adobe captivate on mac ???

one of the advantages of twitter is that it gives you instant feedback of the product unlike blogs which is a thought over thing. tweets are as the first thought that came to your mind on the topic. I have been following Adobe Captivate on twitter recently and it is buzzing about adobe captivate on mac. I could not help myself a bit of researching on net to find what are the information about captivate on mac platform.

• found this petitiononline petition for captivate on mac request.
• probably one of the most commented blog on this topic
• as the name indicates www.captivate4mac.com – a website dedicated to this request though not much activity
• a blog post by one of the mac users on how to run captivate on mac in virtual XP environment
• and a recent blog post on the same topic by a captivate users

and here are some of the reactions on facebook

 

Update 1 – 11th May 2009 - Read the announcement of Adobe Captivate on mac here. Follow the instructions to join the prerelease program if you are interested.

ribbit voice platform or flash developers

Further to my earlier post on ribbit here are summary -

Features – visit this for complete feature set – ribbit has whole set of APIs like you can create a flash application which can accept or make calls. The calls can be to actual phones or your flash application to which Ribbit assigns a number which uses your computer microphone and speaker to act as fully functional phone. Most interesting part is that depending on who is calling and other parameters like time, or any other condition you can think of in your code you can execute a programatic event. Of course it could be limited by what can be done from Flash.So things like remote controlling the content playing in class from my mobile phone could be possible. Or switch off my fridge connected to flash device by making a phone call should be possible. You can create applications that can send text messages to either your ribbit phone or any number in US. Other features are transcription services that is you can convert your voice messages to text.

Is it all free – no. But if you have developer account you can do many of the things for free. Developer account are given access to dial anywhere in US for free. I tried my hands on building a quick application using this to call someone in US and save my bills but in my first attempt could not do it. Will give it a try later on again in few days. From discussions in forums here are the limits for a developer account- 10 calls per day (US Only) – 10 minutes per call – 10 text SMS messages per day (US Only) – 10 sub-accounts – 0 voicemail transcriptions (unless requested). But going through the forums looks like even if you exceed this limit for the time being they are fine.

There are two stages of trying out ribbit – when you are building the application is when it is considered developer account and when the application goes live. The pricing comes into picture after application goes live.

Scenarios – first thought here are the scenarios I can think of for eLearning. There are nothing which cannot be done by some of the existing methods except that it brings so much fun to the learning.

• I create a eLearning course. The course has a “give me more ideas” button which is actually a ribbit appliation. Distribute it to my groups from whom I want more feedback. There could be 2 stages of my course completion – I have created a draft version and I have lot of time on my hand. In that mode if someone clicks “give me more ideas” then he would be routed to voice mail where he can leave his voice message. The transcription would come into action by converting the message to speech and sending me report at the end of day which I can incorporate into my course. Next stage is when I need the comments urgently in which case it would be a direct call to my mobile. At this stage I can incorporate their comments quickly.
• Similar situation could be I create a course and I put “answer this question” button which would accept calls from only a fixed set of numbers. This could be achieved by programatically analysing the caller ID which would be maintained in a database. Further on they could be given password to speak. If it matches then the voice is sent for transcription and I can test and rate their answers. Otherwise call is not accepted. And my application can be programed to analyse the responses also and send SMS to the course takers about whether they passed or failed. This could be very relevant scenario for mobile learning.
• Or the simplest of them is make a call or send text message to my friend using the eLearning course and have fun.

With some free talk and text time for developer accounts I would go and try out some of the features. And use Adobe Captivate 4 widget framework to create some working widgets.

help files for widgets in adobe captivate 4…

if you are thinking of creating widgets in Adobe Captivate 4 the help files contain very relevant information. and they are very concise so it is good idea to go through them once so that you can get a feeling of where to search for when in problem.

I am listing below the links for reference. You can add comments to the online help also if you feel that you can add anything more or if the information is partial/wrong etc - 

• about widgets – brief on widgets.
• type of widgets – it contains brief on static widgets ,  interactive widgets and question widgets with some examples on how to use the ones included in product.
• widget panel – this is the panel which lists few of the available widgets in product
• linked widgets – how you can specify dependent files for widgets.
• create widgets – basics of creating widgets.
• defining visibility modes for widgets
• using xml in widgets – xml is the format in which data is passed from Captivate to widget 
• using variables in widgets – how you can use captivate variables inside widgets.
• action script 3 in widgets – basics of action script 3 wrt widgets
• access adobe captivate movie properties
• question widgets – few extra functions for question widgets for LMS support. For AS3 you need to add these to the question template Adobe Captivate generates automatically. AS2 works as it is not very strict so even if it does not finds these functions it continues.
• add widgets – tells the workflows you can use to insert widget in your captivate files.
• troubleshoot widgets – how to locate the problem while developing widgets.  

use voice 2.0 in your eLearning projects…

collaboration is new way of learning. We already know how chats and social networks are helping in this. It is all fun but everyone has to find their own way to learn, there is less flow and pattern. In most of cases one has to reinvent the wheel. Can there be a better way in which the learning flow can be decided by the content creator and he can pass on the knowledge to the learners. The learners still use all the fun things of web 2.0 world.

