I was fortunate enough to be on the beta team for Tristan Ward’s excellent new WidgetFactory 5, which was released today. So, now I’m happy to bring you updated versions of my Adobe Captivate widgets, all of which make use of it. I’ll kick it off with PauseMeNow, a free widget which allows Adobe Captivate 5 and Adobe Captivate 4 developers to insert pauses at any point in the timeline. Please download it here and put it to use in your projects.
Update (3/13/11): I’ve released a new widget, PropertySetter, which contains the functionality of this widget and gives you control of many other parameters.
Installation Instructions
- Download PauseMeNowAS3_v3.zip.
- Unzip the archive.
- Copy PauseMeNow_AS3.swf to your Adobe Captivate Widgets folder.
- Fire up Adobe Captivate and insert the widget.
I hope you find it useful. Add a comment here if you do or if you need help with it. You can always find the latest version in the software section.
Thanks for writing this widget. It all looks so simply, but unfortunately it didn’t work for me (I’m using it in Captivate 5).
OK, let me first say thanks again, and I always assume user error before developer error (which proved true in this case).
Just as an FYI, you now have the option in Captivate 5 (or maybe in 4 too, I went from 3 to 5) to place objects off-stage. I had the widget off-stage, which apparently nullifies it. When I placed on the stage, it worked as promised.
There is a momentary white flicker when it starts, so I circumvented that by setting it’s alpha to 0.
Best,
Danny
Thanks for both the bug report and the fix, Danny. I hadn’t tested the new pasteboard (or whatever they’re calling it) feature of Captivate 5. I’ll address that in the README.txt and wherever else people might stumble across it. I assume this will affect my other widgets, too, and probably some (all?) of those developed by others.
I’m concerned by the flickering issue, as I thought that was entirely ironed out. I’ll bet there’s a way I can set the alpha to zero in the code. You’d think that setting visibility to none and writing an empty string where the content goes (both of which I do) would be sufficient, but maybe it’s not. I used Flash components for the GUI elements. That might be part of the problem, too (especially with the TextArea component).
I’ll do more testing on that one and release a 3.1 version if I find a fix. If you’re up for it, I’ll happily include you as a beta tester for the next version.
Terrific! I’ve been searching forever for this function. I’m new to Captivate, so the more I can “plug-and-play”, the happier I am.
This is working great so far. If I never have to add another “fake pause” click box to my slides, I will be beside myself with happiness. Thank you for creating a simple solution that Adobe was unable/willing to provide (??? for adobe) :) for you!
James, thanks for the widget, I think it will be just what I will need for my project. I am new to Captivate (using Captivate 5) and have been learning no the fly. I have downloaded the plugin per your directions but how do I access it via Captivate?
Thanks in advance.
Neil
Neil, if you’ve copied it to the Cp5 library, you’ll be able to access it via the Widgets palette. If that’s not visible, you can make it so via Window –> Widgets (or Ctrl+Alt+z).
Thank you so much. Also great response time! You caught me by surprise!! :-)
Neil
My pleasure.
Wheat, the plug-in worked just the way you said it would in your description, so cudos to you for doing such a great job! However I was trying to pause an element within my time line for just a second or two (I wanted it to stay on stage just a bit longer) then fade out.
Any suggestions for this type of behavior?
Neil
Neil, can’t you just extend the timeline a bit so that only the element you want emphasized is still there (i.e. fade out the other elements)?
It would certainly be possible to do a widget that inserts a pause for a length of time specified in the widget settings. Perhaps that would be a good feature for Version 4.
Is there any way you can email the widget to me? Websense is blocking the page as Social Networking. I wanted to add a pause to all my slides so that it doesn’t seem that the instructional is moving so fast.
@Al Sure. I just sent it to you. Enjoy.
@wheat,
I know I’m nearing on two years later responding to you :) But, if you’re still developing and want some testers, I’m still working in Captivate occasionally so feel free to send me an email.
Best,
Danny
New to my ILT role so – I am happy to have found your site…. Also, that is a lovely pic of your little guy…. be well, stay blessed….
Tried the widget, works fine! however, I don’t know if it is possible with captivate to pause audio and restart it from the position it was originally paused from, And what’s more to able to use this function anywhere in the slide or the playing length of the audio.
This works in Captivate 7. Thanks, Wheat!
Nice widget, I take it this does not work with an HTML publish? Thanks for sharing.