Captivate 4 timeline pauses

I have a large Captivate 4 project (160 slides). I imported a
PowerPoint and had Captivate add a pause button for each slide
(Advance Slide On mouse click). At a later date, I decided to
remove the buttons on each slide so that the project would advance
automatically. I went through each slide, selected the button, and
deleted it.
When I publish the project, most of the slides advance
automatically, but a handful of slides do not. The slides that do
not, retain the functionality of the button and PAUSE, however
there is no physical button on each slide or anywhere in the time
line. Grrrr! How do I get rid of the pause?
Thanks,
Scott

GRRRR!
Here is the story:
I recently upgraded my copy of Captivate 3 to 4. I have a
PowerPoint 2007 presentation that I imported into Captivate
(New>From from MS PowerPoint). I had the “Advance Slide on
Mouse Click” option selected in the Convert PowerPoint
Presentations dialogue box (which added a “click box”
to each slide. Everything worked great.
My content expert came in and recorded his audio on each
slide. He decided it would be best if the slides auto-advanced
rather than advanced on mouse click - so I deleted the click box
from the timeline on each slide. When I published the project, I
found that the some of the slides auto advance while others do not.
It seems that the click box’s action (to pause the timeline)
was retained even though I deleted the click box from the timeline.
I’ve checked the properties of the slide to make sure that
the “on slide exit” dropdown is set to “Go to
next slide” – it is. I’ve also dragged the
slide’s timeline to make it longer or shorter, hoping this
would somehow get rid of the pause – it didn’t work. A
short project has turned into a 3 day nightmare.
I have about 130 slides, and the “ghost” click
box action is sprinkled throughout the project. I can’t
figure out how to fix this. I’ve even uninstalled Captivate
and reinstalled – it, but this did not work.
I've created a 4 slide presentation to see if i could
re-create the problem. Sure enough - SOME of the slides refuse to
auto-advance. Others advance just fine.
Jeez, I'm fixing to pull my hair out! Can anybody else
re-create this problem?
Thanks,
Scott
Any suggestions?

Similar Messages

How stop imported ppt animations from getting out of sync when captivate 4 is paused?

When we pause captivate 4, the imported power point animations keep going. We import power point slides into Captivate 4, then import audio into Captivate and set the animation timings ("after previous" -no clicks - video is set to automatic forward) in ppt to synch with the audio. We also add Captivate popups etc. After we publish, when the pause button is used, Captivate pauses and the audio pauses but the power point animations get out of synch - the ppt animation timings do not seem to recognize the pause. How can we fix this?

Ruth,
I have been able to fix the problem with adding a second on each slide. So all but 7 of my slides now are in sync. I had one slide change, not play its narration as the narration from the previous slide finished. And then it move on to the next slide. According to the manual, you can adjust the speed of the slide transition. So I am playing with the timeline for each slide. I am almost there. I didn't have any change of slides after the first transition to almost perfect synchronization with all but 7 slides out of 60, including one skip over. It seems each problem solved creates a new problem. I fixed resolution by adjusting the resolution settings. I enabled the variable showing of the slide based on the narration, rather than the default 3 seconds. So I am making progress.
Thanks for responding,
Paul
Paul Roden, Training Manager
Human Resources
LaSalle University
215-991-3607
"I am only one, but I am still one; I cannot do everything, but still I can do something, and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." Edward Everett Hale, 19th century writer
"This message may contain confidential and/or proprietary information and is intended for the person/entity to whom is was originally addressed. Any other use by others is strictly prohibited.

Captivate 6 - Strange Pause Behavior

Hi All,
I am having a problem with the pause slide action in Captivate. At the end of each slide, I want the playbar to pause and not automatically forward to the next slide.
Here's what I did to set it up:
Under slide properties > action > on exit, set execute advanced action
The advanced action is assign cpCmndPause with literal 1
In Captivate versions 3 - 5, that would pause at the final frame of a slide before loading the next slide. In Version 6, it will forward to the next slide, then pause on the first frame.
I did find a workaround using javascript:
On slide exit, execute javascript in current window: PauseSlide();
In the published .htm file, I added the following lines of code after line 11
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
function PauseSlide(){
     var currFrame = document.getElementById('Captivate').cpEIGetValue('rdinfoCurrentFrame');
     document.getElementById('Captivate').cpEISetValue('rdcmndGotoFrame', currFrame - 2);
</script>
Since the advanced action doesn't seem to occur until the first frame of the next slide, this script 'rewinds' the course to the last frame of the previous slide. It's a total hack.
Have you witnessed this too?
I am using the demo version of C6, and have found this behavior in the 64-bit version on win 7 and 32-bit version on win xp

