[Xerte] Incorporating Captivate movies in Xerte 1.8

[Paul Swanson]

After further investigation, Captivate does allow you to use fscommand
(and getURL). So I entered the following in the Javascript box to
execute when the movie ends: 
 
fsCommand("movieEnd","1");
 
I presume I need an event handler to capture it in Xerte, but I don't
know what event handler to use. I'm also not sure if I entered the
fscommand correctly (using Xerte is my first foray into ActionScript).
The Captivate help seems to indicate that's all you need to do.
 
Mark Siegrist's list of Captivate variables was nice (I had found that
list already), and I'll probably use them to build my own controls, but
I still need to figure out how to read the fscommand from my Captivate
movie in Xerte. 
 
TIA,
 
Paul


________________________________

	From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Paul Swanson
	Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 8:34 AM
	To: Xerte discussion list
	Subject: RE: [Xerte] Incorporating Captivate movies in Xerte 1.7
	
	
	Yes, onMovieComplete is being triggered correctly in 1.8. But as
you mentioned, the Captivate movie has multiple timelines, and it seems
to be firing the event off when the first timeline completes, which is
at the end of the first frame. So I still have that to work out. I'm
just trying out the various features of Xerte, so this is nothing
urgent. We have been using Authorware for eLearning, and I think Xerte
will be the replacement. We don't have Flash here, but we will be
getting Captivate. I'm using the trial version at the moment.
	 
	I'm not sure how Captivate calls javascript. The interface hides
all that from you. You just have an option to set what happens at the
end of the movie clip, and one of those is to execute some JS. This
opens a window where you type the JS in. I haven't used this yet, but I
think I could use it to send an HTTP request to communicate with a PHP
script. I figured that if I do a quiz in Captivate, I could use this to
store the results in a database, but it would be nice if Captivate could
communicate directly with Xerte. I think it is a matter of what
Captivate allows you to do. If only there was a script icon in Captivate
like there is in Xerte ...
	 
	Cheers,
	 
	Paul


________________________________

		From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Tenney Julian
		Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 1:16 AM
		To: Xerte discussion list
		Subject: RE: [Xerte] Incorporating Captivate movies in
Xerte 1.7
		
		
		Funny that should come up this week - I hit the same
problem myself earlier in the week, and fixed it. Can you download the
latest Xerte and try it again? There was a bug that prevented event
broadcasters getting set up if autoPlay was set. 
		 
		There's always a 'it depends' caveat with external swfs,
because Xerte doesn't know which timeline in the swf to listen for
completion of. It could have multiple timelines, and the one you see
playing might be nested several levels in. The top level timeline may
have only one frame. Let me know how you get on.
		 
		How does Captivate call javascript funtions? If it's
fscommand it should just work. I reckon externalInterface would also
work. getURL should work too. When you think about it, the Xerte engine
is a flash movie. It loads the captivate flash movie into the player,
which should then just behave as usual. Have you tried it? If you want
the javascript to return values to the Xerte piece, that's more
troublesome, but if that's something useful, I can look into it. Right
now I don't think there is a way of calling a js function from Xerte and
getting a return value.
		 
		cheers,
		 
		Julian

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