Adobe Presenter Embedded swf appears choppy or twitchy

Problem:

When embedding a swf animation into adobe presenter, the final movie apears twitchy or 'stuttering'. This occurs because the "Control using presentation playbar" option is selected, and Presenter is doing odd playback control on your swf.

Basically, to keep the slide time synched with your swf time, it is either jumping ahead or backwards to keep them together, not ideal at all!

Solution:

1. Rob Rodes: http://www.connectusers.com/forums/cucbb/viewtopic.php?id=2523

I did not find this solution to work for me, but it might for you, it's pretty low effort to try and if it works great!

2. My Solution:

First I cut all of my main timeline and chucked it into a movieclip which then got thrown on frame 1 layer 1 of the main stage (make sure the main timeline is the same length as the new movieclip timeline), we'll name the new movieclip "allAnimations".

Now, the playback bar for presenter won't have access to this movieclip, so the stuttering effect is gone, but what if the user is jumping back and forward, how do we sync this animation up with the main timeline?

Here's the magic (Actionscript 2.0):

allAnimations.onEnterFrame = function()
{
if(this._currentFrame - this._parent._currentframe > 150)
allAnimations.gotoAndPlay(this._parent._currentframe)
else if(this._parent._currentframe - this._currentFrame > 150)
allAnimations.gotoAndPlay(this._parent._currentframe)
}

Basically if the animation's timeline differs from the main timeline by more than 5 seconds then sync them up!

This is a hack, i'm positive there is an unfound better solution, but for now this may work for you, if so enjoy!

Make photoshop run faster

One would assume that Academic institutions provide their learning technology departments with the finest machines from which to develop on. However, for those not so fortunate, here is a fantastic article on speeding up that sometimes machine chugging Photoshop:

How to make photoshop faster on slower computers

Also as a bonus for those who don't have photoshop, or just can't get it running fast enough for simple tasks. picnik is a fantastic web based app for photo editing.

A little perspective

Articulate Quizmaker Fill in the Blank Correct Response Not Appearing Bug and Solution

Ran into a situation with an test built in Articulate Quizmaker not showing some correct responses during "review".

The question with the problem was a fill in the blank type, and it's fill in the blank field was just about the size of one or two characters.

Well, apparently you have to be very careful when using small boxes in these questions, because if it's too small the correct answers just will not show up during a users review of the quiz.

I would recommend going with a four or 5 letter sized box, should do the trick until this is patched up one day ;)

Boring Long Technical Description (BLTD) to Follow:

For flash geeks, what I can only assume occurs is that Quizmaker determines the width of it's dynamically created correct answer text fields based on the initial input box, combine this with a kinda unstable text renderer in flash and you get the disappearing text....There's probably a width = width - 10 somewhere that needs to be removed ;)

Powerpoint image crops fail with Adobe Presenter

Just ran into this issue today, basically any image crop you do in powerpoint will have a different look when published through presenter.

It's a shame, the option for image cropping is good for rapid development, but to ensure that your screenshots look the way you want them you should do all cropping in another program (photoshop, paint etc..) before bringing them into your ppt file.

Understanding the material is the key to developing quality eLearning

All my favorite teachers were those who were passionate about what they were teaching.

When a teacher in a traditional class room setting is passionate about the material they are teaching, there is no obstacle between them and the student.

When a Subject Matter Expert for an eLearning course is passionate about the material being taught, they often have 3, 4 or more individuals/obstacles to go through before that material reaches a student.

For the material to maintain the passion/comprehension and vision of the SME by the time it becomes a fully formed course, it is essential for the Designers and Developers to actually learn the material before creating material to teach it.

Obviously given the deadlines of course development schedules, and also the complexity of many courses, this can not always be achieved, but the idea here is not to always make experts out of the development team, but to get them submerged in the material to help transfer the SME's passion for the material onto the student.

Online Learning vs Classroom

Thought I'd share this awesome article:

Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom

Surprisingly, not mentioned in the article is what Students lose when their education is online. The amount of 'life' education that students learn from each other through interaction in and around the classroom is so important, and the question to us in this field is:

Will technology allow for online social networking to equal or surpass in person communication, or do we as a society even want to travel down this road?