Love Captivate...Dislike the Flash

I've been using the 30 trial of Captivate to decide on
whether or not to purchase. I like the program but I'm bummed that
I need a few extra steps because all my other Adobe software is for
my Mac. Therefore when I try to export my Captivate demo to CS3 it
won't let me do so. I need to have the PC version of CS3 in order
to export files from Captivate. Okay, so I download the trial of
Flash CS3 for the PC to see if that allowed me to export the file
to Flash to determine if I could go this route in the future. It
lets me click the option to export the file to Flash CS3 but I then
get an error message in Flash saying "The import did not finish
because an unknown error occurred."
Any ideas?
And Adobe...come on. If you're not going to offer Captivate
on the Mac then at least make it so the files can be transported
back and forth seamlessly.

I have the full version of both Captivate 3 and Fl 9.0 on my
PC and have been receiving the same error message "The import did
not finish because an unknown error occurred." This happens for all
Captivate projects i have created and for those projects that are
samples created by Captivate. The existing learning management
software we use at our university only allows flash multimedia to
be uploaded. Any solutions yet? I just want the software suite we
purchased to be able to communicate with its own bundled
programs.

Similar Messages

Captivate 6 Video Issue: "The flash video can not be loaded. The input may not be proper"

I've already published this particular project with multiple videos embedded with no problems in Captivate 6. I had to change one video and went to re-publish the project. Upon completing the publish, I receive an error message on EACH slide that has embedded video:
"The Flash Video Can Not Be Loaded. The Input May Not Be Proper"
There wasn't any issues with the project until changing the one video that needed to swapped out. I also tried publishing this in Captivate 8 to the same results.
Specs:
Windows 7 Pro
Captivate Version 6.1.1.240
Intel Core i5 25-20 CPU @ 2.5 Ghz
4 GB RAM
32-Bit Operating System
If anyone knows why this issue has presented itself and how we can get around it, much would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Jon

Hi there,
Thanks for reaching Adobe Community. Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience.
I am a little confused here. Are you getting this error while inserting a FLV video through Insert option or inserting a video through Video > Insert Slide Video or inserting a new slide?
Re-linking means reinserting the video file. If you have already tried reinserting the video file, then have you tried inserting a different video?
Also what operating system you have on your system?
Thanks!
Shekhar

Is Captivate 4 the right tool for my purposes?

