Hi Amy

When you say "hit the back button" do you mean the back button in Captivate's controller, or a back button in your embbeded SWF?

If the back button is contained in the embedded SWF, you might be running into scope issues, where the embedded clip no longer recognizes its own _root as "the" _root (the Captivate SWF's _root becomes embedded SWF's _root, messing up references to frame numbers and whatnot).

If the back button is in the embedded SWF, check the embedded SWF's code for references to _root. If possible, post the button code here so we can have a look.

If the back button is in the Captivate controller, we'll need to dig a little deeper.

- philip

Hi Amy

Can you share any links to the file so we can look at it?

Generally speaking, when your embedded SWF contains ActionScript, funny things can happen. This is because Captivate converts the Flash SWF into a movieclip, which affects a number of things in the Flash SWF, including what "_root" and "_parent" refer to, what the frame rate is, and how the Flash SWF works with some components. In short, Captivate tangles things and makes a mess of your perfectly crafted Flash SWF.

Without knowing exactly what your Flash SWF is trying to do within Captivate, I can only make guesses as to what's happening. If you can provide a link to the file (or perhaps create a simple example that doesn't violate any client confidentiality agreements) I can probably give you more targeted advice.

- philip

Hi Amy

OK, after reviewing the files you emailed me, I see that the imported SWF remains visible, even if you use the Captivate playhead controller to advance to the next slide or two. I'm not sure what's going on here, but I do have a suggestion: use Captivate's 'branching' feature.

It appears to me that your imported SWF is essentially imitating the branching feature built into Captivate. If you use Captivate to handle that functionality, you'll probably have less headaches.

So you'd essentially place your three images on the Captivate slide like you currently have them (but not in SWF format), then create a transparent click box over each image. Set the click box to navigate to a particular slide when clicked.

If you take this approach, I also suggest playing around with the Captivate controller's visibility... if you're branching, you may not want the controller to be visible (and clickable), since it might mess up the flow of the instruction.

You can either export the Captivate SWF without a playbar and use buttons/click boxes to navigate from slide to slide, or you can export the SWF with the playbar, but hide it selectively whenever you're on branching slides.

To hide the playbar, import a SWF containing the following line of ActionScript:

_root.cpSkinLoader_mc.rdcmndHidePlaybar = 1;


To show/restore the playbar, import a SWF containing the following line of ActionScript:

_root.cpSkinLoader_mc.rdcmndHidePlaybar = 0;


Hmm. I've built the branching navigation, but it either doesn't work, or Captivate doesn't have the option to do what I want. The reason why I was trying to use the "load movie" structure before is so that those financial statement info animations would be separate from the main timeline. I can't get the navigation to do that.

What I want is for the user to see all the main slides in order. I only want those financial statements slides available if they click the right buttons. I do not want them anywhere in the main timeline.

If I use the Captivate branching features I have to play all the slides in the project. I can't seem to get around that. I tried putting those other sides after my last slide, but then when the learner gets to the end they see those extra slides.

Where did you find those snippets of action script? Is there a forum or list somewhere? The hiding script works, but the showing script isn't working for me. I'm just getting stuck without a playbar.

Isn't there some code that I can put into my flash files that has "root" in it so that I can tell the highest level movie to unload? Unfortunately I have to use Captivate at work for the SCORM output, or else I'd just build it all myself in Flash.

Thanks Philip. This isn't exactly what I was thinking. I'm trying to avoid extra clicking to get to the information. I'm just very frustrated with Captivate. I can just build it in flash and make it do what I want, but I have to use Captivate for the tracking. I just seems ridiculous to build my own navigation buttons on every slide instead of having just one higher layer swf file controlling everything.

All I really need is a way to get rid of all the layers of movies, and then everything works. Apparently it's not that simple because the program doesn't let me do what I want.

I figured out how to edit the script on the buttons themselves, but I'm not permissioned to save the file in the correct folder on my computer. Grr. I have to get IT to fix that for me.

Yeah, I went ahead and just built my own navigation in flash. I didn't think I was allowed to do that, but the women who work at the parent company said it actually was ok because there were a few SCORM-related things we could check off in the LMS. We didn't know that because we don't have access to the LMS yet. We only know what they tell us. UGH. That situation won't be solved for about 4 weeks.

Oh never mind, it looks like I just need to use "_level0" instead.

A bigger question for you though- What resources do you use for learning action script? I'd like to take a class, since that's what helped me the most. The last real flash class I took was in 2001, and I forgot more than half of my action scripting since then.