Since my world revolves around Adobe Captivate so my thought goes on to the ways in which we can use Adobe Captivate for this. In my view it can help by creating content which controls the flow of learning and all web 2.0 and collaboration is initiated, contained, guided, tracked and stopped by it. We have seen some example in form of youtube and google map widgets wherin we could use them inside Adobe Captivate content. And the content is restricted in terms of the information which is visible to users but more engaging and in the form they are comfortable. 

in view of all this one news caught my attention – this month ribbit opened itself to flash developers. According to them they help to ”integrate voice and rich communication features into your website, application or community”. It means that you can add voice and telephony related features to your your flash content which includes eLearning content created by Adobe Captivate. It includes sms and transcription features. And with widgets feature of Adobe Captivate it is better poised to take advantage of the things happening. 

next two post we will see few scenarios wherin Adobe Captivate users can use it to add voice and sms collaboration features to their content and go through a tutorial to use ribbit APIs for flash .

use google maps in your adobe captivate projects…

there are many eLearning projects with addresses and contact information. How would that look if we can insert a live map which will show a note about the address , can show directions to reach and user can pan,zoom and use it as he would do in any online map services and all within the Captivate project. No need to go to the browser and break the flow of users.

in this post we will go through some of the resources to use Adobe Flash CS4 to create a swf file which can be used inside adobe captivate projects. We will use Google maps Api to achieve this.

1. Set up your development environment in Flash CS4. Read the whole process here.
2. Sign up for google map API here. You will get a unique API key. You will need to specify a website or domain where you will be using it. You can give the link to your blogs also. Refer to step 10 as to how to use it.
3. go through this post to create a simple application here. Note – The path for componets in Flash CS4 is C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Flash CS4\Common\Configuration\Components
4. Now we will create a swf file which will display the map of washington and show a overlay over that.
5. Open Flash CS4. Create a Action Script 3.0 project
6. During step number 1 you have copied maps swc file to Flash directory. If you have done it correctly than inside components window you can see and entry for “Google>GoogleMapsLibrary”. Drag drop it to stage. Dont worry about the position.
7. The code is attached at the end of post for reference. Just copy the code to actionscript window and publish the project as swf file.
8. In the begining of code we have use few import statements so that we can use the corresponding APIs.
9. We will declare the map object - var map:Map = new Map();
10. We will need to use the API key we generated in step 2. - map.key = “put the api key here“;
11. Set the size of map - map.setSize(new Point(500, 400));
12. add a event listener - map.addEventListener(MapEvent.MAP_READY, onMapReady);
13. set the map area to the location you want to show – map.setCenter(new LatLng(38.8977, -77.0366), 14, MapType.NORMAL_MAP_TYPE); – Important thing are lattitude(38.8977) and longitude(-77.0366) – how should you find the one for your location – there are 3 ways – you know it already, use google geocoding apis  or use this page to find the one for your location. Behind the scenes it is using google map apis to do this.
14. Play with replacing MapType.NORMAL_MAP_TYPE - Other values they can take are SATELLITE_MAP_TYPE, HYBRID_MAP_TYPE, and PHYSICAL_MAP_TYPE. SATELLITE_MAP_TYPE is the one you can use to get google earth type of map.
15. Next we will create a marker and add it over the map. It will show your position on map
16. Below is the action script code . Put it in your action script window and you are ready to go.

import com.google.maps.LatLng;

import com.google.maps.Map;

import com.google.maps.MapEvent;

import com.google.maps.MapType;

import com.google.maps.overlays.Marker;

import com.google.maps.overlays.MarkerOptions;

import com.google.maps.MapType;

import com.google.maps.LatLng;

import com.google.maps.styles.FillStyle;

import com.google.maps.styles.StrokeStyle;

//create a map object

var map:Map = new Map();

//specify the API key

map.key = “replace with your API key“;

//set the size of map

map.setSize(new Point(500, 400));

//add event listeners

map.addEventListener(MapEvent.MAP_READY, onMapReady);

this.addChild(map);

function onMapReady(event:Event):void {

//center the map to the lat, long

map.setCenter(new LatLng(38.8977, -77.0366), 14, MapType.NORMAL_MAP_TYPE);

//create a marker

         var markerA:Marker = new Marker(

             new LatLng(38.8977, -77.0366),

             new MarkerOptions({

                 strokeStyle: new StrokeStyle({color: 0×987654}),

                 fillStyle: new FillStyle({color: 0×223344, alpha: 1}),

                 radius: 15,

                 hasShadow: true

             })

         );

//add the marker to the map

map.addOverlay(markerA);

}

Publish it as swf and insert it to your Captivate project. Note – This is action script 3.0 swf so you can use it in Latest version of Adobe Captivate that is 4 . Publish the Captivate project. You have a fully functional map showing the location you provided. You can pan , go to any place in world . Find the directions etc. 

