Can I record everything in just one slide?

Question

Hello,
I’m trying to create an 30-second flash animation of
our software, with some textual callouts. Since I’ve got the
Adobe Technical Communication Suite, I figured I’d use
Captivate for the job, but I’m new to it and can’t get
my head around some things. If someone has the time to point me in
the right direction, I’d appreciate it. I have tried checking
the help and rummaging through forums, but still can’t get it
to work the way I want.
I’m using the “Full Motion Recording” mode,
since our software is pretty interactive in real-time and I want to
show that. All I want is to do is record about 30 seconds of me
using our software, and afterwards add text callouts here and
there, before exporting to an .swf file.
Question 1: Captivate automatically chops up my recording
into several “slides”, is there a way to make it put
everything in just one slide? Or set the default time of a slide in
order to get my entire recording in one single slide? The problem
is, if I want to place a callout just between two slides…
well, I can’t do that right? I just want one and the same
timeline for my entire recording.
Question 2: After the recording is done, is there a way to
adjust the speed, or pause, certain segments of the recording? For
example, if I realize that the viewer of my flash video needs a
couple of seconds longer to read a certain callout, I want to
“pause” or “extend” that point in the
timeline for a bit. Can I do that, or do I need to record the
entire thing from the beginning and actually pause myself at the
appropriate time?
I’d be thankful for all advice and suggestions. I
realize I’m new to this, so any nudges in the right direction
would be appreciated!
/Tom

Answer 1

Hey there Tom
From my experience, the only time I need full motion is
during a drag & drop or scrolling type of action when the view
"moves" like a film.
My suggestion is that you plan what you want to do (click
here, then there, then select that button etc.)
Step 2 is to start a new project and select "Demonstration"
as the recording type, spec the size of the recording window if
needed and start recording (You might want to use auto capture
which would automatically record all interactions and key strokes,
but please remember to "manually" capture certain screens using
Print Screen e.g. after a drop down menu has opened.) (Hint 2 -
Rather record too many screens than miss one critical one out)
Step 3 would be to stop recording and edit the individual
slides with captions, animations etc. At this stage, you can
specify exactly how long each screen would display, when your
captions etc appear and for how long they show.
In summary, a decently built demo has a seperate slide for
each change in what the user would see on the screen, with FMR
being used to "tie together" 2 views where a movement action causes
the transition.
Hope this helps
Andrew