North Texas Captivate User Group

I hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful August weather!

When: Tuesday, August 21 at 6:30PM

Meeting topic: Extending Captivate through Flash
Presenter: Frank Hanfland, Computer Resource Solutions

Frank will be covering techniques for controlling a Captivate movie from a Flash front-end in order to extend functionality to support custom navigation, custom displays of movie data (such as slide numbers). He will also show us an example of how to handle variables within Captivate! This is an exciting topic for many of us who have “hit the wall” with Captivate’s native functionality. You don’t want to miss this presentation!

Also, we will be giving away some SWAG items from Adobe.   Shirts, cups, mice, etc.

Meeting Location:

Rexel
6606 LBJ Freeway
Suite 200, Dallas, Texas 75240

Click here for a map.

In our quest to be more accessible to area CP users, we are meeting at another location next week. Sam Creel, this group’s co-founder, has arranged for us to meet at his office near LBJ and Hillcrest. Many thanks to Sam and his company, Rexel, for helping us out.

Our goal is to eventually find a permanent meeting location. We are also looking into scheduling our meetings on a different evening during the month that won’t conflict with other group meetings. If you have any suggestions, please let us know.

We’ll have Chick-fil-a again if that’s OK with everyone.  Remember, donations are always welcome!

Please call 469 628 5145 if you have need last minute directions.

See you next week!

That was fast!

Here is a link to the press release.

Is everyone upgrading to CP3 or are you completely satisfied with the current release?

More to come…

Walt

When my Captivate 2 files are launched from the LMS/CMS, they are presented with minimal browser chrome - no browser toolbars, no buttons, no address bar, etc. However, when you preview in Captivate, it presents with full browser chrome. I have been searching for a way to preview my projects directly from Captivate so that they appear the same way our CMS presents, with minimal browser chrome, and finally came up with a solution, using a little bit of embedded JavaScript in a special slide at the beginning of my project.  Solution and explanation below the fold…

Read the rest of this entry »

Topic: Bryan Peters and Walt Stewart will cover techniques for optimizing published file sizes.  File size optimization is a challenge facing most Captivate developers, regardless of skill level.  Please come to learn and share. 

NEW LOCATION THIS MONTH!

Where:  15770 Dallas Parkway, Suite 800   –   This is the Beal Bank Building.  It is a tan building with an orange roof.  There are two that look alike. 

Parking:  There is a parking garage in the back.   Please park on the top (visitor) level (it’s not a far walk at all) and come in the back glass doors. 

PLEASE do not park in the spaces in front of the bank.

Call Dawn at 214-725-9952 if you have a hard time finding our location. You can also call Walt Stewart at 469-628-5145.

Copying and pasting clipart from Powerpoint into Captivate is a quick and easy way to add images to your project. However, there are two things you need to remember:

1. Open the copied image in Captivate and change the transparency layer from black to white. The WMF image copies with a white background but the images transparency property is black. The image background is transparent in the development mode but not when you publish it.
2. The WMF format is not editable in Captivate. If you want an editable image, use Snagit or some other screen capture utility to grab the image before importing it into Captivate.

When: June 19th at 6:30PM

Location: Stranix, 2300 Valley View Lane, Suite 800, Irving, TX 75062

Topics: Work-flow and Best Practices using Captivate

Bryan Peters will lead a discussion, including Captivate examples, about work-flow and best practices for developing elearning projects. After the presentation, we will continue the discussion about the direction of our Captivate users group in north Texas.

When: May 15th at 6:30PM

Location: Stranix, 2300 Valley View Lane, Suite 800, Irving, TX 75062

Topics: Using Skins in Captivate 2.0 & User Group Goals/Direction

Walt Stewart will give a presentation on how to get the most out of the Skin Editor introduced in Captivate 2.0. After the Skins presentation, we will continue the discussion started in our last meeting about what this user group can offer Captivate users in north Texas.

If you are the “try before you buy” type, here is your chance to check out most of the Adobe Creative Suite 3 products and editions. Click here to view the available trials.  You can download individual applications, or order a trial DVD of a suite for $10 U.S.

When: May 15th at 6:30PM

Location: Stranix, 2300 Valley View Lane, Suite 800, Irving, TX 75062

Topics: Using Skins in Captivate 2.0 & User Group Goals/Direction

Walt Stewart will give a presentation on how to get the most out of the Skin Editor introduced in Captivate 2.0. After the Skins presentation, we will continue the discussion started in our last meeting about what this user group can offer Captivate users in north Texas.

Philip Hutchison (pipwerks.com) has written a great tutorial showing how to use Actionscript within Captivate SWFs to communicate with a Flash container. The tutorial includes diagrams, samples, and source files. Read about it here.