Keep an eye here for the future post to understand how widget feature of Adobe Captivate 4 gives a better solution than this. And use the endless capabilities of Google Maps service.

Update  - read this post to see how the google map widgets were created and download the file to be used with Adobe Captivate 4.

adobe captivate 4 is released…

Adobe Captivate 4 is released to public. You can read about the pricing details, feature set and videos here

It seems yesterday that Adobe Captivate 3 was released.  Here are my four favourite features to justify a upgrade -

Enhance content - For end users most of the appeal comes in how the content looks. And most of us ended up going to other products to spruce up our content and present it in better way. Now all of this could be done with aggregator and Table of content feature.

 

 

 

Extend content - Most of us used Captivate since long and were almost stuck somewhere about its abilities. We wished some new type of objects or questions could be there. We wished to extend Captivate. Now with Widgets we can create any new type of object, question slides, new buttons etc and it will all follow all the the rules inside Captivate like responding to success/failure, participating in quizzes , adhering to LMS etc. With this probably we would never need to file a enhancement report to Captivate. And with variables and scripting I am yet to gauge fully its power in controlling the content yet following all the business logic of Captivate and eLearning.

 

Collaborate for content- In a large organization we needed to get inputs from various stakeholders about the content we created. Now we have Adobe Captivate commenting feature. Try it out to see the time it saves and the value it brings. If none of these are interesting we could just distribute the file for viewing. It looks so good that people will not stop seeing it.
 

 

 

 

Reuse content - And who says flash based tools are needed for creating e learning courses. Most of us had content in PowerPoint and though Captivate provided a way to insert them inside Captivate file we still needed to go back and forth between applications if we wanted to modify content. Now we can work on PowerPoint content from within Captivate.

And these are just part of complete feature set. Keep an eye on these spaces for more information on these features in coming days.

how much of Adobe Captivate you know …

was pleasently surprised to find that Adobe Captivate certification is now available under Adobe Certified Expert(ACE).

Here are some of the sample questions to understand the pattern – taken from here

1. Given a scenario, select the appropriate options for software simulation.
   You want users to watch and learn a set of actions required to perform a task in an application.
   You will NOT need interactivity.
   Which option for recording mode should you select?
   A. Assessment Simulation
   B. Demonstration
   C. Training Simulation
   D. Full Motion Recording
   Correct answer: B
2. Create a text caption by setting the appropriate text caption properties.
   You want the height of a text caption to automatically adjust when you adjust the pixel width
   of the text caption. You click the Size and Position tab in the Text Caption dialog box.
   What should you do?
   A. Enter the number of pixels from the left and from the top
   B. Select Constrain proportions.
   C. Enter the size for width in pixels.
   D. Enter the size for height in pixels.
   Correct answer: B
3. Manage objects on the timeline.
   You want to control the preview of how timeline objects on a slide appear or disappear. What
   should you do?
   A. Drag the playhead left or right across the Timeline
   B. Grab an object in the Timeline and drag it right or left
   C. Preview the next 5 slides
   D. Choose Preview > Project
   Correct answer: A
4. Select the appropriate properties for rollover captions.
   You want to enter some text and have it appear when a user passes their mouse over an area on
   the slide. Which object should you insert?
   A. rollover slidelet
   B. rollover caption
   C. rollover image
   D. click box
   Correct answer: B
5. Select the appropriate properties for a button.
   Which can be used as an alternative to requiring a mouse click and attached to a button?
   A. A rollover caption.
   B. A slidelet.
   C. A shortcut key.
   D. A zoom area.
   Correct answer: C
6. Select the appropriate options and import Flash video into a slide.
   You have placed a FLV file into a slide and set the display for property to rest of slide. You want
   the slide to move to the next slide only after the Flash video completes playing. What setting
   should choose?
   A. set the appear after properties
   B. change the display for property to rest of project
   C. set timing to no transition
   D. pause slide till end of video
   Correct answer: D
7. List and describe the options related to recording audio.
   What happens to an audio file when you increase the value for Encoding Speed in the Audio
   Settings dialog box?
   A. The quality of the encoded file is raised.
   B. The quality of the encoded file is flattened.
   C. The encoded file is converted from a WAV file to an MP3 file.
   D. The quality of the encoded file is lowered.
   Correct answer: D
8. Select the appropriate options and configure a Playback control.
   Which must be added to deliver a movie that is Section 508 compliant and accessible?
   A. A.A progress bar to the playback control.
   B. B.A mute button to the playback control.
   C. C.A Closed Captioning button must be added to the playback control.
   D. D.A forward and back button must be added to the playback control.
   Correct answer: C
9. Given a scenario, select the appropriate publishing options from the Publish dialog box.
   Which type of document or file is created when you publish your Captivate project as a Storyboard?
   A. Adobe Connect
   B. Microsoft Word
   C. an executable
   D. (EXE)
   E. Flash (SWF)
   Correct answer: B
10. Given a scenario, select the appropriate quiz reporting preferences.
    You are NOT using an LMS. How can you receive quiz reports from your users?
    A. Select E-mail from the LMS area of Quiz Preferences.
    B. Set the Reporting Level to Interactions and score.
    C. Publish the Quiz results as a Word document.
    D. Set the Choose report data to Quiz results only.
    Correct answer: A

