This Adobe Captivate Widget will allow you to load SWFs into your Adobe Captivate 5/5.5 project on demand. This will help circumvent a problem that Adobe Captivate 5 and 5.5 have when it comes to handling some inserted animations in a Captivate project.
In many cases if you insert an AS3 SWF into a Captivate project then the SWF will load and commence playback on slide 1 of your project even though the SWF is not show until say slide 5. Futhermore a lot of people have been experiencing problems when inserting Adobe Captivate generated SWFs into a Master Adobe Captivate project. The problems they are experiencing are typically voice-over / audio playing on top of each other, clicking sounds from demonstrations and just generally weird behaviour.
Demonstration:
To see a demonstration of the problems described above click the image below.
Test package:
A test version of the Adobe Captivate Widget is available here. The idea is that you can download this test version and try it in your project and verify that it works for you before purchasing the full version of the Adobe Captivate widget.
Loader Widget for Adobe Captivate 5 Test files (1510 downloads)Buy the widget:
01 x Single Developer License – $10
03 x Single Developer License – $27
05 x Single Developer License – $40
10 x Single Developer License – $70
25 x Single Developer License – $150
Limitations:
The Adobe Captivate Widget will not work with projects published to Adobe Connect Pro due to a limitation in Adobe Connect Pro’s ability to handle external files properly.
The Adobe Captivate Widget will not work for projects published as EXE files. I am not sure if it will work for projects published as a Mac app.
You will not be able to see the loaded SWF on the stage in Captivate. However you will be able to get the SWFs to display in preview mode (F4 & F8) in Adobe Captivate. Details about how to do this is included in the help documentation for the widget.
Some LMS’s might complain about “Undeclared resources” if you use this widget. This is because Captivate does not know you are loading external SWFs. Captivate only knows the widget and therefore it cannot add the resources in the imsmanifest.xml file. The help documentation shows how you can add the external SWFs into the SCORM manifest yourself.
I have tested this widget extensively and have not yet encountered any problems. I have had two people beta-testing the widget as well in order to indentify all possible problems.
So far the widget have worked fine. I have used it in projects published to a regular webserver, an LMS and locally on my PC. I have loaded Flash generated SWFs and Captivate generated SWFs. The Captivate SWFs have contained voice-over audio, videos and other interactive elements and all worked fine.
However – be sure to download the Test Widget and try that out before purchasing. Perhaps you are using Adobe Captivate 5 in a way that I haven’t even thought of.
16 Comments
Your loader widget isn’t working on my LMS in Internet explorer browser. Why?
@atomasovsky – Can’t say with the information you provided here. Contact me through my site with details about which LMS you are using, is the Loader Widget working when viewing the project locally, are you sure you entered the exact name of the SWF to load etc.
Did you download the test files to try out the widget before purchasing?
/Michael
I am using this script to refer to Captivate variables. It works just fine when I load movies without loader. With loader – nothing happens.
var myRoot:MovieClip = MovieClip(root);
var mainmov:MovieClip = MovieClip(myRoot.parent.root);
mainmov.variable = ‘somevalue’;
Is it possible to transfer variables from loaded movie into captivate?
@Tomek
So that script is placed inside the loaded movie and you are trying to get a variable from the “master” Captivate movie? It should be possible but the “path” will have changed due to the way the SWF is loaded. Try adding another parent so your code is “var mainmov:MovieClip = MovieClip(myRoot.parent.parent.root)”
/Michael
I already tried changing the path, therefore my question here 🙂
I have very simple debugging, it looks like that.
test.txt=’Step 1′;
var myRoot:MovieClip = MovieClip(root);
test.txt=’Step 2′;
var mainmov:MovieClip = MovieClip(myRoot.parent.parent.root);
test.txt=’Step 3′;
mainmov.variable = ‘zaqwsx’;
test.txt=’All steps complete’;
Without loader, with “myRoot.parent.root” it runs just fine, I get ‘All steps complete’.
With loader, with “myRoot.parent.root” it stops at ‘Step 3’. I figured, that the ‘mainmov’ here refers to the loader.
With loader, with “myRoot.parent.parent.root” it just stops at ‘Step 2’.
Will this loader widget work in Captivate 4 AS3? Also, is there any other location where I could download the TestVersion.zip? My Department of Defense network is blocking me from downloading a zip file.
Could you email the widget so that I can test it or provide a way to access the files other than as a zip? If it works, I’ll be happy to purchase it.
I’m hoping for positive results, unlike my experience with Adobe’s loader widget mentioned at http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/2010/11/animations-%E2%80%93-audio-sync-issue.html.
Thank you!
Ok, so I managed to download the Test version of the AS3 Loader widget. When I tried to insert it in Captivate 4, it says “not a valid widget.”
Michael can you help?
Thanks,
Jared
@ Jared,
Sorry for the late reply – I have been on a small vacation.
Actually I don’t think that this widget will work in CP4 AS3 at all. The reason is that the CP5 was reprogrammed from scratch so some of the fundamental things have changed between CP4 and CP5. The widget would therefore try to access something in CP4 which is not available.
Did you solve your problem? If not send me an email through the contact section and lets see if we can figure it out.
/Michael
hi, do you now, how this is working with the lms moodle?
@ Chris – it should work perfectly well in Moodle, but to be sure try and download the test files and check it out before purchasing.
/Michael
Hi, I tried the widget in Captivate 5 because I was having issues with my inserted SWFs files. The issue was the random audio issues that would sometimes cause double-sound that sounded like a robotic echo.
The widget worked well for the sound issue but it enlarges the SWF in the Captivate up to 500% so I only see a the left hand corner of the SWF. Both my friend and i have tried and no luck.
Any solutions or the enlargement issue or audio?
We did our testing with the free demo widget, but if there are more options with the purchase widget we would love to buy that.
Thanks for your help!
@Kana,
You most likely resized the widget on your stage, which is what is causing the enlarged SWF. The widget should not be resized but simple inserted at the default size. The widget will load the external content at the top-left corner of the widget and it will automatically display it at the correct size.
/Michael
I’m trying to use the test file, but have no idea how to even start. Did I miss the documentation or do I have to buy the product to get that? Really need some help.
EDIT: I figured it out…had to assume some things, but I got it. Now I have a different question – is there a way to allow the playbar to pause the loaded content? In the test, the content continued to play regardless of what was pressed on the bar.
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I am using Captivate 6 and looking to pull in my audio externally to cut the file size on the main course.swf. Do you have widget similar to this that can handle audio?