Dually-noted that a click-box is not a button.
The onExit action seems to behave the same as I would expect the onEnter action to function to work - on the next slide. It's behaving differently from the previous 3 versions of Captivate I've used. Might be a bug. I submitted a bug report, so hopefully one of Adobe's experts will take a look.
I would advise you to test the 'new' Captivate variables in a javascript function. I just tested it again with the same results. Here is the code I used with the 'new' variables:
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
function PauseSlide(){
     var currFrame = document.getElementById('Captivate').cpEIGetValue('cpInfoCurrentFrame');
     document.getElementById('Captivate').cpEISetValue('cpCmndGotoFrame', currFrame - 2);
</script>
The currentframe variable was 'undefined' at runtime. I could not skip to another frame by using the cpCmdGotoFrame variable. Again, I had to use the following code with the 'old' variables to get it to work:
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
function PauseSlide(){
     var currFrame = document.getElementById('Captivate').cpEIGetValue('rdinfoCurrentFrame');
     document.getElementById('Captivate').cpEISetValue('rdcmndGotoFrame', currFrame - 2);
</script>
Maybe there is a different method than cpEIGetValue/cpEISetValue to access the new variables? That would explain things..
thanks

Swf file exported from Captivate 2 should pause at each slide, but doesn't always

I have made a tutorial in Captivate 2 and exported it to an
swf format. In Captivate, I had put a button at the end of each
slide to pause it. I have gone back and checked to see if each
slide was correctly paused and it was. When I play it in Flash
Player 8, preview it in Captivate 2, or load it with Flash player 8
in an internet browser, most of the slides function as they should,
but randomly some slides will not pause and will just continue on
to the next one. It is different slides each time it is loaded that
do or don't pause. Does anyone know what the problem is? Is it just
a bug in Captivate?

There is a CRAPtivate forum here:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/categories.cfm?forumid=67&catid=464&entercat= y

Captivate audio not pausing in LMS after bookmarking relaunch.

My course is in Captivate 5.5. I have audio attached to each slide and each slide has a "Next" text button to pause the slide at the end. We use SumTotal LMS. The course works fine if you launch and complete it in one sitting. If I close out and bookmark my place, then relaunch the course it will start where it left off and the slides pause at the "Next' button, however the audio keeps going. I have looked this up and down from both sides and cannot resolve this issue. Multiple users have had this issue. Any help would be appreciated as I need to get this course live.

Rod,
Thank you very much! I added the audio slide by slide and I do have it at the start of each slide. I will try moving it a tenth or two out.
I appreciate the help.
Terry
cid:[email protected]
Terry Bradford
Technology-Based Learning Supervisor, Global Learning Center
AGCO
Tel +1 770.232.8095   Fax +1 770.813.6140
4570 River Green Parkway, Suite 140
Duluth, GA 30096-2563 USA
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
www.AGCOcorp.com<http://www.agcocorp.com/>   blog.AGCOcorp.com<http://blog.agcocorp.com/>
facebook.com/AGCOcorp<http://www.facebook.com/AGCOcorp>   twitter.com/AGCOcorp<http://www.twitter.com/AGCOcorp>   youtube.com/AGCOcorp<http://www.youtube.com/AGCOcorp>
cid:[email protected]

Pause imported swf when Captivate movie is paused

Hello,
I have created several small swf-animations (e.g. textboxes
flying in) which I use in a captivate movie. This works fine,
however, when the movie is paused and then continuied, the
swf-animations on the slide start over again. I have noticed that
the swf-animations that come with Captivate don't show this
behaviour. What's the (actionscript?) trick?
Thanks for your suggestions.
Jan

This problem stumped everyone...I was on the phone with
Raptivity for DAYS!! here is the solution they proposed which seems
to work......
Step 1: Open a Blank project and click on
‘Insert-Animation’. Browse for the swf file of
Raptivity and click OK.
Step 2: Save this project.(Create a new folder for this
project on some location on your machine.)
Step 3: Select Edit > Preferences.
a. In the Publish Settings option of the Project menu, select
Animations in the Externalize Resources list.
b. In the General Settings option of the Global menu, browse
for the saved folder (under Default locations) of Captivate’s
project and click on OK.
Step 4: Now click on ‘Insert-Animation’ and
browse for the fix.swf file (attached along with this mail) and
click on OK.
Step 5: Select Edit > Preferences.
a. In the Publish Settings option of the Project menu, select
Animations in the Externalize Resources list.
b. In the General Settings option of the Global menu, browse
for the saved folder (under Default locations) of Captivate’s
project and click on OK.
Step 6: Publish the file. To do so, click on the menu
File-Publish and ensure you publish this in the same folder of
Captivate’s project.
Finished !!! you have successfully integrated Raptivity into
Captivate directly.