This posting should not be misunderstood as bad mouthing Captivate 4. For the most part, I really appreciate Adobe products and have invested a significant amount of personal money into many Adobe products over the years.
My current role involves designing a course curriculum using Adobe Captivate 4 and Adobe Connect Pro. Unfortunately, I am becoming increasingly concerned that I may be using the wrong tool, at least, in regards to developing all parts of a lesson. Perhaps my workflow will improve if I develop the front facing portion of my lessons with Lectora, and use Captivate solely for creating software simulations?
Because I have already spent a lot of time building my first lessons, and I have a subscription to Adobe Connect Pro, I would rather solve the issues I listed, rather than start over.
My question is... are my issues based on my lack of knowledge with Captivate 4, or am I experiencing real issues with this product? If it is my lack of knowledge, please tell me how to solve my issues.
At this point, I would like to give kudos to Rick Stone (known as Captiv8r) for all his help as a hired consultant. I highly recommend his services. Without him, I probably would not have gone as far as I have with Captivate.
Please correct or comment on the followin…
Minor annoyances
-    Too easy to accidentally move objects. Double clicking on a small graphic or a text caption can easily cause it to move or change size slightly. No way to lock their position only (e.g. lock text position but still allow editing).
-    Text caption boxes mysterious maximize (vertically) from time to time.
-    Grouping of objects is not possible.
-    Previewing “From this slide – F8” does not take into account (or initialize) persistent graphics (or otherwise) on the first slide or template; this results in missing objects when doing a quick preview.
-    Item names/variables are unwieldy. I have a number of graphics which I re-use throughout a lesson. I want to give each of them common names, such as ico_jobaid, img_core_splash, etc. Unfortunately, I cannot use identical names throughout a lesson. Each page requires a unique name for every object. This results in an item name like ico_interactive.png (as it is named in the library), appearing as TImageItem681 and TImageItem680 (copied twice) on a slide.
This is common for every object and makes it difficult to control objects.
Major issues
-    Occasionally I insert a graphics that can’t be made visible.
-    .cp file size seems to continuously increase in size, despite removing unused resources.
-    Text bullet issues (ending bullets occasional show up as a larger size)
-    Roll-over slidlets do not work as intended in AS3 mode. I must preview or publish in AS2.
-    Recording Software Simulations!
Captivate 4 allows recording of simulations in up to four modes (Demonstration, Training, Assessment, and Custom). Unfortunately, it appears to record these simulations are separate and distinct recordings. This is a problem because call-outs and other edits must be repeated for each simulation. Other simulation tools record once and can be edited once for passive and/or interactive viewing.
-    Buttons! Multiple buttons/text captions on a slide.
If I want to place multiple buttons on a slide, I must follow these steps to make these buttons/captions work properly. This is an unreasonable amount of work in order to use buttons on a single slide.
Step 1 - Determine the frame value. Note: It seems that if the frame value is not included, the lesson will move to the next slide, after clicking one button. Another caveat is that adding or removing slides may change the correct frame value.
1. Click Insert from the top menu,
2. Select Standard Objects,
3. Select Text Caption,
4. Click the Insert Variable button,
5. Select System from the Variable Type pull-down menu,
6. Select rdinfoCurrentFrame from the Variables pull-down menu.
7. Position the text caption appropriately on the screen. You may need an appropriate pause inserted in order to see the value.
8. Click Preview and select Project from the pull-down menu (or Click F4),
9. Step through slide show to the slide where rdinfoCurrentFrame text variable was inserted and record the displayed value.
Step 2 – Insert Button control
1. Click Insert from the top menu,
2. Select Standard Objects,
3. Select Button,
4. Choose appropriate button and button options (skipping steps),
5. Click Ok,
6. Position button appropriately.
Step 3 – Setting up advanced actions.
1. Click Project from top menu,
2. Select Actions,
3. Click the Advanced Actions tab,
4. Click the Edit / Create Action Pull down menu and select Create a New Action…,
5. In the new action name: text box, type action name (i.e. but_core_console),
6. Double click twice on Add Statement (sometimes it doesn’t behave as it should),
    – this feature seems error prone.
7. Double click twice on Statement (in red),
8. Select Standard Action from pull-down list,
9. Select Show from pull-down list,
10. Select object name (text caption) you wish to show,
11. Repeat (if necessary),
12. Select hide and the element name you wish to hide and repeat as necessary,
13. Double click twice on Add Statement (sometimes it doesn’t behave as it should)
– this feature seems error prone.
14. Double click twice on Statement (in red),
15. As the last step, select Assignment from pull down list,
16. Select rdcmndGotoFrame from pull down list,
17. Select Value from pull-down list,
18. Enter the frame value (as determined Step 1),
19. Click Save.
For the next buttons,
1. Click the Duplicate button,
2. Edit the New action name: name appropriately,
3. Edit the information in the Advanced actions for the this action. (skipping steps)
4. Click Save.
Repeat as necessary!
Configuring buttons
1. Double click on first button,
2. In the section, “If the user clicks on the button”,
    click on “On success” pull-down menu and select, “Execute advanced action”.
3. Click the Action pull-down menu and select the appropriate named action.
Repeat as necessary.
-    Building buttons for several slides will create a large number of advance actions. Even though these advanced actions are only applicable to a single slide, they are viewable from any slide in a lesson. The number of actions (or advanced actions) quickly adds up in a complex lesson.
-    Cannot find a way to edit the default look (object positioning/object sizes) of a quiz. The only attribute that seems changeable is the font size.
Lock ups and crashes
-    Double clicking on a .cp file will often result in Captivate freezing at the start up screen.
-    Captivate crashes and sometimes predictably, especially where animations are inserted.
I am using both a Windows 7 64 bit and a Windows Vista 32 bit OS. I have tried the following options with seemingly no difference: RUN AS Admin, XP Compatibility mode
Examples from Windows Applications log:
The program AdobeCaptivate.exe version 4.0.1.1658 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel. Process ID: 16f0 Start Time: 01ca623e805d8f30 Termination Time: 81
The program AdobeCaptivate.exe version 4.0.1.1658 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel. Process ID: 1654 Start Time: 01ca622b67764380 Termination Time: 70

