Corner Peel Navigation Widget for Adobe Captivate

A user on the Adobe Forum (http://forums.adobe.com/message/1895316) asked if it was possible to navigate in Adobe Captivate projects by using a page curl animation. I thought it was a funny idea so I sat down and made a little Corner Peel Navigation widget for Captivate.

Basically it will allow your users to navigate in your Adobe Captivate Projects by using a page curl / corner peel style navigation instead of just plain buttons or the standard playbar. The Corner Peel Widget for Adobe Captivate will work in Adobe Captivate 4 but also in Adobe Captivate 3 since it needs to be inserted as an animation. It should probably also work for Adobe Captivate 2.

Demonstration:

You can view a full size demonstration of it here: http://www.cpguru.com/demonstrations/captivateCornerPeel/cornerPeel.htm

Further information:

This widget is – at the moment – only for Adobe Captivate projects using Actionscript 2.0 (AS2).

If you like this widget then check out the other widgets I have on my site.

Download:

Below you can download the files to import into your Adobe Captivate project. The fla Flash source files (CS3 format) are also included in case you want to modify them as well as a small help file and a sample Adobe Captivate 4 project.

* This file has been downloaded more than 2600 times now here in february 2010 *

Redesigning the blog!

I decided to implement a new design on this blog. I’m getting a bit tired of the current theme and I would also like to add some new functionality here.

Therefore you can expect to see some weird things going on here in the next couple of days. I need to change a lot of things in the backend settings and the whole setup of the blog.

** Update 04-may-2009 **

Most of the things are in place now so I switched over to the new design. Hope you like it ;o) I still have some things to do, but it’s all the minor details that needs to be sorted out now.

/Michael

System variables in Adobe Captivate 4 – a complete list

Adobe Captivate 4 allows designers to access and modify a variety of System Variables to add extra functionality to their projects.

I haven’t seen a full list of all the Adobe Captivate 4 variables anywhere so I decided to post one here.

The System Variables are divided into different groups:

MovieControl lists variables for events that control the movie like pause, resume, previous, next slide, and so on.

MovieInformation lists variables related to the movie such as variables for the current slide, current frame, and so on.

MovieMetaData lists variables that provide information about the project such as project name, author, and company.

SystemInformation lists variables that can be picked up from your computer such as current date and current time.

Quizzing lists variables related to quizzing, such as the variables that capture the number of attempts and the percentage of questions answered correctly.

Read the rest of this entry »

SCORM 2004 4th edition

I just noticed that ADL has released SCORM 2004 4th edition.

They released it on March 31st so it will probably take a while before the mainstream LMS’ will support it, but it does have some interesting new things.

Among the enhancements are:

• Sharing generic run-time data between SCOs:  SCOs within a single activity tree can now use a new ADL extension run-time data model element to store and share learner tracking information between SCOs.
• Sharing additional objective data between SCOs:  SCO-reported objective information (via cmi.objectives.n), such as min, max, and raw scores, can now be shared across SCOs and across activity trees.
• Jump Navigation Request:  Content developers can now directly affect conditional branching across the activity tree from within a SCO without the evaluation of sequencing control modes. This allows more flexibility in sequencing and rendering the LMS-provided table of contents.
• Rolling-up partial completion information:  Partial completion status reported by SCOs will now roll-up. This enables more accurate evaluation of an activity tree’s partial completion status, rather than relying strictly on the Boolean complete/incomplete values.

My favourite part is the new possibility to share data between SCOs. Prior to this version all data stored by SCOs have only been available to that particular SCO. You couldn’t store data in SCO1 and retrieve it in SCO2. With this new enhancement it will be possible to set up data storage’s, which can be shared between SCOs.

I have used a “hack” to perform this operation before, but the trouble is that it goes outside the SCORM standard and will only work on LMS’s, which specifically are “enhanced” to work with this hack. This new version of SCORM will make it possible to share data within the SCORM standard.

Cheating in SCORM

Phillip Hutchison whipped up a proof-of-concept on how advanced users could cheat and set the course as completed with a score of 100% (http://pipwerks.com/journal/2009/03/22/cheating-in-scorm/).

It poses an interesting problem as more and more cooperations are using SCORM based courses for certified training.

I just read on the www.adlgov.net page that they released a fix to this security issue. You can read more about it and download the instructions here: http://www.adlnet.gov/Technologies/scorm/SCORMSDocuments/SCORM%20Resources/Resources.aspx

Corner Peel Navigation for Adobe Captivate

A user on the Adobe Forum (http://forums.adobe.com/message/1895316) asked if it was possible to navigate in Adobe Captivate projects by using a page curl animation. I thought it was a funny idea so I sat down and made a little Corner Peel Navigation widget for Captivate.

Basically it will allow your users to navigate in your Adobe Captivate Projects by using a page curl / corner peel style navigation instead of just plain buttons or the standard playbar. The Corner Peel Widget for Adobe Captivate will work in Adobe Captivate 4 but also in Adobe Captivate 3 since it needs to be inserted as an animation. It should probably also work for Adobe Captivate 2.