Pause and play timeline with embedded video

I have created a banner that is currently being used at www.bandg.co.uk
I have been asked if it is possible to add a video to this banner.
However, the problem I have is with the banner having mlutiple slides.
What I am looking for is a way of having the timeline pause when the video is clicked on, then for the timeline to continue when the video is paused (basically making the video a start and stop command button).
Thanks for your help.

Can anyone help with this??:
I have created a Keynote presentation for a trade show consisting of slides and some slides with embedded video. How can I set this to play without cutting the video short or stopping at the end of the video?

Want to stay on same slide after button click - Captivate 5

I've got a button I'm using to pop up a separate browser window for a glossary. I need this button on every page of the module. I've got click boxes to control the flow of the timeline from page to page. When the user clicks the glossary, he should stay on the current page, get his information and dismiss the glossary. When I run it, the timeline pauses for the button, and if the user clicks it, the timeline progresses to the pause for the click box, still on the same page. But if the user clicks again on the button, the pop up window works, but Captivate moves on to the next page. Is there any way to prevent this, so that a user could click any number of times on the button without having the timeline progress past that page?
Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

Hi DS,
I use a javascript call to do what you describe all the time.
Since I use this all the time I embed the actual full javascript in Captivate's "standard.js" file. This is the full script:
function openBrWindow(theURL,winName,features)
window.open(theURL,winName,features);
I save the standard.js file. On my workstation this is the path to that file:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 5\Templates\Publish\standard.js
Now I can call the script anytime.
Here's how I configure the click-box:
If you look at Rick's picture (thanks Rick) in the Properties control menu under Action, for On Success, choose Execute Javascript.
Next Click the Script Window button, this opens up a blank window. Since you are just calling the javascript, you don't need to put the whole script in the window. Here is an example:
javascript:openBrWindow('myURL.html','thewindowname','height=800px,width=1000px,scrollbars =yes');
Ths example opens a window 800px tall and 1000 px wide with scrollbars. You can add additional attributes if you like. Make sure the URL is correct and has the correct path and if you have more that one of these on a slide the window name will need to be different. (If this persists from slide to slide you don't have to have them all as unique, only for more than one on a slide.
Now, click the little down arrow beside the Script Window button. This produces a little drop menu (as illustrated on Rick's image). Make sure you select "Top" and turn off the "Continue Playing the Project".
This control makes the newly spawned window appear on the top of the project and stops the playing of the slide. You can set other options in Properties to turn off or on captions as needed.
I hope this helps,
TPK

Synchronizing a Flash animation with Captivate

Hey,
Does anyone know how to connect, or synchronize, an animation to a Captivate CS5 timeline such that each frame of the animation is tied to a respective frame on the Cp slide? In other words, I want frame 1 of my animation to start on frame 1 of my Cp slide (which it currently doesn't, regardless of where I put it on the Cp timeline), and I would lilke the animation to pause and play according to what the Cp slide is doing.
Here's what I did:
I made a slideshow animation in Flash CS5 that I put in a Cp slide on top of audio. The animation lasts 35.5 seconds, same as the Cp slide.
I put the animation at the beginning of the timeline, told it to play for the 'rest of slide', and checked 'Sychronize with Project' (which does nothing as far as I can tell).
I put a stop (); command at the end of the animation so it doesn't repeat (and that's literally the only code I have in there at this point).
The animation and the Cp project are both at 30 frames per second.
Here's what happens when previewing (F4ing) the project:
When the project gets to that slide, the framework of the slide (audio/click boxes/buttons/etc) runs fine, but when the slide starts, it starts in the middle of the animation. I.e., when the slide starts, frame 1 of the Cp slide plays while frame (say...) 75 of the animation plays.
The animation starts at a different place every time.
Also, when I pause the slide, the animation keeps playing, which makes the problem worse. I would like the animation to pause when the Cp slide is paused.
I know that animations generally act a certain way, but I would like to know if there is a way to change its behavior so that everything works together. Best-case scenario, there is an option somewhere that I'm overlooking, and worst-case, I would imagine that there is some way to write some actionscript into the Flash animation that tells frame 1 to always be attached to Cp's frame 1, and frame 2 to always to attached to Cp's frame 2, etc, with every frame. I'm new with Actionscript, so I don't know how to do that.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Hi Brian,
After looking at your .fla file for the animation and doing some research, I've found the issue. As Rod Ward correctly points out in this post:
Captivate 5 was a total rewrite from the Captivate 4 software architecture and it introduced a subtle but fundamental change in the way that Flash animations were handled in Captivate published content.
Basically the change means that if your animation was built down a level or two inside a symbol rather than on the main timeline at the top level, then you will find that Captivate 5 or 5.5 loads and executes the animation on the first slide of the movie. This means that by the time you get to the actual slide where you WANTED the animation to perform it's magic, it's already run and finished.
In Captivate 4 this did not happen. The animation was not really loaded until later in the movie timeline so as to be ready for the slide where it was required. It didn't matter if the animation was buried inside a symbol or not.
You have two choices:
Revamp your animation so that it all happens on the main timeline in the Flash FLA file that generates it.
Get your Flash programmer to add some ActionScript code to the animation so that it does NOT play completely when first loaded at the beginning of the project at runtime.
Looking at your .fla file, I noticed you had a MovieClip/Symbol called "Animations" that contained the time line but the main .fla movie's time line was pretty much empty. Following the logic of option 1, I moved all the layers from the "Animations" time line to the .fla movie root time line and that fixed it. In Captivate, I also checked "Synchronize with Project" for the animation's properties and the animation did in fact pause and play when I paused and played the Cp movie.
So bottom line is to make sure that you're using the main time line for any animation you're developing in Flash Professional.
Hope that helps,
Jim Leichliter

