Same as cpVariables, but under more correct name. #cpVariables

Holds Captivate System variables, and user-defined Captivate Variables created by the Author. cpVariables is very similar to movieVariables in that it is also a window into Captivate. However it is usually much easier to find system variables through cpVariables than movieVariables. cpVariables is only available at Runtime.

cpVariables is also where you can access Captivate Variables created by the Captivate author. These are created under the Project > Actions dialog in the 'Variables' tab in Captivate 4, or the Project > Variables dialog inside Captivate 5.

Say we wanted to display the value of one of these variables inside a text field called onStage_txt. We would write:

        
        override protected function enterRuntime () {
        
            onStage_txt.text = cpVariables.CaptivateVariable;
           
         }
        
        

Here are a few articles that list the Captivate System variables you access with cpVariables: A long list of variables. A longer list of variables.

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Gives access to the slide currently being viewed in the Captivate Movie.

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Holds a string name of the current Widget Mode.

• Edit - means the widget is inside the Properties Dialog,
• Stage - means the widget is being displayed on the Captivate Stage,
• Preview - means the widget is displayed in the Widget Panel's Preview window,
• No value in any other modes.

The WidgetEvent class and Template Methods remove the need to check what the current mode of your widget is. This property is here for the purposes of debugging.

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Sets whether or not WidgetEvent.ENTER_RUNTIME and enterRuntime() are called when the Captivate movie is rewound and viewed again. In certain circumstances, you would want this, while in others you wouldn't.

Say you had a widget that at Runtime, drew a circle on stage. The first time you played the movie, one circle would be drawn on stage. If you rewound the movie and played it again, another circle would be drawn, giving you two circles. If you set dispatchRuntimeAfterRewind to false, then no matter how many times you rewind the movie, there would only be one circle on stage.

However, say you had a widget that tweened an object on the Captivate stage. In this case, it is essential that every time you rewind the movie and look at it again the animation takes place. In that case, you would leave dispatchRuntimeAfterRewind at its default value of true.

The default value is true.

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The default dispatcher of the com.adobe.captivate.events in Captivate 5.

Captivate 5 introduced new classes for Captivate, which can be found under: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 5\ActionScript\export\as3 on Windows. If you wish to use a class under the com.adobe.captivate.events package to listen for a CaptivateEvent, you will have to add an event listener to this property, like so:

         
         import com.adobe.captivate.events.CPSlideEnterEvent
         
         // Class definition and other stuff
         
         override protected function enterRuntime () {
         
             eventHandle.addEventListener(CPSlideEnterEvent.CPSLIDEENTEREVENT,yourFunction);
            
         }
         
         

The WidgetEvent class allows you to listen to these events from the StaticWidget class, like so:

         
         import widgetfactory.events.WidgetEvent;
         
         // Class definition and other stuff
         
         override protected function enterRuntime () {
         
             addEventListener(WidgetEvent.ENTER_SLIDE,yourFunction);
            
         }
         
         

Generally, listening with WidgetEvent is going to be simpler. However, if a case arises where for some reason you need to use the Adobe files, eventHandle is available

Captivate 5 only.

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Returns true if the widget is being used by Captivate 4.

Only available in the Properties Dialog and Runtime modes

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Returns true if the widget is in Captivate 4 and embedded in the movie. This is important to know because something operate differently in Captivate 4 embedded then in regular Captivate 4. Mostly relating to runtime detection.

Only available in Runtime mode.

Returns true if the widget is being used by Captivate 5.

Only available in the Properties Dialog and Runtime modes

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Indicates whether this is the first time runtime has been dispatched for this widget.

For more information, see this blog post.

Indicates whether the Captivate Movie is inside an aggregator.

Indicates whether the movie's current position is within the widget's set period to be active.

Tells Captivate if the widget is prepared to have the Stage snapshot taken.

When Captivate displays the widget on Stage, it is not showing a live playback of the .swf. It's actually showing a static image of what appears on the widget's stage. This allows you to give the Captivate Author a preview of what the widget will look like at runtime.

