Übercool Authoring Tools

If you're a multimedia enthusiast, don't miss the entries chosen as MAX Awards finalists. Watch the videos selected in each of the eight categories and vote your favorite.
Voting ends on October 6th, at 12:00 noon PDT.

Posted by Nandini Gupta at 6:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The well-stocked Adobe TV has always been a great source for learning Adobe products. The new version that went live a couple of days back is packed with cool new features that you'll love. Here are some top ones:

• Customizable homepage
• Improved navigation and search
• Save your favorite episodes to "My Library"
• Share videos on social networking sites
• Subscribe to the RSS feeds of your favorite shows
• Pop-out video player to view videos at any size
• Commenting and rating
• Tags

Check out the latest on Adobe TV.

Posted by Nandini Gupta at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At MAX next month, Adobe is putting together some sessions with snacks and drinks to get feedback on the new version of Community Help. Get a sneak preview. The new Community Help has an all new AIR interface and some exciting new features.

The sessions will be held at these times:
• Monday 10/5/09 11:30 am - 1 pm
• Tuesday 10/6/09 4:30 pm - 6 pm

Please contact tknoop@adobe.com if you think you can make either of these sessions at MAX and she'll send you more details.

Posted by Nandini Gupta at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Typically, when you create a multi-module course, you add a menu to support a user-driven learning path. When users can study the modules in any order or when a course has many modules, adding a visual clue to indicate user progress helps.

In Captivate 4, you can create a multi-module course that supports a user-driven learning path and also gives a visual clue (a checkmark) when a user completes a module by simply adding a TOC to the movie.

The steps to create a TOC are here.

If you are using a menu to create a multi-module course, check this article by Isaac Tabe. Isaac gives step-by-step instructions to show checkmarks on the menu slide of a multi-module Captivate movie based on user progress. The solution uses variables and advanced actions, a powerful way to add complex interactivity in your Captivate movie.

For more information on variables and advanced actions, see Captivate Help.

Posted by Nandini Gupta at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

With RoboHelp, you can automatically generate mini TOCs in long articles with many subsections.

Here's Benny Joseph, my colleague at Adobe and a RoboHelp pro, on when to use the mini TOC placeholder and how:

Consider the following when you create and apply master pages with mini TOC in your RoboHelp project:
Need for mini TOC: Many topics could contain only one coherent topic, which does not require structuring through sub headings or bookmarks within the topic. For such topics, a mini TOC might not be required. You can create a separate master page without the mini TOC placeholder and apply it to such topics to avoid the mini TOC from appearing.

Topic Length: If your article is a large topic with many subsections, the mini TOC could appear long and nested. In such cases, try to restructure and divide the content and in multiple topics. For example, if you use lower heading levels such as Heading 5 and Heading 6 to highlight definition lists, try to bunch them under a higher level heading, and apply paragraph styles other than heading styles.

Number of levels: RoboHelp includes heading levels 2 through 6 in the mini TOC by default. However, if the topics have a large number of lower-level heading styles, the mini TOCs generated on these pages can become long and deeply nested. To avoid this, limit the number of levels in the mini TOC to have a shorter mini TOC that gives a quick overview of your topic contents.

Placement: Even though you can place a mini TOC placeholder in a topic or a master page, use the master page option if your project is large or you are updating an existing project. Inserting a mini TOC placeholder in each topic can be time-consuming, whereas you can apply a master page with a mini TOC placeholder to large projects at one go.

Posted by Nandini Gupta at 5:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)