Demonstration:

You can view a full size demonstration of it here: http://www.cpguru.com/demonstrations/captivateCornerPeel/cornerPeel.htm

Further information:

This widget is – at the moment - only for Adobe Captivate projects using Actionscript 2.0 (AS2).

If you like this widget then check out the other widgets I have on my site.

Download:

Below you can download the files to import into your Adobe Captivate project. The fla Flash source files (CS3 format) are also included in case you want to modify them as well as a small help file and a sample Adobe Captivate 4 project.

* This file has been downloaded more than 3600 times now here in May 2010  *

Adobe Captivate 5 Preorder now. English language version expected to ship by mid-June 2010. See language version availability below. Adobe Captivate 5 Adobe® Captivate® 5 software lets you rapidly author and maintain professional eLearning experiences including software demonstrations, application simulations, and branching scenarios without programming. Work more productively thanks to an intuitive user interface. Engage and retain learners with multimedia, interactivity, and quizzes. Enable learner collaboration using the Twitter widget from Adobe. Deliver content to the web, desktops, mobile devices, and leading Learning Management Systems.

Captivate Exchange – is it dead?

One thing I really like about Adobe is their online market place called Exchange. If you take a look at the Adobe Exchange for Flash it’s filled with great files, which you can buy and in some cases even download for free.

Adobe Captivate also has an associated Exchange – http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=productHome&exc=22&loc=en_us - where people can upload and download Adobe Captivate related things.

There is only one problem with the Captivate Exchange… It’s dead.. The last file uploaded was on September 11th, 2008.

It’s too bad because the Captivate Exchange could be an excellent resource for widgets, templates and other great stuff for Captivate.

I uploaded a couple of things in the last 4 months, but nothing has been approved yet. Everything is still listed as a new submission.

Status: New Submission

Your upload is complete and will be submitted to our QA team for review. We will notify you by e-mail when your upload is posted to the site. You can always check this page for the most up-to-date status of your item.

Come on Adobe.. Approve the files before Captivate 5 is released. I’m sure lots of other files are stuck in the “New submission” queue.

How to make Thai soup ;o)

I know… It’s not exactly a headline you would expect to see on a blog about Captivate but here goes.

A couple of years ago I made a joke with my boss. He and his family had been to Thailand many times and loves the Thai soup – Tom Yam Goong. Since my wife is Thai he asked me many times when I would bring some soup for him at work. I decided to make some fun with him and made a quick and dirty tutorial in Captivate on how to make the Tom Yam Goong soup.

I just stumpled upon the files today while cleaning up my harddrive and thought why not convert it to CP4 – add some flash components / widgets and make it available here. So that’s what I did. I added my Bookmark component, a custom preloader, a progress bar and some other stuff and uploaded the course.

Keep in mind that the pictures and videos were made with my Sony digital camera 2½ years ago so the quality isn’t the best.

You watch the tutorial by cliking on the link or the image below and hopefully it will give you an understanding on how to make this delicious Thai soup ;o)

http://www.cpguru.com/demonstrations/tomYamGoong/tomYamGoong.htm

New stock components

I originally started off the blog by posting information and links to some stock flash components that I have used in some of my projects.

It’s been a while since I’ve done that and I found some nice components since then so I thought I would make a new post with some links to stuff you can use in Captivate.

All the files are from Flashden.net, which is – in my opinion – the best place to buy stock flash components. Remember that when you buy these components you also get the Flash soucefile (fla) so you can modify and customize the components to fit your projects.

Text animation

If you – like me – don’t like the original text animations in Captivate then here is an alternative. It’s pretty basic but a rather nice effect. Everything can be edited in an XML file so you don’t need to have any Flash skills to use it.

I used it as headlines for different chapters in an E-learning module. It’s just US$ 5 and you can see a live preview or buy it here. http://www.flashden.net/item/placing-words/32348

World map 

An interactive worldmap made in Flash. You can add hotspots with information, links etc. and all is done in an XML file. I used it in a project as a navigation menu. I had to branch the users of the E-learning module based on their location so I used this component (I did change the map to something more subtle) and modified the code so that a click on a hotspot would jump to the relevant Captivate slide.

It’s just US$8 to buy the file. You can see a live preview and buy the file here: http://www.flashden.net/item/xml-worldmap-locator-/35152?ref=heppa

Fantastic Dynamic XML based quiz

This is one of my favourite files right now. It’s a quiz made in Flash and I really think it’s executed to perfection. I used this component in quite a few different projects now.

It’s easy to customize and easy to setup and get started with. You can modify most of the settings and questions in an external XML file.  The file is just US$12 and that is really a bargain.

Watch the live preview and buy the file here:  http://www.flashden.net/item/dynamic-xml-quiz-with-image-support/33009