However, what if drawing a snapshot for your widget is a complicated operation and isn't being completed before Captivate takes the snapshot? This is the kind of situation where isReadyForStageSnapShot comes in handy. When you enter Stage mode, set isReadyForStageSnapShot to false. Then after you have drawn your snapshot, set it back to true.

         
         override protected function enterStage () {
         
               isReadyForStageSnapShot = false;
               // Draw your Snapshot
               isReadyForStageSnapShot = true;
         
            }
         }
         
         

By default, isReadyForStageSnapShot is set to true. So if your widget doesn't have this issue, there is no need to tinker with it.

Captivate 5 only.

The default value is true.

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Hold the item name that the Captivate Author gave the widget.

Note: Interactive Widgets have a suffix after their name of _iWidgetAS3. Make sure to account for this if you ever need to make multiple Interactive Widgets work together.

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Allows you to control, and get information from, Captivate. movieVariables is only available at Runtime.

Think of movieVariables as like a window into Captivate. Through it we can see certain things like the width and height of the movie. We can also reach through the window and influence things, like the current slide, or whether the closed captioning is on or off.

However, not many things are directly accessed through movieVariables. Usually you need to look through movieVariables.getMovieProps(), movieVariables.getSlideProps(), or cpVariables (which is the same as movieVariables.getMovieProps().variablesHandle) to find most information.

The original widget help docs provides information on how to use movieVariables (aka: movieHandle).

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Stores settings given by the Captivate Author in the Properties Dialog interface.

Recording information in widgets is difficult, as each time you preview a widget on Captivate Stage, or watch the widget in the final movie, the widget is being reloaded from scratch. Any data recorded by the user will be forgotten the next time your widget reloads.

This is where Widget Properties come in. Any data that is written in Widget Properties is saved by Captivate and given back to the widget each time it reloads. You can access Widget Properties through the properties property. Widget Properties can be read in:

• Properties Dialog Mode,
• Properties Dialog Preview Mode,
• Stage Mode, and
• Runtime Mode.

However, you can only write widget properties in the Properties Dialog Mode (WidgetEvent.ENTER_PROPERTIES_DIALOG event or enterWidgetProperties() Template Method). In Captivate 4, the Properties Dialog mode is considered to be inside the Widget Parameters tab. This can be found by right clicking the widget, and selecting 'Properties' from the context menu. When the properties dialog comes up, switch to the right-most tab (named Widget Parameters).

In Captivate 5, the Properties Dialog mode can be found by selecting the widget, opening the properties panel, and clicking the Widget Properties button under the Animation Accordion.

Captivate provides an interface to customize settings for a slide object (e.g. the height and width of a caption or image). However, if a widget has settings that must be configured by the Captivate Author, then the widget developer must create an interface to display the widget's options inside the Properties dialog. This is all done inside the same .swf file that holds the widget.

Reading and writing to the properties object is easy. Just use dot syntax. To write a property, access the properties object, write a dot, then the name of your property, and assign that property a value.

        
        override protected function saveProperties ():void {
        
           properties.yourPropertyNameWhateverItBe = "assignedValue"; // This property is a string.
           
           properties.isAPropertyWithAnyName = true; // This is a Boolean
        }
        
        

To get that information again, just access that property on the properties object.

        
        override protected function enterRuntime () {
        
             onStageTextBox.text = properties.yourPropertyNameWhateverItBe;
           //onStageTextBox now says: "assignedValue";
        
           if (properties.isAPropertyWithAnyName == true) {
              // Yep, its that easy.
           }
        }
        
        

You can only write certain datatypes to properties. These are:

• Objects,
• Arrays,
• Booleans,
• Numbers,
• Strings, and
• Null,

Make sure the items held inside your Objects and Arrays do not fall outside this list. Otherwise the properties will fail.

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Sets the height of the Properties Dialog in Captivate 5. Must be set in the constructor to work.

Captivate 5 only.

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Sets the width of the Properties Dialog in Captivate 5. Must be set in the constructor to work.

Captivate 5 only.

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Holds information about how the Captivate Author set up the widget.

For a list of the information see the Widget Info class.

