Trouble with Flash .swfs and Auto Advance
Mar 08, 2012
Writing because I've been assigned to make a variety of edits to an Articulate presentation that consists entirely of Flash .swf files inserted into slides and then published. The trouble we're having is getting some of these slides to auto advance to the next slide after the Flash file is done playing.
I've tried the trick to insert the .swfs as Web Objects using the tutorial on this site, but that doesn't work because then the slide automatically advances at the end of the time duration (in this case 5 seconds inserted just to fill space). I'd just set the slide duration to the time of the individual Flash file, but they're not all timed the same--some are one or two minutes, others closer to ten. There doesn't seem to be a way to individually set duration times for the slides.
While all the Flash files display correctly and function fine, some of them end and then the user is required to push next to move forward even though that's not what we want. It's set at Advance Automatically in the Slide Properties menu, and we do have some .swfs that ARE progressing automatically, with no apparent difference with those that don't.
To distill it into a question: How do I get my slides to auto advance after the Flash files are done playing?
Thomas W.
16 Replies
Welcome to Heroes, Thomas!
It sounds like what you're looking for is the setting: Synchronization (slide only) -> synchronize slide and movie. This item will automatically set the slide length to match the length of the Flash movie. You can learn more about that here.
Thomas if they are web objects set the slide toa utomatically advance and insert silence for the length of each swf, or if they can be inserted into the slide do as Peter suggests (best option really)
Like Thomas' slides mine are simply Flash files in a slide that don't run properly.
I've got the reverse problem. My slides advance before the movie is finished. I've set the sync slide and movie
and tried the slide properties>slide advance by user trick to no avail.
Publishing for the Web - everything works fine
Publishing for an LMS - the sync is off
Any other pointers would be helpful.
BTW I'm doing a product evaluation.......
Welcome to Heroes, Richard!
If you'd like to send us your files, we'd be happy to take a closer look and work with you to resolve the issue. Please create an Articulate Presenter package, then upload the zip file to our server. You can review how to do this here:
Send to Articulate Presenter Package – Articulate Presenter ’09 Help
Upload the resulting zip file from your computer to our server using this upload form:
Articulate Support - Upload Your Files for Review
Please be sure to include a description of your issue, your version of PowerPoint, version of Windows and version of Presenter '09, which you can find in Help and Support -> About Articulate Presenter. Please also include the URL for this thread so I can follow up with you personally in the forums. And feel free to come back and leave your case number here so I can keep a close eye on it. Thanks!
Done! I await your sage advice Oh Oracle at Delphi!......
Our support team? The Oracle at Delphi? I'll allow it
Thanks, Richard! We got it, and someone will be contacting you shortly.
Has the "Synchronization (slide only) -> synchronize slide and movie" feature been removed from Articulate '13? I don't see it any longer and I have a SWF flash software simulation that jumps ahead to the next slide without waiting on the student to complete the sim.
Hi Jeff!
It has changed a bit, so check out this tutorial to understand how to insert your interactive Flash file.
Thanks Leslie,
I had seen that tutorial and it basically means the lost of control in '13 compared to the '09 tool.
We've just yanked our Studio 2013 install and went back to '09. There were just took many features lost in your latest version. Perhaps a 2014 2013.r1 version will be better and we can take another look.
Feel free to submit those thoughts in a feature request for our development team.
I did and we also some projects to your developers.
Thanks Jeff, I do see your case (00384686).
Hi, I have a similar issue. I've inserted a Flash game I've programmed into my training module and removed the NEXT/BACK buttons for that slide so users can play the interactive exercise at their own pace. When I get to the end of my game, though, how do I do one of the following 2 things:
- make the BACK/NEXT buttons show up on my presentation so users can click to advance
OR
- advance to the next slide automatically via Flash ActionScript
I appreciate any help. I've watched lots of tutorials and read foruns but can't find a solution to this.
Thanks
Ericka - ever find a solution to this?
You could have a button appear at the end of the video (or flash animation) to allow the userto advance to the next slide (or any other slide) when clicked. To do this, add a powerpoint object (button,rectangle, etc.)to the slide, label it and add a hyperlink to go to the next slide (or any slide number). Next, add an animation to the object (the "appear" animation works great). Import your video, or flash into the slide and you should be good to go. The video (or flash)is placedon the topmost layer of the slide, so italways play first.The animated button appears whenthe video or flash comes to an end,to allow advancing to another slide.
Thanks for the idea, but I think it is probably just "simpler" as a temporary work-around, to insert the interactive SWF as a Web Object, and place a message/button at the end of the video to tell the student to click the "Next" button on the '13 play/see bar, and include a native play-bar in the Web Object. (We do this for other interactive demos built with AS3 enabled tools since we could not insert them into '09).
None of this would be an issue if Articulate would restore the previous '09 behavior to their new player. An in '13, when inserting a interactive SWF as a video to attempt to gain some synchronization between the SWF and the play-bar, you are stymied since there is no fixed time for playing this back and no audio reported to Articulate for that slide, so the play-bar finishes in 5 seconds (my default) and adding a 'silence' track to that slide is worthless since you don't know how long the user will take to complete the demo.
None of this was an issue when inserting a SWF, built from AS2 Captivate files, and should not be an issue with AS3 Captivate SWF file insertion. The behavior should have stayed the same in the '13 player!! Feature requests to Articulate were sent last Feb when we first tried '13, but update 4 does not address this issue.
This lost feature may again be the 'Achilles heel' that prevents us from moving from '09 to '13.
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