The only one that can answer that question is yourself ;o)
I wrote my comments and suggestions with red text here. My company uses Captivate to develop courses and so far we have been very happy with Captivate. Earlier we used Flash to develop courses, but the development time was very long so Captivate has allowed us to speed up the development process with 2-300%. We still use Flash quite a lot to build interactions etc. and import these into Captivate to add extra features.
We did look at a variety of tools when we wanted to find an alternative to Flash but at that time (we started with Captivate 2) we found that the best option was indeed Captivate. I regularly check up on competing products and there are some interesting alternatives available now but they are not as advanced as Captivate imho.
When that is said. Captivate is (and has always been) full of weird bugs and things that aren't working properly. This is extremely annoying but we have learned to work our way around most of them. It also seems that the stability of Captivate varies greatly from installation to installation. We are 8 people in my department all working with Captivate. Our computers are all the same and the OS is a corporate standard. Despite this some people here have some weird problems with Captivate that I never experience. I can't explain why it happens (and neither can they) but it could be the installation or it could be the way people work. An example is "missing/corrupt" Captivate files. We have always been working directly on a network drive. This is something that is often recommended against doing because it can cause corrupt Captivate files. The interesting thing is that I have never once experienced a corrupt Captivate file even though i have opened, worked on and saved many thousands of them from/to our network drive. One of my colleagues had around 20 occurences of corrupt Captivate files in the same timespan and from the same network drive.
The biggest problem in Captivate is the quiz module in my opinion. The quiz module is probably the most important when we talk about E-learning development tools and that is where Captivate is the weakest. You can't really customize your quizzes, there isn't enough different question types and interaction types, you can't use video but worst of all - it is unstable and buggy. Users can get stuck in a quiz without being able to move forward or backwars, the review quiz is buggy etc.
One thing I often see with Captivate developers is that they try and do everything in Captivate. While most things are possible to do in Captivate then it might no be the best solution. Some things can be created in Flash and imported into Captivate saving you tons of time and grief and in the end give you a much better end-product. I know that everyone doesn't have access to a Flash programmer, but then you can buy your way out of the problem.
If you are looking for a tool where you can have full control of everything in your courses then the only real solution is Adobe Flash. This will allow you to build the courses exactly as you please but it comes at a big price. It gets way more complex to create courses, which results in longer development times and updating your existing course becomes much more difficult and time consuming.
Minor annoyances
-    Too easy to accidentally move objects. Double clicking on a small graphic or a text caption can easily cause it to move or change size slightly. No way to lock their position only (e.g. lock text position but still allow editing).
Doesn't really bother me but I guess it's different from person to person. You could just click on the object in the timeline instead to avoid moving the object.
-    Text caption boxes mysterious maximize (vertically) from time to time.
I never experienced that.
-    Grouping of objects is not possible.
I agree that this could be handy on slides with many objects.
-    Previewing “From this slide – F8” does not take into account (or initialize) persistent graphics (or otherwise) on the first slide or template; this results in missing objects when doing a quick preview.
Yes but if Captivate was to take into account everything that happened earlier than previewing from this slide you might as well click preview project (F4).
-    Item names/variables are unwieldy. I have a number of graphics which I re-use throughout a lesson. I want to give each of them common names, such as ico_jobaid, img_core_splash, etc. Unfortunately, I cannot use identical names throughout a lesson. Each page requires a unique name for every object. This results in an item name like ico_interactive.png (as it is named in the library), appearing as TImageItem681 and TImageItem680 (copied twice) on a slide.
I think this is the same in any application.. The whole idea of naming objects is that they have a unique name to be identified and manipulate later. I do however agree that the default naming in Captivate sucks. If the resource is named ico_interactive.png in the library, then Captivate should name it slide1_ico_interactive.png as the object name. It would make it easier and quicker to identify the correct resources.
Major issues
-    Occasionally I insert a graphics that can’t be made visible.
I never experienced that with properly configured graphics. Sure you can have problems if you insert a CMYK image or a 300 dpi image, but if you use RGB 72dpi images then it works fine. (at least it always have for me).
-    .cp file size seems to continuously increase in size, despite removing unused resources.
True but I never really experienced this as a problem. In Captivate 3 it could really get out of hand, but in CP4 it's much better. Alternatively create a blank Captivate file with the same dimensions and copy/paste your slides into that. (Don't know how it will behave with all your advanced actions though).
-    Text bullet issues (ending bullets occasional show up as a larger size)
It is because you have a different font size on the last line of the caption. Just do a CTRL-A to select all the text and select the proper font size. Alternatively adjust the default font and size to what you want in Captivate to avoid this in the future.
-    Roll-over slidlets do not work as intended in AS3 mode. I must preview or publish in AS2.
Didn't know that - you should probably report it as a bug if you haven't done so already.
-    Recording Software Simulations!
Captivate 4 allows recording of simulations in up to four modes (Demonstration, Training, Assessment, and Custom). Unfortunately, it appears to record these simulations are separate and distinct recordings. This is a problem because call-outs and other edits must be repeated for each simulation. Other simulation tools record once and can be edited once for passive and/or interactive viewing.
Agree - this is rather annoying.
-    Buttons! Multiple buttons/text captions on a slide.
From what I understand you have a whole bunch of buttons on a slide and then when the user clicks on one it shows some text / image? If that is the case then yes it will be a tedious process to build all this. I don't know if it would be easy in any other applications though (surely most of the other Rapid E-learning tools won't even be able to do it). Perhaps it would be better to rethink the way you build the course. Can't you use rollover captions / images instead?
Another alternative is to build these "interactions" in Flash and then import them into Captivate. Basically you would need to build a couple of different templates where you would be able to reuse the Flash framework and only change images/text in Flash and then importo it into Captivate.
-    Cannot find a way to edit the default look (object positioning/object sizes) of a quiz. The only attribute that seems changeable is the font size.
This is a major handicap in Captivate and one of the reasons why we don't use Captivate quizzes in our courses. We build all our course in Captivate (and add Flash and other interactions) but we always use a Flash Quiz. The Captivate quiz is simply too ugly and unstable. We deploy courses to 35.000 people worldwide so stability is our number one priority and sadly Captivate quizzes don't offer that at this point.
Lock ups and crashes
-    Double clicking on a .cp file will often result in Captivate freezing at the start up screen.
I never had that problem. I use Win XP, Vista 64-bit and Win7 64-bit.
-    Captivate crashes and sometimes predictably, especially where animations are inserted.
I am using both a Windows 7 64 bit and a Windows Vista 32 bit OS. I have tried the following options with seemingly no difference: RUN AS Admin, XP Compatibility mode
My regular development PC runs Windows XP Pro. I never have any problems here. On Vista 64-bit I have a ton of problems, but Captivate didn't crash or lock up - it simply didn't perform the actions I wanted it to do. So far on Windows 7 I haven't encountered any crashes or problems. However there is no doubt that Captivate 4 was designed with Win XP in mind and Vista and Win7 are not native platforms for it.
/Michael
Visit my Captivate blog with tips & tricks, tutorials and Widgets.

