem, without seeing your code, is to just add some buffer frames to the swf. Just add 10 frames to the beginning of the timeline. Your swf needs to be published to 30fps anyway, since Connect will force it to run at that speed regardless. So 10 frames will add a very slight delay to the start of your swf.

Secondly...if you are comfortable enough to create things in Flash then obviously you have decent computer skills, so I highly recommend you ditch Presenter completely and get a license for Captivate and use that instead. Believe it or not, I've found that Captivate integrates much better with Connect Pro and it will only get better as Adobe has clearly positioned Captivate as its elearning dev tool of choice. Adobe Presenter is very buggy and not worth the effort in my opinion (and others who have used it that I have talked to). If you are just doing straight powerpoint page-turners (and if you are, I pray for your 'learners'), then it is okay, but you'll still run into problems and it just does not work with flash well. Even inserting a Captivate swf into a Presenter slide results in a way-too-fuzzy and way-too-small viewing window. Why limit yourself from the start?

Okay...more info than you asked for : ) I'm done my rant : )

Good luck!

mark
www.elearninglive.com

**_thedoc2k_**

Re: Embedded Flash not following its timeline.. please help!

Thanks.. im completly agree.. Captivate is the way to go.. and i probably will pick up a copy for our IT team and myself. but we have some users here which are not to techy and Presenter is even a strech for them. so we will have to keep presenter..

I will try and add some frames to the timeline and see how that goes.

Thanks

**_AChemey_**

Re: Embedded Flash not following its timeline.. please help!

Mark/thedoc2k,

I don't agree that Presenter should be scrapped.  The ease-of-use tools starts with Adobe Presenter (on end of the spectrum) and Flex/AIR/Flash (on the other end).  Captivate is in the middle (on the easier side).  There are certainly *many* reasons to use Presenter, including it's an easy-to-use tool for folks that might already have difficulty using PowerPoint. 

Perhaps we can get a bit more specific about the issues you are experiencing (or have experienced) that may have already been resolved, rather than just immediately telling people to not even consider it.  The only potential issue you describe below, is inserting a Captivate file into a Presenter file.  Are there more?  You have a way to reach me, feel free to let me know everything you've found and I'll work on reviewing them.

There's also a possibility that the Flash file developed may have just as many issues in Captivate as it does in Presenter (or for that matter, any Flash MovieClip - when it's not the root movie).

thedoc2k - feel free to contact me off-list or post the file, so it can be reviewed.

Regards,

Andrew

**_thedoc2k_**

Re: Embedded Flash not following its timeline.. please help!

Dont get me wrong, i do agree with you as well. Presenter is a good tool, but Captivate was developed to be a bit more 'customizable' and in turn allows the developer to diagnose things a bit easier. well at least that

Last edited by **_thedoc2k_** (2009-06-22 11:12:39)

**_AChemey_**

Re: Embedded Flash not following its timeline.. please help!

thedoc2k,

I would suspect, but I did not validate, that the Flash animations might use _root or _global references?!?  Can you check?  That would be a bad thing and would explain the funky behavior.  If that is the case, the Flash animations should use relative references (e.g. _parent).

Regards,

Andrew

**_thedoc2k_**

Re: Embedded Flash not following its timeline.. please help!

AChemey,
    Not that i can see.. those movies use next to no AS. simple Stop()'s and on (release) {
    gotoAndPlay("Scene 1", 2); types of things.. i didnt see any reference to _root etc.. unless its being written on its own somewhere that i dont see..