Captivate movies in Authorware

Captivate movies in Authorware

Trouble at t' mill!

The new version of RoboDemo from Macromedia, now renamed Captivate, has been causing Authoware users a couple of problems. Robodemo used to create Flash files that were on a single timeline, and it was easy for Authorware users to detect the end of the movie, create custom buttons to pause, play, navigate etc through the RoboDemo movie.

With Captivate, Macromedia has changed the way the movies are created and now they contain numerous movie clips. Whilst this is definitely a better way to make Flash movies, it has broken the custom code used by developers for some time.

Macromedia has promised a technote soon to help users overcome this issue. Watch this space. Meantime, if you are a skilled flash user, or have access to one, you should publish your Captivate movie as an fla then you can edit it in Flash. You should be able to add some custom functions in Flash that you can call from Authorware to do your bidding. Also, you can add a GetURL message to tell Authorware the movie has finished, as per this example file I made some time ago. The zip file contains example Authorware and Flash code to show you haw to send an event from Flash to Authorware. You can use the same method to send other messages, such as navigation messages from a custom menu.

Have fun!!