Why the flash player don't work after installing the video downloader add-on?

I've installed and uninstall the Firefox mobile app several times to try and fix this issue. Every time I add the video downloader add-on the flash player won't let me tap to play videos anymore. I've tried to completely enable the flash but still didn't work. I've used this add on for a few months and it worked fine up until the last Firefox update. Without the add-on the flash player works fine but after I've added the video downloader add-on I would have to uninstall and reinstall the mobile spot to get the flash to work again. I really love to use this add-on that's the advantage that Firefox mobile app has over other web browser. Please tell me how I can fix this issue. THANKS

Hello FRYDAE
Welcome to SuMo help Forum,
Thankyou for reaching us here
About your problem , have you tried to clear your privacy/browsing data? And see if flash works?
And you can try to disable the add-on, if you don't want to use it . and enable it again if you want to download a video .
Cheers!

Does the Flash Player (Win7 / IE 9+) cache content outside of the browser?

I have encountered a technical issue using Flash (CC) content in Captivate 7. I am distributing the content to a customer with approximately 1000 Windows PC's running IE 9 +. Some of these computers have no issue but a small number experience a problem which prevents them from downloading content after an undetermined point. There is no apparent pattern to identify either a fault in the content or a fault in the workstation build.
The problem looks like this:
The user is able to access the content - sometimes several courses, sometimes only one.
At some point during a course -it will stop playing (failing to load the next page).
The user can close the course and reload - but is always stops in the same place it originally failed.
The user can load previously accessed courses and these work without issue.
The user is unable to load any new courses (previously un-accessed) - resulting in a blank page.
No application events are logged when this occurs so there is little to examine when it occurs. We have anecdotal evidence that the issue can sometimes be resolved by clearing the browser cache - but not always. Also - we have unconfirmed reports that the problem can "resolve itself" after several weeks.
From my perspective it looks like one of the following scenarios is causing the problem:
The Flash Player is caching content in a location other than the browser cache and reaches a limit. The cache is not overwriting content so then fails to download any new content.
The Flash Player experiences a problem which prevents it from downloading content (corrupt files, registry issue, or policy restriction).
We have several other customers who access this content at different sites - and none have reported this specific issue, so we are confident that the delivery mechanism is sound. The customers workstations are generally new machines with plenty of capacity, and they have a 200 Mb leased line connection to the Internet. The customer has assured us they do not use a caching proxy server on site, nor any bandwidth optimisation tools so in theory, the client connection is direct to the Internet. Additionally - the fact that this issue affects isolated workstations suggests the problem lies at the endpoint - not in the transmission path.
Has anyone encountered this type of issue before - or does anyone have any knowledge of Flash Player caching operations?
Regards

