Tutorial request for flash progress bar.

[4thstar]

First many thanks to the support team , i believe i will be well looked after, also thankyou to Corey for the offer of advice.

I recently purchased 3 cds from http://www.speedytraining.com/site/index.php and find them of great use.For an older version but Fantastic for a beginner like myself.

I have camtasia and would like to create some tutorials for my customers , on looking i would like to emulate the tutorial display of cd2 and cd3 that also use flash outputs.

I have created many web based tutorials with Captivate for my site but now wish to place more on a cd using camtasia which i prefer..

I am trying to think out the whole process first and come up with a couple of hurdles i cant get past..

I cant produce the tutorials until i know how i am going to display them..
because i dont yet know how the addition of a progress bar changes the display size i dont know what size to record the movie.

because of the lack of experience i dont know how to add a progress bar to the flash movies created by camtasia inside AMS , the fact theres 4 separate file produced by camtasia throws me off, do i use them , do i create my own ?
how do i add a "Menu" button to return to the main selection?

Its not that i want to copy cds2 and 3 but the engine behind the tutorials would be what i would like to emulate with my own tutorials inside.

for me then its filling the gaps..
after exporting a swf file from camtasia what do i do next..

how do i create a progress bar like that of cd2 and attach it to the flash movie ?

I have worked with VB5 in the past so some coding i dont find to bad , i am sure i will get there, the steps regarding attaching a progress bar just stumps me as i dont know flash at all.

Many thanks
Kind regards
Carl

[Corey]

Hi Carl, thanks for the kind words. I'm just taking care of some tasks this afternoon, but I will definitely address this later on this evening. We'll get this all sorted out for sure... :)

[4thstar]

Hi Carl, thanks for the kind words. I'm just taking care of some tasks this afternoon, but I will definitely address this later on this evening. We'll get this all sorted out for sure... :)

Many thanks for the help..
No hurry , I think its a simple thing, i am still using the trial , There looks to be many ways to use this software , i just wanted to make sure before my purchase i know how to do the most pressing of my tasks..

I am already hooked , just need to wait for my bank balance to get higher :(
The Kids burned me out :)

Its 11.10pm here so i shall be gone for the night :)
Have a great day.

Kind regards
Carl

[4thstar]

Hello Corey.
I hope all is well.

I havnt visited for a day or 2 so thought i would pop past :)
Have you had a moment to look at the tutorial , if not then no problem :)

Have a great day.

Kind regards
Carl

[Corey]

Oops, sorry Carl, I forgot. OK let's see...

FWIW I'm the guy who did the CDs (thanks for your support) and I don't use any Flash video anymore, I use Camtasia AVIs exclusively at this point. Superior in my opinion.


I cant produce the tutorials until i know how i am going to display them.. because i dont yet know how the addition of a progress bar changes the display size i dont know what size to record the movie.

The controls add something like 25 pixels to the height of the movie. Experiment to find the best balance for your needs.


because of the lack of experience i dont know how to add a progress bar to the flash movies created by camtasia inside AMS , the fact theres 4 separate file produced by camtasia throws me off, do i use them , do i create my own ? how do i add a "Menu" button to return to the main selection?

Video playback controls can be added or customized in Camtasia during the publishing process "FILE > PRODUCE VIDEO AS" in the second step, see attached. The menu button was a hack I created after the fact using a Flash resource editor. I don't recommend that method but if you want to try it you'll need some sort of Flash resource editor and then you'll want to go in after the fact and alter the info button to suit your needs.

As for the publishing part, once you do FILE > PRODUCE VIDEO AS for .swf you'll be left with 4 files. Of the 4, it's the HTML file you want to run. That's how Camtasia .swfs work, they have to be served like that inside a web object in order to use those particular .swfs in AMS. That's how I did it on those CDs.


Its not that i want to copy cds2 and 3 but the engine behind the tutorials would be what i would like to emulate with my own tutorials inside.

Easy to do with AVI, trickier with .swf, but at this point I have come to the conclusion that if you want to deliver the best possible learning experience to the end user, the way to go is to offer a file which plays back in their favorite media player. That's why I do Camtasia AVIs now. For Mac or PC they can run the video in their favorite viewing environment which removes the distraction of a new GUI, sets them at ease, and ensures that they will not view it as "a task" to view your content...