Importing & controlling external .swf in Captivate 5

Hi,
I have a main file built in Captivate 5. This file has static slides with text and graphics, in one slide, I have to insert a demo which is smaller in dimension.
So I have recorded this demo as a separate Captivate file and published as .swf.
I have then imported this demo .swf in the main Captivate file as Insert > Animation.
But I am not able to control this demo(Play/Pause, Slider) by the main Captivate control bar.
Please help me regarding this.
Regards,
Sachin

Hi,
Please publish the demo as FLV/F4V instead of swf.
Insert the FLV into the main Captivate movie as FLV object - Insert FLV or F4V file.
In the Properties panel for the FLV, Select
Skin - None
Timing -> Rest of slide. Uncheck "Pause slide till end of video" option.
Check "Synchronize with Project option".
Preview the movie.
Now it is possible to control the Play/Pause of the embedded FLV from the main Captivate movie timeline.
Do let me know if this helps.
Thanks,
Sushma

CP8 - Pausing a slide.

I'm still learning Captivate but, to pause a slide to wait for interaction before advancing, you have to include 'Pause' in an Advanced Action when the slide starts or in another interaction. Doing this means that timing or effects, or the ability to 'Show' an object delayed by timing or effects, have no outcome because the play head is stopped. So, how would you show an object after a certain period of time or with an effect when you still need to pause a slide? How to accomplish both a pause and delay or effect when an object appears? Shouldn't this kind of pause (necessary when you want to wait for an interaction before proceeding to the next slide) be the default or at least handled by setting a property of the slide master or some way that doesn't require a manual intervention?
Thanks,
Jeff

There are several possibilities to pause a slide. The easiest one is to use an interactive object: button, shape button, click box or Text Entry Box. They all can have a pausing point (visible in the Timing Properties panel). The timeline is the core of Captivate, where you can time objects to appear later than the start of the slide. Your question is very basic and very vague at the same time. You are talking about 'an effect'... are you pointing at the Effects that can be applied to an object? Those effects have their proper timeline.
Try to avoid the simple action 'Pause' at the Exit event of a slide, it will stop the movie at the first frame of the next slide which is not what you want. Only for very specific situations do you need to pause with an advanced/shared action. I don't know why you think it has to be done so often?
This is an old blog post about the timeline, although the screenshots will not be totally the same, most is still valid: Tiny Timeline Tidbits - Captivate blog
You talk about master slides: if you want to create a custom navigation with buttons, you have to know that only shape buttons can be used on master slides. If the shape button is set to pause, it will always pause at the end of each slide, whatever its duration. Because on master slides you cannot time anything. Why I like Shape Buttons - Captivate 6! - Captivate blog explains some use cases for shape buttons.