IE will roll cache like any other browser. Keep as much as the user allows and start recycling when that gets filled. At no point will IE "fill up" on any single or multiple sites and be unable to download any more content. Downloading is all a browser does and Flash is not excluded from that unlimited party. However if you never remove content properly and continue to download endless content, you could encounter RAM issues. You don't have unlimited RAM so you may be hitting a wall. But as long as you're disposing any content you loaded that you no longer need, that isn't an issue.
You're going to need to install some custom logging if you really want to debug a clients client. The most popular thing a Flash application will do is fail silently and lock up because you did not provide any failsafe measures for various common issues. From common crossdomain policy issues to flaky connections failing in the middle of a download, you need to handle all these situations and act appropriately. If any content is failing to load in Flash you can be sure if you try {} catch () {} you'll be given a top level chance to send out a log notice to yourself. That's of course assuming you have the standard IOErrorEvent, SecurityErrorEvent, etc already in place to also log.
If you had access to the offending machines then opening the developer tools in IE and using the network manager would be the easiest way to see what's going on. If you click to load more content and see no network request, the requesting itself has an issue (could be a million reasons). If you see the request go out then you'll either see it fail in the middle or complete. If it fails you should have code to handle that. If it completes and the app still locks up, you probably have ABC that isn't playing nicely and should be "caught" and logged.
There's just no one way to approach this. Only layers of error handling and logging are your best friends when it comes to debugging this kind of thing.
Personally I've seen clients boast they have XMbit lines and their network is otherwise perfect, when it had old grade (100mbit) eth cables and the little things that schools and large companies tend to overlook in the long run. It's easy to replace a faulty switch or eth card but in-wall cable, not so often.

Unable to publish projects with inserted video - error message The Flash video can not be loaded

I've created a project in Captivate 6 with two slides that have inserted videos in them
Both the videos were created in Captivate 6 by publishing those projects as mp4 videos
They play fine in the previews but when publishing I get the error saying the Flash video can not be loaded for both of those slides and in the output files the area for the video is blank.
I have checked that the videos are not open anywhere else as I saw on a previous post this was the issue but the only place they are in use is in the project I am trying to publish.
Below are my settings and the error message
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Your screenshot indicates you are publishing to a folder on a network drive.
Have you:
Verified whether or not the video file exists at the published folder location? (It should ideally be sitting in the same folder as the SWF that calls it.)
Verified that the folder location is set up as a trusted location in your Flash Global Security settings?

Unable to export from Captivate 4 to Flash CS4

Hello everyone!
I am attempting to export a captivate project over to flash CS4. However when it goes from captivate over to flash the result is basically a slide show. It does not show any of the animations that are present in Captivate. I also keep recieving an error message.
I have searched for how to solve this problem for quite a while now and so far have come up with nothing.
This is the error message that flash gives me:
The following elements in your project have not been converted. They are not supported by this importer.
508 Compliance
A swf animation slide has been imported. The following files must be made available at publish time:
Project01_slide_22_0.swf
DefaultPreloader.swf
Please make sure you publish the project to “C:\Documents and Settings\jmillard\Desktop.” Saving the project to this directory will ensure that test project will work with the swf animation slides.
Unfortunately I am on a tight schedule to get this project done and the Captivate 4 and Flash CS4 I am using are both 30 day trials, so I am in quite a hurry.
If you could please help me I'd greately appreciate it!

When you click on <Send Book to Blurb> a dialog should come up that asks for your ID and password for your Blurb account. I don't know if Blurb ships to Norway - you probably can find out at the Blurb website. But I don't think that this is the problem here since you also cannot export a PDF or JPGs.
I don't know of any specifics why this is not possible for you but it's worth trying to replace the Preference File.
This file can go "funny" and is then responsible for all kinds of strange behavior of Lr. The remedy is replacing the Preference File.
BTW: Re-installing Lr or updating / upgrading Lr does not replace the Preference File since it is designed to "survive" upgrades.
See here for where to find the Preference file for your OS: http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/preference-file-locations-lightroo m-4.html
See here for how to go about Replacing the Preference File: http://lightroomers.com/replacing-the-lightroom-preference-file/745/

Why is the Flash forum so slow? Just me?

This isn't necessarily important and I'm not complaining
(yet), but I was wondering if anyone else is finding that the Flash
forum pages load incredibly slow. I find myself staring at a blank
page with a full progress bar for very long periods of time,
sometimes needing to hit the refresh button to jump start the
process with limited success. In contrast, the Photoshop and
Indesign forum pages load quickly. I notice the Captivate forum
pages also load slowly and both it and the Flash forum have
"cfusion" in their address. That, plus their different look, make
me guess that these forums are the original Macromedia forums
ported to the Adobe site. Whatever the reason, they perform much
differently for me and I find using the Flash and Captivate forums
to be tedious and frustrating as a result. Can anyone explain this?
Is anyone else even experiencing this? Can Adobe fix this?
So many questions. Anyway, I figured I'd throw it out there
and see if anyone else jumps in.