San Jose Semaphore @adobe…

in computer science semaphores are constructs which are used to protect access to shared resources. Few centuries back Semaphores had a very different meaning. They were knows as optical telegraphs and were used to trasfer information by means of visual signals. Think of it as a series of relay towers each within visible range and operators conveying information using visual signals such as flags , mechanical arms with different position representing different things.Early messages would pass through 15 stations in 9 minutes, and speed varied with weather, and obviously it all would happen only from dawn to dusk. It was all before electric telegraphs which when introduces had to face resistance from it on the ground that any one can break the system by cutting the wire. Optical method regained its ground with the introduction of optical fibres which are backbone of todays communication infrastructure.

last year adobe has installed a semaphore atop its Almaden Tower which transmits a coded message.From SanJoseSemaphore – “When the Semaphore was launched on August 7, 2006, the challenge of decoding of its message was put to the public.  On August 14, 2007, the solution was announced, and the winning code-breaking team of Mark Snesrud and Bob Mayo was honored for being the first (and only) team to break the code. The solution:  For the past year, the San Jose semaphore has been broadcasting the full text of Thomas Pynchon’s 1966 novel, The Crying of Lot 49.”

read the complete analysis of the solution here, and how much pain the winning team took to crack it here. and here are other projects of the artist who created the semaphore.

adobe captivate in news and some resources …

an interview about Adobe Captivate 3. watch the video -

watch the demo created in Adobe Captivate explaining how to use Adobe AIR extension for Dreamweaver CS3. This extension is about offline blogging client. How easy it is to convert existing projects to AIR application !

collection of online tutorials to learn Adobe Captivate 2. Much of this is still valid for latest version so still very useful.

learn about new features of Adobe Captivate 3 here. This blog is updated weekly and great place to know about Adobe Captivate and some other applications like RoboHelp etc.

adobe Captivate exchange where few games created using adobe captivate has been uploaded recently. 

adobe captivate 3 out ….

adobe has announced the release of adobe captivate 3 here and is expected to ship in August 2007 or later this summer at an estimated price of US$699.

the release says “….. Adobe® Captivate® 3 software, a powerful eLearning authoring tool for the delivery of robust and engaging computer-based simulations, scenario-based training, and interactive quizzes. Adobe Captivate 3 offers enhanced features including multi-mode recording, rerecording, new Microsoft Powerpoint import capabilities and support for rich media formats, such as Adobe Flash® Player compatible .SWF, MP3, and AVI files. Easily mastered, without the need for programming or multimedia development skills…….”.

the new features as described by the press release are -

• multi-mode recording.
• rerecording – The new rerecording feature captures actions taken in Internet Explorer Web applications, enabling learning professionals to easily build interactive software demonstrations with step-by-step instructions.
• new Microsoft Powerpoint import capabilities – The enhanced Microsoft PowerPoint import functionality supports the conversion of slide animations into Flash Player compatible SWF format.
• support for rich media formats, such as Adobe Flash® Player compatible .SWF, MP3, and AVI files
• create effective quizzes and helps reduce cheating by randomly drawing questions from a pool
• shuffling answers in multiple-choice formats
• rollover objects
• animated slide transitions
• The new XML export and import feature simplifies the localization process of projects by exporting captions to the XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF).

experience the files created using new version here.

logo and box designs are refreshing change from previous versions. logo follows the new logo strategy of adobe as written in this entry.