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The slide to which the Widget was added by the Captivate Author. From here, you can make changes directly to the slide like you would any Display Object.

To access children of the Captivate slide (Captions, Highlight Boxes, Images, so on) use the getSlideObjectByName() method.

If the widget has been set to display for rest of project, then the widgetSlide will the slide from which the widget starts to be displayed. If, instead, you want to access the currently active slide, use the currentSlide property.

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Creates a new instance of the StaticWidget Class

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Turns off the Properties Dialog in Captivate 5.

If your widget has no properties to set, call this method. It sets the propertiesDialogWidth and propertiesDialogHeight both to 0, which effectively prevents the Properties Dialog from appearing. This means that the Captivate Author is not confronted with a blank Properties Dialog.

Captivate 5 only.

Makes the Widget's background colour consistent with the Properties Dialog boarder in Captivate 5. To do this, the widget uses the ActionScript Drawing API to draw a rectangle on the stage's graphics.

If your widget at some point uses the stage's graphics to draw something, it is probably best to pass in false. In that case, the widget will create a new Sprite and use its graphics to draw the background instead.

Parameters

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A Template Method that is called when the Captivate Movie begins.

Widgets are actually present in the Captivate Movie from its very start, either the first frame or very near thereafter. However, they're only become visible when the enterRuntime() Template Method is called.

By overriding this method, you can have your widget perform operations before it becomes visible.

Note: When a widget (Static or Question) is a added to a question pool slide, enterMovie() will not be called until the question has been assigned a place in the movie. This will happen just before the quiz enters that slide for the first time.

For more information on how Template Methods work, see this post.

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A Template Method that is called when the Properties Dialog (Widget Parameters tab in Captivate 4) is opened.

The widget .swf is embedded into the Properties Dialog. This gives you an opportunity to create a Graphic User Interface inside your widget .swf to allow the Captivate author to customize settings that change the appearance and/or behaviour of the widget.

Note: This is the only widget mode where you can write Widget Properties

Because Captivate 4 does not allow you to change the size of the Widget Parameters tab, you can create an alternative GUI for when the widget is used in Captivate 4. Use the isCaptivate4 and isCaptivate5 properties to determine which GUI you will display.

For more information on how Template Methods work, see this post.

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A Template Method that is called when Captivate 4 displays your widget in the preview area of the Properties Dialog Widget tab.

This particular preview area does not exist in Captivate 5. In Captivate 4, the properties window is opened by right clicking the widget, and selecting 'properties' from the context menu.

For more information on how Template Methods work, see this post.

Captivate 4 only.

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A Template Method that is called when the Captivate Movie enters the period in which this widget is supposed to appear.

If the Captivate Author added the widget to the fifth slide of the movie and set it to appear seven seconds into the slide, then, in the published movie, the enterRuntime method would be called seven seconds into the fifth slide, even though the widget is loaded and running from the very first frame of the movie.

Also, if the user scrubs or jumps the movie to a point within the widget's active period, then enterRuntime will be called again. This is assuming that the widget has exited runtime first.

For more information on how Template Methods work, see this post.

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A Template Method that is called when your widget is displayed on the Captivate stage.

For more information on how Template Methods work, see this post.

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A Template Method that is called when your widget is being previewed in the Widget Panel.

Here would be a good place to set up a splash screen for your widget, so that potential users can see what the widget will look like.

For more information on how Template Methods work, see this post.

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A Template Method that is called when the Captivate Movie leaves the period of time in which the widget is supposed to appear. This is assuming the enterRuntime() template method has been called first. This method paired with enterRuntime() allow you to load and unload the widget so as to reduce the load on the movie while it is not being viewed.

For more information on how Template Methods work, see this post.

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Returns a reference to the slide with the number or label you pass in.

If you pass in a number (say 3) the method will return that number slide (slide 3). This is 1 based, not zero based like an Array.

If you pass in a string, the method will return the slide with the matching label. Accessing slides via their labels only works if Accessibility is turned on.