Here here!
"I haven't seen any other Forum on the WORLD WIDE WEB being so slow/unstable?" - exactly how I feel too!!!
Error 404 many times each day and loosing posts due to "internal error" or what have you! I have mailed a few times to "webmaster" but nothing...
I think this is really bad PR, but what do I know ;)

Problems with Captivate Redirects, possibly Flash Security and XML

Hello fellow Captivarians,
First a little backstory, earlier in the year we developed a course that heavily used external image files, which were gathered and organised through an XML file, then placed into Captivate 4 through a widget. This was all developed in Actionscript 3 and was designed to be accessed locally, on the user's computer from a CD Drive.
We had a whole deal of issues with Captivate and Flash security issues, finding that we could not get the importing to work correctly in Internet Explorer as it outright refused to import the XML file (Presumably because of security issues). However, Firefox would work fine. Eventually we got it working via a bandaid solution by prepackaging the course with a firefox portable install.
Now many months later, we have discovered our previous solution still works, but it now outright denies any redirects from HTML page to HTML page, regardless if the content is on the CD or if it's on the harddrive. Buttons that link to external sources will not work, (even if it's just a local page in the same directory).Flash player simply refuses to redirect between HTML pages. We tried some older projects that were developed in AS2 - and this wasn't an issue.
The odd thing is however, on my computer it still works fine. However, on everyone elses in our office, it will not redirect at all. We are all running the same version of Flash Player, and the same version of Firefox...
Any ideas? Could it have been a recent update with the Flash Player that prevents this sort of interaction?
Cheers.

Hi there
Have you tried configuring the Flash Security Settings? That's my guess.
Click here for a tutorial on how to configure
If this will be on CD-ROM or DVD, you may need to consider adding a light version of a Web Server to the media and launching via that.
Helpful and Handy Links
Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form
Adobe Certified Captivate Training
SorcerStone Blog
Captivate eBooks

.swf imported in Flash Catalyst shows only the Flash Shockwave icon

I have scoured the FC forums and watched all of the Adobe TV episodes
on importing .swf files into Flash Catalyst but I am still faced with the following problem.
I have a basic animated .swf file that I created in Flash CS5. I am trying to import that .swf file into a Flash Catalyst project but when I do I only see the blue border around the asset when I click it in the layers panel. In the top left corner is a small round Flash Icon ( I believe it is the Flash Shockwave version - Blueish Gray). Nothing shows when I "Run" the project nor when I added the .swf file in the local folder from where Flash Catalyst runs the project.
I tried re-publishing the original Flash file in different version of Flash player, but to no avail. Not sure if I am doing something wrong, or if I have imported incorrectly or what.
Even though I cannot see the .swf file imported into Flash Catalyst, I still tried to add an interaction to play on Application Start, but nothing there either.
At a loss and looking for some direction.
Thanks in advance for your response.
Cheers!

Erik -
It's a pleasure to help someone! I just got through this as you can see. Only problem is I just hacked it with no precision, so for example I moved a lot of files to the server to make them accessable and then it played. But near as I can tell, I'll tell you the story.
There are two things going on. When you play it locally it's different from when you play it on the web. You are correct, you should see the first frame of the swf in your animation. To get it to play (assuming it is set to play)you then have to control+enter to preview (on windows). The assests are laid out locally in the file structure displayed in the url bar. no?
Part of it is that there may be several things going on here... All I can do is tell you all the numerous problems I had, made worse because I had 3 different work-stations...
I had problems when I had several swfs floating around in the library and I think similar names: Eventually I just did a clean export of the swf (the first one was from Flash... 3? 4? and Catalyst is cs5... ) and such to just do the work-flow in one motion. I had too many work-stations going on. So that part I finally did cleanly, and when that was settled, I could handle the file issues.
The swf: It does have to be in the same folder, and not in a sub-folder. Also, all the contents from DEPLOY TO WEB - just drag it into your site folder defined by dreamweaver or whatever and put it on the server at the same level, NO russian dolls (no file folders within folders). With Dreamweaver, when you upload a swf, you select the MAIN file and supposedly DW pulls files - it does, but not all of them, such as supporting swfs.
I would have thought that DW would do it correctly automatically : It seems to want to: but there are still kinks.
If you're like me, you recognize that catalyst is a powerful creative stage, but this stuff is just annoying and really easier just man-handled with precision once and forgotten about lol.
I heard also some grumbling on swfs that are just too huge or have aspects that don't import well, but it doesnt' sound like a problem in this case.
Do update me - I'm around this weekend, would love to see you succeed on this.
Cache,
Thanks for your replies. I have put the .swf file in the same "local" directory as the main.html for the FC Project I am working on and no luck locally. However, does the .swf file have to be in the local directory of the FC project prior to it being imported into FC for it to work locally?
Also, when I was watching a video tutorial about inserting .swf files into FC, the graphics/content of the .swf that was inserted could be seen in the design view of FC. My imported .swf only shows a small, round flash icon in the corner and nothing else. This doesn't seem right to me. Shouldn't one be able to see the graphics/content of the imported .swf so that it can be properly placed in the design? That is how it was in the video tutorial. If this is also due to the location of the imported .swf then Adobe has not made that clear in anything I have read or seen.

