Captivate Users Group | Seattle

Thanks for passing along Nico…

Total Training is offering a 7 day FREE all-access Adobe Essentials pass, as well as a 15% off coupon for any product.

Total Training is an award-winning provider of video software training for Adobe.

Found this awesome news on ReadWriteWeb, via Alltop (thanks Guy K.), which Captivate and Flash developers, targeting mobile users, alike will benefit from.

Adobe is today announcing the “Open Screen Project” which will seek to create a consistent runtime environment for rich media across a myriad of devices. In other words, Flash on the web, mobile, desktop, television, and other consumer electronic devices. As part of this initiative, Adobe will be releasing the file format specifications for Flash (.swf and .flv/f4v) and removing all licensing restrictions involved with the Flash format. In the future, the project will be expanded to include AIR.

 Specifically, this work will include: - source

• Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
• Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
• Publishing the Adobe Flash® Cast™ protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
• Removing licensing fees – making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

Many thanks to Silke Fleischer from the Adobe Captivate team for giving an awesome in-person presentation, which included tips & tricks, using agents, multiple levels of feedback, easter eggs, keeping the Tab key within the content browser and many, many more. If you couldn’t make it, check it out here. Silke said she loved speaking with all of you afterwards.

Lastly, thanks for all of the ideas for a non-profit, group project to work on. It sounds like we will have something soon. Also stay tuned for the start of our Seattle Adobe Learning Group presentations, which will include, besides Captivate, topics related to all of the other products that we use, such as Photoshop, Fireworks, Premiere and others. It will be an educationally good time!

April 9, 2008 6:30pm

Special Guest - Silke Fleischer from the Adobe Captivate team will present an in-person special tips, tricks and Q&A session. Silke is responsible for the product management and marketing for Adobe Captivate. Rumor…there will be free pizza!
Please RSVP @ Yahoo .Upcoming

April 9th - Silke from the Adobe Captivate team presents (in-person)

Our next meeting will be on April 9th, with the time TBD, but likely early evening hours. We will have a special guest, Silke Fleischer from the Adobe Captivate team. Silke is responsible for the product management and marketing for Adobe Captivate. She is an awesome presenter and is a lot of fun. Stay tuned for the RSVP.

Adobe Learning in the Daytime - Two notes

• We know that many of you are actively using other tools such as Fireworks, Photoshop, RoboHelp and others to create content, so our group is planning to formally include presenters, topics and discussion around other Adobe tools as well.
• After April, we are planning to meet in the daytime hours? How does this sound to everybody?

Welcome Matt May!

Also, a big warm welcome to Matt May, an Accessibility Engineer from Adobe, who will be helping us with our meetings. Also, a shout out to his lovely wife, Kristen Morgan-May, fresh with a M. Ed., in Adult Education and Training from Seattle University.

Thanks to our special Adobe Fireworks guest, Alan Musselman. Here are a few highlights.

*Fireworks CS3…all I have to say is WOW! Alan demonstrated some awesome features of Fireworks CS3, which can totally add ease and speed to development such as rich symbols and intelligent scaling. Here a few links that Alan provided.

>> Fireworks Development Center

>> Pen Gradient Showcase

*Group Exercise - Thanks to all who participated in this group ‘rapid development’ exercise, in which everyone was provided with a blank Captivate template, plus text, images and music and asked to create a 15 sec. media piece on a chosen theme (global warming). It is interesting to see all the different angles and selection of images and music. It was a lot of fun and I plan on doing similar exercises in the future. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to comment.

February 28, 2008***Now at 6:30pm

RSVP: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/440054

—————————-
6:30pm
Overview of Fireworks CS3 - Alan Musselman, Adobe Fireworks Developer Relations, will show us what is new with Adobe Fireworks CS3 and how it can help us work smarter. /// Photoshop fans will hate me, but I must confess that I prefer Fireworks, especially for Captivate background and image production…who else is with me? Come see the truth that will set you free.
—————————-
7:30pm
Rapid Development Group Exercise - How fast are you at problem solving when it comes to developing eLearning content? Bring your own laptop and we will participate in a timed group activity that will test your skills.
—————————-
8:25pm
Raffle

I have been following an awesome educational technology podcast called Ed Tech Crew, from Australia. Darrel from the crew asked me to join a podcast discussion on the Seattle Adobe Captivate User Group, Ning, Seattle Lunch 2.0 and all things eLearning.

>> Launch podcast

Check out these two useful articles on the Adobe Captivate Dev Center…

Article #1 Captivate…right-click capability - Which has been recently updated for Captivate 3 /// Thanks William Heinz!

In this tutorial, I provide a Flash file, RightClickAnimation.swf, that you can add to a Adobe Captivate slide to very easily add right-click functionality to a Adobe Captivate simulation. Adobe Captivate allows you to place and size animations so that it is possible to add an animation and at the same time, define a right-click area when you place the animation on the slide. In this way, the Flash SWF file mimics right-click functionality for your end user in your Adobe Captivate content.

Article #2 Publishing Adobe Captivate files on YouTube - Thanks Silke Fleischer!

This article explains a simple and quick workaround to turn even interactive Adobe Captivate content into passive videos in a format you can post to YouTube.

For starters, many thanks to a fun and dynamic group of eLearning specialists from the east side, who work somewhere called Micro…something or other. The conversation was electric, full of inspiration and energy. By the way, it is hard finding closet comic book fans, so thanks for the Marvel/DC conversation…your secret is safe with me. Keep coming back!!!

Layering video and animation: I was delighted to showcase a few examples of layering flash video and animation within Captivate projects to enhance the learning experience. Whether it be first person point of view branching, or simple animated transitions, these elements add the final touches to a certain level of personal engagement.
My Favorite Captivate 3 features: Thanks to Greg for letting us use his cool neon green laptop, we were able to take a look at a few cool new features:

• Grouping Slides - This is a big, big win. You can easily group an interaction set(s) within your project to make editing and rearranging a no brainer, as well re-purposing branching models with future project. Thanks Captivate team!
• Question Pools - Essentially you can create multiple question sets, which can be randomized, and easily re-purposed. Again, another awesome way of streamlining your development. I have not totally explored this feature yet, and would love to hear from folks who have.

Group project anyone? - There was an excellent suggestion of working on a group project, which would be fun learning and networking experience. Does anyone have any suggestions of project ideas? Even better, does anyone have any ideas of something that could help support a non-profit? If so please comment?