The least effective materials are those which don't even get viewed, the most effective are those which people feel compelled to watch repetitively. The key to garnering repetitive consumption is usability, and the offshoot of that is familiarity. Flash video is semi-uncomfortable at best whereas straight video files in the default system player are very familiar.


for me then its filling the gaps..
after exporting a swf file from camtasia what do i do next..

1. Use FILE > PRODUCE VIDEO AS to create your 4 files.
2. Start a blank AMS project, drag the 4 files into the "Docs" folder of your new AMS project.
3. Add a web object to the page, point it at the .html file in your Docs folder.
4. Voila, press F5 to preview.


how do i create a progress bar like that of cd2 and attach it to the flash movie ?

See attached. This option is available in Camtasia in the 2nd step of the FILE > PRODUCE VIDEO AS wizard. Playback control options are customizable and self explanatory when you check them out.


I have worked with VB5 in the past so some coding i dont find to bad , i am sure i will get there, the steps regarding attaching a progress bar just stumps me as i dont know flash at all.

Camtasia will do it for you. There's no need to use Flash for this particular task. Hope this helped. :)

[4thstar]

Thats great , thanks.

I am now in the position to complete my purchase so will be doing so very soon.

Again many thanks for your time , i hope all is well.

now i will need to get going with these tutorial sets , no doubt i shall be asking more questions later :)

Kind Regards
Carl

[Corey]

Cool beans, I'm always happy to assist. :D :yes

[4thstar]

Hello All.
many thanks for the help , i have purchased now and very impressed indeed , i am so glad i have this :)

I have a few questions regarding the tutorials supplied with my purchase.
I am going to emulate the style thats used, i am after a few pointers though :)

The easiest way to answer this would be to supply the project code so that i can see the code behind the buttons and how pages are laid out :)

1:there are 8 tutorials supplied, so are there 8 pages with a different video or is it that each button launches a new video?

2a:if its that each button launches a new video in the same page whats the code.

2b:if each button launches a new video how is the information then changed on the Play,pause,stop buttons so that when clicked it knows which movie to play,pause and stop?

3a:if there are 8 pages then can i use inherit objects so that all navigation buttons do not need to be re-set into the page each time ?

3b:if i use inherit objects how do i get it so that play,pause and stop co-ordinate with the right movie ?

4:whats the code behind "Play Fullscreen"

5:whats the code behind "Play in windows media"

many thanks..
I think the easiest way for these answers is to see the project code but i really dont know if IndigoRose would ok that :) but i dont see any real issues as to why not ..

Kind Regards
Carl

[Corey]

Hi...

1:there are 8 tutorials supplied, so are there 8 pages with a different video or is it that each button launches a new video?
I can't recall 100% how I did those. Most likely I have one page which loads in whichever video is currently selected. Either way should work though.


2a:if its that each button launches a new video in the same page whats the code.
Sorry I can't recall, that was a couple years ago and the project backups are all tucked away in a dark place in Winnipeg. Anyhow it's not too hard to figure out how it probably worked. Seems like I'm just loading web pages into a web object for the .swf based CD and/or loading videos into a video object for the video based CDs.


2b:if each button launches a new video how is the information then changed on the Play,pause,stop buttons so that when clicked it knows which movie to play,pause and stop?
If you're referring to the .swf based training CD, those controls were created automatically for me using Camtasia Studio (from techsmith.com) when publishing to .swf.


3a:if there are 8 pages then can i use inherit objects so that all navigation buttons do not need to be re-set into the page each time ?
If you're talking about using one control bar for all 8 movies, yes you could design that, however you can't do that use the techsmith control bar such as I used. You'd have to build your own custom control bar using images, flash, or whatever...


3b:if i use inherit objects how do i get it so that play,pause and stop co-ordinate with the right movie ?
That depends on the final project. There's a few ways to do that. The basic gist is that you will use actions to control your movie, check out the Flash and Video object actions for details on which functionality is available.