Exporting a Captivate Movie into Flash 8

I am trying to export my Captivate movie using Flash Pro 8,
but I keep getting the "message" I can only export if I had Flash
MX 2004 installed. Is there a way around this????

Hi mindtube and welcome to our community
I am inferring from your question that you may think Adobe
employees are monitoring this forum. While we might see one or two
pop in here and there, by and large this is a total "user-to-user"
community. I'm a Captivate user same as you. So you might want to
post your question to support using the link at the bottom of this
page. Either that, or via the WishForm linked below:
Click
here to visit the WishForm
Cheers... Rick :)

Preloading a published captivate recording to flash AS2

Hi,
I have a video recording made in adobe captivate 4 and disabled the preloader on the publish preferences. The reason why I disabled this is because other people cannot see the preloader while the captivate movie is loading but the preloader displays when I view it online usign my computer (Do you have any idea on how I can fix this?). As an alternative/workaround I created a movieclip loader class and load the external captivate movie in flash. The preloader that I created works. However, the captivate movie plays at once even if the movieclip loader hasn't reached 100%. How can I prevent the captivate movie to play while the preloader isn't 100%? I also get an error on flash while simulating download in flash. The error says:
Branching::script:;;
deepak branching : scripteval:[object Object];
When I get that error, that is the time that the captivate movie plays. Below is my code in flash it is in AS2.
var linking:MovieClip = _root;
var level2 = linking.attachMovie("captivateHolder", "captivateHolder", this.getNextHighestDepth());
var loader:MovieClipLoader = new MovieClipLoader();
loader.loadClip("captivate/prequalified_contractors.swf", level2.captivateMovie);
var preload:Object = new Object();
loader.addListener(preload);
preload.onLoadStart = function(target){
trace("Started Loading");
preload.onLoadProgress = function (target, loadedBytes, totalBytes){
level2.captivatePreloader.text = Math.floor((loadedBytes/totalBytes)*100)+"%";
level2.captivateMovie.rdcmndNextSlide = 0;
preload.onLoadComplete = function(target){
level2.captivatePreloader.text = " ";
level2.captivateMovie.rdcmndNextSlide = 1;
I tried to restrict the captivate movie from playing by putting rdcmndNextSlide = 0;
My question is, how can I restrict the captivate movie from playing while the event is still on the onLoadProgress and make it play once the preloader reaches 100%.
This is the first time that I used adobe captivate 4.
Thank you.
Regards,
Harry

You could pause the Captivate project when you start to preload it by using the Captivate system variables. Then when your file has been loaded 100% you could resume it again by using a different system variable.
You can see a list of the various system variables here: http://www.cpguru.com/2009/04/28/system-variables-in-captivate-4-%e2%80%93-a-complete-list /
The relevant variables for you would be:
rdcmndPause = 1; (to pause the project)
rdcmndResume = 1; (to resume playback)
Naturally you need the instancename (where you load your Captivate movie into) infront of the variable name.
myLoaderContainer.rdcmndPause = 1;
/Michael

For some reason, the Flash Player on my MAC Pro stopped working, I've checked the install on my Adobe Flash Player and the are current, but the plug-ins don't seem to be working. Can anyone help me get it working?

For some reason, the Flash Player on my MAC Pro stopped working, I've checked the install on my Adobe Flash Player and the are current, but the plug-ins don't seem to be working. Can anyone help me get it working?

