Can Director Interact With Other Applications?

Question

Hello,
I am a CBT/E-Learning Developer looking for a way to author
Guided Help. I am thinking of how to develop interactive tutorials
that, instead of using screenshots of an application, interact with
the application itself.
For instance, let's imagine that a person is working in MS
Word and doesn't know how to save a file. He can click the icon for
the "Saving A File" lesson, and a caption displays on top of MS
Word that reads something like "Click FILE", along with some type
of indicator of the FILE button, such as an outline, highlight,
arrow, etc. The user clicks FILE, the File Menu drops down in MS
Word, and the next step of instructions is displayed. In this way,
the usre is guided through the steps of saving a file as he
actually performs the task in the software.
Can Director create this type of thing?
Thanks a lot,
Mike

Answer 1

Hi Chunick,
Thanks for replying. I used MS Word as just an example; the
type of software I'm wanting to use this for is police records
management software. I've been doing the interactive simulation
tutorials for them since 1999, using multimedia authoring tools
Demoshield and Opus Pro, and demo authoring tools RoboDemo and Demo
Builder. However, I wanted to get away from interactive tutorials
for 3 reasons:
(1) My client's software is frequently updated, and keeping
up with taking new screenshots is a hassle.
(2) I'm of the opinion that "at the moment of need", process
embedded "guided help" in the actual application is a much more
useful form of training than working through a simulation.
(3) It will greatly help my client's support staff and
training staff
I've been researching process embedded e-learning and guided
help for almost a year now. I've looked at everything from
multimedia authoring to macro software. I even found two programs
that do exactly what I want, but they are very very expensive, much
more expensive than Director.
Thanks for the tip on Hook Xtra; I'll check that out. Last
night I found an xtra called MasterApp, which may also do what I
need. I appreciate the concern about the difficulty of programming,
and I'm not a programmer (except HTML, and we all know how easy
that is). But I'm in this for the long haul, and would be using it
for potential new clients, not just my current client. I love
learning new software, and I have a membership to the IEEE Computer
Society, which gives me over 1300 online e-learning courses I can
take, including Director.
Thanks again for the lead!
Mike