4:whats the code behind "Play Fullscreen"
For video files I use the Video.SetFullScreen action:
http://www.indigorose.com/webhelp/ams60/Program_Reference/Actions/Video.SetFullScreen.htm


5:whats the code behind "Play in windows media"For video files I use the File.Open action:
http://www.indigorose.com/webhelp/ams60/Program_Reference/Actions/File.Open.htm

:yes

[4thstar]

thanks for the input :)
I am getting along just fine :)

actually getting moving isnt to bad , i do use visual basic but its just getting used to different formats of coding :)

I am sure i will be back soon :)

Kind Regards
Carl

[Corey]

Glad to hear it Carl. Cheers. :D

[4thstar]

Hello.
I hope all is well.

just testing/learning here..

suppose i have on the stage 2 buttons and 1 movie clip called Video1
in my video folder i have 2 movies for example movie1 and movie2

on my stage i have set the video object to the correct position and size , this is called video1

i now want to be able to select the buttons 1 and 2 and switch between each video and have it play in the same location.

on each button i have this code , the only changes are the file name is different on each button.
however it plays the same video.

Flash.SetVisible("Flash1", false);
Video.Load("video1", "AutoPlay\\Videos\\add-email-address.avi", true, false)
result = Video.GetFilename("Video1");
Input.SetText("Input1", result);
Video.SetVisible("Video1", true)
Video.Play("Video1");

your thoughts please.
Kind Regards
Carl

[Corey]

In your video load action you refer to the video object as "video1" but in your video play action you refer to it as "Video1". Object names are case sensitive, so just adjust whichever one is wrong to match the actual name of your video object and you should be fine. My guess is that the video load action is the one which needs to be adjusted, i.e. capitalized... :yes

[4thstar]

Thanks.
I like the way this works :) just a matter of learning a new format to lay the logic down as code.

handling strings etc is different than VB , i keep using vb code but i get there :)

I have also decided to add the camplayer file and allow user to choose to play in camplayer.

i have added an input1 box so that i can see the file location using this code and the veriable of "filename"

filename = Video.GetFilename("Video1");
Input.SetText("Input1", filename);

this however shows the complete path to "Video1"

the code i have for camplayer is:

File.Run("AutoPlay\\Docs\\CamPlay.exe", "CAMPLAY /A /E /M /T /S AutoPlay\\Videos\\filename", "", SW_SHOWNORMAL, true);

whats the easiest way to remove the complete path details as at this time its :
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\AutoPlay Media Studio 6.0 Projects\savannahdesigns\CD_Root\AutoPlay\Videos\a dd-email-address.avi

where as i need only to have the filename veriable to be "add-email-address.avi" and then add this to the camplayer code.

hope that made sence ?

Kind Regards
Carl

[4thstar]

done it like this :

hideallvideos () ;
location = Video.GetFilename("Video1");
split_path = String.SplitPath(location)
part1=split_path.Filename
part2=split_path.Extension
filename = String.Concat(part1, part2)
Input.SetText("Input1", filename);
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File.Run("AutoPlay\\Docs\\CamPlay.exe", "CAMPLAY /A /E /M /T /S AutoPlay\\Videos\\"..filename, "", SW_SHOWNORMAL, true);
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

cheers
carl

[Corey]

Sure, that'll work. :yes

[Phil Merry]

Thanks.
i have added an input1 box so that i can see the file location using this code and the veriable of "filename"

filename = Video.GetFilename("Video1");
Input.SetText("Input1", filename);


Carl
Ive just downloaded andpurchased the new v6 and do siminlar stuff. I have just completed a multi vid app.

I plagerised a lot of the stuff from the AM templates and standard apps supplied. In order to get multi choice vids without setting up and switch from one to another, I stole the buttons and code from the video viewer. Its on the startup screen under the templates for starting a new project. Its the Laptop layout. Theres a button that allows you 'browes' for vid files.

I found it a godsend and it all gets embedded in your project at build time. I strugled with v5 to do the same by switch between vid1, vid2, make vissible, hide, load vid1, vid2 etc. Now I can have as many vids all referenced as vid1. Its cool, take a peek.

PM

[4thstar]

thanks Phil , thats great :)

I have now done several things , i am so proud of myself :) LOL

actually it was a very easy task to intergrate the movies , as you said using just 1 movie object.

my task now if i decide to accept it :) is to work out an activation program but this is way beyond me at this time.

Kind Regards
Carl