It happened w/ my MacPro 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon about 5 months ago; tried everything I could think of including multiple downloads of Flash, and hadn't seen any solutions here. Adobe insisted many times that I download & update, but the newest vers. wouldn't work on the computer.
On checking Adobe/Flash was reading the computer as being an earlier model. So the new version of Flash wouldn't work w/ it. Snow Leopard 10.6.8 was being read correctly but not the computer model (can't remember what MP model it was reading).
Nothing worked. So -- a very old PC trick: If nothing else works get the hammer out and bludgeon it-- might work. So I reset everything by putting the Snow Leopard install disk in, held down 'C' on restart and let it run.
Didn't take anything off the HDD first, just ran the install disk over everything.
The experts on the forums are probably cringing right now & I'd like very much for them to jump in. Love to know how my computer model was being mis-read. All I can say is, for the brave and desparate, it worked for me. Something to keep in mind.
It helped that I had a new computer on order & have 2 backups, one being mandatory. Might work only the one time but worth a check.
Good luck on working this one out.

How do I import Captivate 4 into Flash CS5?

I am not a Flash expert obviously. I am trying to import my captivates into Flash and get an error message that the file was not imported because it could not be read. Can anyone help?

Hello,
Normally you can export the Captivate file to Flash from the File menu, but I'm not sure it will work between 2 different versions: 4 for Captivate and CS5 for Flash?
Lilybiri

Accessing Captivate 6 with Flash 6 AS3

Is there no simple way to just change this code to make a drag and drop interaction work in CP6 that used to work in CP5.5? See bold text below...
It could be some time before we get the CP8 upgrade which includes D&D natively. (I'm using CP6 on a standalone computer without internet access, so can't download the new D&D widget.)
I've been searching for some time for a better answer than to use the WidgetFactory to redo the whole thing.
I tried the New>Widget in Flash option, but there is no guidance for using that intimidating looking page of code that pops up.
Is there a basic tutorial for using that somewhere?
thanks.
alan
import flash.display.MovieClip;
var dragArray:Array = [POS, PAS, PEC, RGR, AFSC, GRD, OSC];
var matchArray:Array = [POSMatch, PASMatch, PECMatch, RGRMatch, AFSCMatch, GRDMatch, OSCMatch];
var currentClip:MovieClip;
var startX:Number;
var startY:Number;
var counter:Number;
var resText:String;
counter = 0;
for(var i:int = 0; i < dragArray.length; i++) {
    dragArray[i].buttonMode = true;
    dragArray[i].addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, item_onMouseDown);
    //matchArray[i].alpha = 0.2;
function item_onMouseDown(event:MouseEvent):void {
    currentClip = MovieClip(event.currentTarget);
    startX = currentClip.x;
    startY = currentClip.y;
    addChild(currentClip); //bring to the front
    currentClip.startDrag();
    stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP, stage_onMouseUp);
function stage_onMouseUp(event:MouseEvent):void {
    stage.removeEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP, stage_onMouseUp);
    currentClip.stopDrag();
    var index:int = dragArray.indexOf(currentClip);
    var matchClip:MovieClip = MovieClip(matchArray[index]);
        if(currentClip.hitTestObject(matchClip)) {
        //a match was made! position the clip on the matching clip:
        currentClip.x = matchClip.x;
        currentClip.y = matchClip.y;
        counter++;
            trace(counter);
            //counter.text = counter;
            if (counter == 7) {
            resTextbox.text = "Correct! Click the Next button to continue...";
            //pop-up award graphic if wanted...
            //iApprovePNG_mc.gotoAndPlay(2);
            //This is to tell Captivate to continue (after the interaction)
            var myRoot:MovieClip = MovieClip(root);
            var mainmov:MovieClip = MovieClip(myRoot.parent.root);
            mainmov.FlashDone = 1;
        //make it not draggable anymore:
        currentClip.removeEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, item_onMouseDown);
        currentClip.buttonMode = false;
    } else {
        //match was not made, so send the clip back where it started:
        currentClip.x = startX;
        currentClip.y = startY;

if flash is throwing errors, then it's possible the scoping is off and still accessing the flash timeline, not the captivate timeline
you can try and keep adding extra .parent one at a time like this:
var captivateVariables:* = Object(parent.parent).getMovieProps().variablesHandle;
var captivateVariables:* = Object(parent.parent.parent).getMovieProps().variablesHandle;
var captivateVariables:* = Object(parent.parent.parent.parent).getMovieProps().variablesHandle;
var captivateVariables:* = Object(parent.parent.parent.parent.parent).getMovieProps().variablesHandle;
var captivateVariables:* = Object(parent.parent.parent.parent.parent.parent).getMovieProps().variablesHandle;
see this about getMovieProps()

Love Captivate...Dislike the Flash

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