Parameters

Returns a reference to any object on a Captivate slide that matches the name you passed in. Once you have that reference, you can manipulate the Captivate Object like you would any Display Object. Move, rotate, skew, drag, drop, or tween the object, and it will update instantly in the Captivate movie. You can access any slide object, including: Captions, Graphics, Highlight Boxes, even other Widgets.

To get a reference to a specific Captivate object, you must first give it a name. In Captivate 4, this is done by right clicking on the object, and selecting 'Properties...', then under the 'Options' tab, there will be a 'Name' text field. Write a name for the object here.

In Captivate 5, you select the object, go to the properties panel, and write a name in the 'Item Name' field.

At Runtime, pass this name into the getSlideObjectByName method as a String, and you will be returned a reference to the object.

         
         getSlideObjectByName("Meaningful_Name");
         
         

You can store the returned reference in a variable, like so:

         
         var myCaption:Sprite = getSlideObjectByName("Meaningful_Name");
         
         

By changing the properties of that variable, you will manipulate the object on stage.

         
         var myCaption:Sprite = getSlideObjectByName("Meaningful_Name");
         
         // Moving
         myCaption.x = 100; 
         myCaption.y = 200;
         
         // Rotating
         myCaption.rotation = 180;
         
         // So on
         
         

Usually the name of the Captivate Object will be set by the Captivate Author, and then input as one of your widget's properties. Just pass that parameter into getSlideObjectByName() to receive the reference.

         
         var myCaption:Sprite = getSlideObjectByName(properties.captivateObjectName);
         myCaption.x = 100;
         myCaption.y = 200;
         myCaption.rotation = 180;
         // So on
         
         

By default, getSlideObjectByName will only return slide objects on the same slide as the widget. However, you can pass in either the slide number, label, or MovieClip into the second parameter to get an object from that slide instead. The following code will find and return any object by the name of "CoolImage" that's on the second slide of the movie.

         
         getSlideObjectByName("CoolImage", 2);
         
         

Accessing slides via their labels only works in Captivate 5.

getSlideObjectByName automatically accounts for the suffix that Captivate adds to an Interactive Widget's item name.

Parameters

See also

Jumps to the slide with the number or label you pass in.

If you pass in a number (say 5) the Captivate Movie will move to that number slide (slide 5). This is 1 based, not zero based like an Array.

If you pass in a string, the Captivate Movie will jump to the slide with the label that matches the string. Accessing slides via their labels only works if Accessibility is turned on.

Parameters

A Template Method that is called when the OK button inside the Properties Dialog is clicked.

In Captivate 4, the Widget Parameters tab has an extra button for 'Apply'. This calls the applyProperties method, but does not close down the Widget Parameters tab.

This event is still considered to be part of the Properties Dialog mode. The idea is that in overriding this method, you to record the settings that the Captivate Author made in your Graphic User Interface. For more information on how to save these settings, see the properties property.

For more information on how Template Methods work, see this post.

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Converts the properties XML into a formatted object.

In order for Captivate to save the properties recorded in the Properties Dialog mode, it must convert them to XML. At Runtime, Captivate passes the widget that XML. Seeing as Captivate doesn't translate the XML back into the properties object we are familiar with, WidgetFactory does it for us.

By default, WidgetFactory translates the properties just before the ENTER_RUNTIME event is dispatched. However, if your widget is performing operations before it becomes visible in the Captivate Movie, (See the ENTER_MOVIE event) then it will not be able to read the properties during that time, as they have yet to be translated. After calling the translateProperties method, your widget will be able to read the properties object.

See also

Parameters

Widgets are actually present in the Captivate Movie from its very start, either the first frame or very near thereafter. However, they're only visible become when the ENTER_RUNTIME event is dispatched.

By responding to this event (ENTER_MOVIE), you can have your widget perform operations before it becomes visible.

Applies to all Captivate 5 widgets, but only Captivate 4 externalized widgets.

See also

The widget .swf is embedded into the Properties Dialog. This gives you an opportunity to create a Graphic User Interface inside your widget .swf to allow the Captivate author to customize settings that change the appearance and/or behaviour of the widget.

