Hello Again,

Lately I have been playing a lot with the Articulate Presenter SDK in an effort to help customers with various issues related to customizing the Articulate Presenter player. Part of the reason I think it is soo cool is that out of all the Articulate Presenter knock offs out there none of them have a Player SDK like Articulate Presenter does (they also lack many other features as well). With the use of Flash the Articulate Presenter SDK allows me to do the following:

• Add functionality by developing custom player tabs.
• Add player features by creating custom player toolbar items.
• Customize certain player assets.
• Communicate with the player via runtime API methods.

The reason that this is a must have for users trying to extend the customization of Articulate Presenter is that the SDK is very powerful, and allows you to do things that the standalone player will not do.

For example, I can create a custom SWF that I insert in each slide that will allow me to control the volume on a slide-by-slide basis.

I can also create a custom SWF that dynamically changes colors based on the colors of the player, which is cool if I am reusing a SWF in various different projects.

In an example that I created today I created a SWF that loaded in a FLV into a slide, then used the Player SDK to automatically advance to the next slide when the FLV video finished playing. Which is impossible to do in programs such as Breeze (or if it is possible in Breeze, it is very difficult to figure out how to do).

Articulate Presenter SDK (2:03 minutes)

So, if you are interested you should certainly at least check it out. For more information visit http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/07/18/articulate_sdk/

The Articulate Presenter SDK comes with the Articulate Platinum Membership plan.

Labels: Presenter

In case you haven't heard the news I just wanted to draw your attention to todays press release that just came accross Yahoo. Articulate is pleased to announce that Arlyn Asch has been appointed as the Chief Technology Officer.

From the article:

Asch has more than a decade of experience in developing ground-breaking e-learning software. Prior to joining Articulate in November 2005, Asch was director of engineering for Macromedia, where he led Captivate product strategy, as well as that product’s development team. He also held senior management and engineering roles at eHelp, leading development of the RoboDemo, RoboHelp, and RoboPresenter products. Asch is named as inventor on five patents related to e-learning technology.

For more information on the subject please read the article on Yahoo titled Articulate Appoints Arlyn Asch as Chief Technology Officer.

This is really, really great news for anyone who has any interest in Articulate products as Arlyn brings so much experience to the table.

Congrats Arlyn!

I have seen a couple of posts on the forums lately concerning Captivate content inside of Articulate Presenter. So I wanted to go over some tips and tricks for optimizing the Captivate content to make the content integration successful. Following the steps in this article will ensure that the content integration is successful.

Recording Size
When creating a Captivate demonstration make sure that your recording area is no larger than 720x540. Articulate Presenter only supports inserted Flash Movies up to 720x540 in size. You can use the preset Breeze recording size in Captivate which will size your recording dimensions to the optimal size for Articulate Presenter.

Note: When inserting a Flash Movie in Articulate Presenter from Captivate sized at 720x540, you might get a warning that the dimensions of the Flash movie is 721x541. You can ignore this warning.

Movie Preferences
Make sure that you use the default loading screen in Captivate to make sure that your content will play back without any issues. You can set the loading screen option under Movie>Preferences inside of Captivate.

Remove the Playback Control
If you are going to insert your Captivate demonstration inside of Articulate Presenter there is no reason to use the Captivate Playback controller since you can set the Flash Movie to 'Play Flash movie and slide in sync'. You can remove the playback controller in Captivate by selecting Movie>Preferences>Playback Control and selecting None for the position. To set Articulate Presenter to play the Flash Movie in sync follow the directions below:

1. Select Articulate>Insert Flash Movie
2. Select Display in slide
3. Click Next
4. Select the Flash Movie
5. Click Next
6. Under Synchronization select 'Play Flash Movie and slide in sync'
   or
7. Select 'Play Flash movie after slide has begun'
8. Select 'Allow Player to control inserted Flash movie'

Note: You also have an option in Articulate Presenter to Display Flash Movie in new browser window, and in this instance you might want to keep the playback controller. Using this option will also allow you to make your recordings larger than 720x540.

Audio
If you choose to include audio with your Captivate demonstration, and you want it to be synchronized with your Captivate demonstration make sure that the recording is either done in Captivate, or recorded and then imported to Captivate. This will keep your audio synchronized when viewed in Articulate Presenter.

Captions
I would also recommend making sure that you use a caption style and fonts inside of Captivate that match your Articulate Presenter template and presentation. This will help ensure that the content looks and feels professional.

Frames Per Second
Don't change the Frames Per Second rate of either your Captivate demonstration, or Articulate Presenter. This can cause issues during playback, and there really aren't any advantages to lowering the FPS, or raising it.

Labels: Presenter

Hello again!

A little while ago I was asked by a couple of people if I could show some examples of effectively using Flash movies inside of Articulate Presenter. Well, I finally created an example, that is somewhat of a work-in-progress at this point.

The following example gives you an example of video inside of Articulate Presenter.

Articulate Video Examples (9:46 minutes)

The example contains examples of the following:

• Software demonstration in a slide
• Use of Presenter video
• Use of Presenter video and slide video for the same slide
• FLV Video in a slide
• A Web Object in a slide

I say that it is a work in progress because I will be making some changes to it soon, such as adding audio, and making the presentation a little shorter in duration.

If you can think of any other examples that you would like to see please feel free to comment and I will do my best to accomidate:-)

Labels: FLV, Presenter