Flash movie controlling Captivate navigation in an Aggregator project

Hi everyone,
I have a Flash movie which shows a Continue button after an interaction is completed by the user. This functionality prevents the user from clicking through the interaction slides so there is no captivate playbar or nav available. This Continue button works fine in advancing the Captivate movie that contains the Flash movie while published as an individual captivate file. However, when I take that published captivate movie and load it into an aggregator project, the communication of the cpCmndGotoSlide variable does not function properly. I'm using the following code in the Flash movie:
// captivate access...
    var myRoot:MovieClip = MovieClip(root);
    var cptxMovie:MovieClip = MovieClip(myRoot.parent.root);
    var slide:String = cptxMovie.cpInfoCurrentSlide;   // get current slide for workaround below
// Continue button handler...
// cptxMovie.cpCmndNext = 1; // wouldn't work at all
var theNextSlide:Number = Number(slide) + 1;       // workaround for cpCmndNext not working
cptxMovie.cpCmndGotoSlide = theNextSlide;
Is this because I'm calling the root, and the root is the outermost parent (the aggregator movie) and I need to communicate with the immediate parent of the flash movie (the submodule captivate)?
How can I access the intermediate captivate while it is in aggregator?
This is an AS3 flash and captivate and I'm using Captivate 5.
Thanks in advance!
Brian

Hi Tristan,
Thanks for the reply and the great code!
I tried it out and got the dynamic text field to display that it had found the main timeline, however, it still would not advance properly. Maybe I'm not doing something right with it. Here's how I had it:
// captivate access...
var cptxMovie:MovieClip = getParentWithProperty("cpCmndGotoSlide", this);
var slide:String = cptxMovie.cpInfoCurrentSlide;
function getParentWithProperty(propertyName:String, startFrom:DisplayObjectContainer):MovieClip {
          if (startFrom.hasOwnProperty(propertyName)) {
                    trace("Found the Captivate Main Timeline");
                    checkCode.text = "Found the Captivate Main Timeline";
                    return startFrom as MovieClip;
          else if (startFrom == stage) {
                    trace("Could not find the Captivate Main Timeline");
                    checkCode.text = "Could not find the Captivate Main Timeline";
                    return null;
          else {
                    return getParentWithProperty(propertyName, startFrom.parent);
// advance button handler...
function advance(e:Event):void {
          for (var i:uint=0; i < orangeCircleArray.length; i++) {
                    orangeCircleArray[j].removeEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER, onRollover);
                    orangeCircleArray[j].removeEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OUT, onRollout);
          var slideNum:Number = Number(slide);
          var theNextSlide:Number = slideNum + 1;
          cptxMovie.cpCmndGotoSlide = theNextSlide;
          btnContinue.removeEventListner(MouseEvent.CLICK, advance);
Thanks! Brian

How to create new layers in captivate?

Hi,
how to create new layers in captivate's timeline?
Regards,
krishnaraj

Hi krishnaraj
Sounds like you may be expecting Captivate to work
identically to Flash. Sorry my friend, it doesn't work this way.
For starters, notice that Captivate uses slides.
Each slide has its own timeline. So what you see in the timeline
area is not for the whole movie.
As you add objects (Buttons, Click Boxes, Images, Rollover
Areas, Etc.) the object is placed on the timeline and assumes what
you are referring to as a layer. You then control which object is
in front of another object by its relative position in the layer.
This is called the "Stacking Order".
Hopefully this helps... Rick

Returning to Captivate SWF after clicking URL link

How is this normally set up --
A SWF published from Captivate is posted on a web site. The
SWF has a button that opens a URL. How does the user normally
return to the Captivate project after viewing that URL?

Hi Jay
Normally one would configure the object opening the URL
(Button or Click Box typically) so that the URL opens in a new
window. That way the user interacts with the URL and closes the
window to return to the Captivate. Many of the later browsers will
open a new tab instead of a new window. So they would close the
tab.
Also there is a setting for the Button or Click Box that you
have to configure to allow the Captivate to remain paused. It's
found in the same place you configure the new window. A button with
a superimposed down arrow to the right of where you type the URL or
file name.
Cheers... Rick

Timeline jumps and skips ahead online

I have use stop actions on each frame to make the audio stop
and wait, but the movie still jumps around when it plays online. It
works okay locally, not sure how to use a preloader on each frame
so that all the audio will load before each frame starts to play.
Please take a look at the files here
www.tosoti.com/southgate/southgate.html, or .swf, or .fla to take a
look at the code. Help me please... Charlene 626-200-6722

If you zip the fla and upload it someplace, I'll download it
and take a look at it.
You can make a timeline pause for a few seconds by adding a
little Timer delay routine right after each image. I can give you
the delay routine for AS3, if that's what you're working
with.

Captivate 4 timeline pauses

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for