Note: This is the only widget mode where you can write Widget Properties

Because Captivate 4 does not allow you to change the size of the Widget Parameters tab, you can create an alternative GUI for when the widget is used in Captivate 4. Use the isCaptivate4 and isCaptivate5 properties from the StaticWidget class to determine which GUI you will display.

When this event is dispatched, the WidgetEvent class records the current frame number, slide number and slide label, and makes these values available to you via the frameNumber, slideNumber, and slideLabel properties.

See also

This particular preview area does not exist in Captivate 5. In Captivate 4, the properties window is opened by right clicking the widget, and selecting 'properties' from the context menu.

Captivate 4 only.

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If the Captivate Author added the widget to the third slide of the movie and set it to appear nine seconds into the slide, then, in the published movie, the ENTER_RUNTIME event would be dispatched nine seconds into the third slide, even though the widget is loaded and running from the very first frame of the movie.

Also, if the user scrubs or jumps the movie to a point within the widget's active period, then this event will be dispatched again. This is assuming that the widget has exited runtime first.

See also

When this event is dispatched, the WidgetEvent class records the current frame number, slide number and slide label, and makes these values available to you via the frameNumber, slideNumber, and slideLabel properties.

Captivate 5 only.

See also

See also

Here would be a good place to set up a splash screen for your widget, so that potential users can see what the widget will look like.

See also

For more information on how Template Methods work, see this post.

See also

When this event is dispatched, the WidgetEvent class records the current frame number, slide number and slide label, and makes these values available to you via the frameNumber, slideNumber, and slideLabel properties.

Captivate 5 only.

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A number of items in Captivate are considered to be 'Interactive', such as buttons, click boxes, and Interactive Widgets. When the user has interacted with one of these objects, the object sends information back to Captivate. For example when clicked, a button sends information back to Captivate about the slide that it is on, and scoring information (if it is set up to report scoring).

When this event is dispatched, the WidgetEvent class records the current frame number and slide number, and makes these values available to you via the frameNumber and slideNumber properties. If the Interactive Item it is responding to is set up to be part of the quiz...

Then information about the quiz will be collected and made available from the event's quizData property.

Captivate 5 only.

See also

Captivate 5 only.

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This event is dispatched both when the user clicks the pause button on the playbar, and when something inside the movie (such as a question) pauses the movie. You can distinguish between whether it was the user, or Captivate, that paused the movie via the isActOfUser property.

When this event is dispatched, the WidgetEvent class records the current frame number and slide number, and makes these values available to you via the frameNumber and slideNumber properties.

Captivate 5 only.

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This error is usually caused by trying to write something to Widget Properties which is not an object, array, number, string, boolean, or null.

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This event can be listened to by Static and Interactive Widgets, not just Question Widgets.

This event is dispatched when the user presses play on the playbar, or if something inside the movie (such as answering a question) automatically causes the movie to resume. You can distinguish between whether it was the user, or Captivate, that resumed the movie via the isActOfUser property.

When this event is dispatched, the WidgetEvent class records the current frame number and slide number, and makes these values available to you via the frameNumber and slideNumber properties.

Captivate 5 only.

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In Captivate 4, the Widget Parameters tab has an extra button for 'Apply'. This dispatches the SAVE_PROPERTIES event, but does not close down the Widget Parameters tab.

This event is still considered to be part of the Properties Dialog Mode. The idea is that in responding to this event, you save into Widget Properties the settings that the Captivate Author made in your Graphic User Interface. For more information on how to save these settings, see the properties property in the StaticWidget class

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The suffix that Captivate places on the end of an Interactive Widget's item name. If the Captivate Author gave an Interactive Widget an item name of myInteractiveWidget, then when Captivate publishes the movie it would give the Interactive Widget the name: myInteractiveWidget_iWidgetAS3.

If you have to deal with accessing objects off a Captivate slide, then make sure you take into account the possibility that Interactive Widgets will have a suffix that the Captivate author does not know about.

The default value is _iWidgetAS3.

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The colour of the Properties Dialog in Captivate 5.

The default value is 0xD7D7D7.

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