Help! SWF doesn't function correctly
Apr 21, 2014
I'm working on a Storyline course in which I am inserting a few .swfs with which the learner interacts. My colleague who developed the .swfs followed the Flash Move Best Practices guidelines (http://www.articulate.com/support/storyline/flash-movie-best-practices-311).
The .swf functions correctly when viewed independently. When it it inserted into Storyline (using Insert > Flash), it also functions correctly when played as a movie within the authoring tool (by clicking on it and selecting Preview from the Options menu).
However, when that slide in the Storyline course is previewed or the course is published, it does not function correctly. The animation shows boxes going down an assembly line. The learner is meant to click on boxes that don't fit particular criteria (color and size). However the boxes have changed from blue boxes with a logo in them (all of varying size and color) to black boxes of the same size and color that are in the wrong position.
Any suggestions for things we should look for would be appreciated.
6 Replies
Can you attach the SWF?
Do you know what program produced the SWF? Sometimes some third-party programs produce Flash output that is a bit . . . iffy.
Hi Gerry. SWF is attached. It was produced in Flash CS5, published to Flash Player 10, AS3.
Wow, that is funky. I'd file a support case with Articulate. I'm seeing the same thing.
In the meantime, if you need to get the course done now, I'd look at doing this with a local web object. Do you know how to do that?
Interesting . . . seems to work just fine in Articulate Presenter '13.
The web object route may be a viable workaround. See here a quick test file with two slides; the first one shows the swf inserted directly, the second slide shows the swf added to an html page which is then displayed in a web object. That one works (never mind the poor formatting in my test).
Thank you Gerry for checking it in Storyline on your end. That's useful information that tells me that the issue isn't something in my installation or course files. It's interesting that it seems to work with Articulate Presenter. I probably will submit a support case. Thanks for the link.
Thank you also Michael, for your suggestion of using a web object. We were trying to avoid that route to keep all the text in Storyline, to make translations easier down the line (so we don't have to do the translations in Flash as well). We even set it up so Flash variables in the SWF could be adjusted in Storyline as needed. However, at this point, it looks like a web object may be the way we have to go, due to time limitations.
Incidentally, we suspect that the issue may be related to objects being created in Flash using Flash ActionScript rather than objects on the screen. The box in the animation that was not created with ActionScript seems to function correctly (the first one), but the rest do not.
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