Using Flash to Control Articulate Navigation
June 2, 2009 · Print This Article
I’ve used Articulate for awhile now and have been frustrated that I couldn’t control the navigation of the Articulate Player with my inserted flash. Well…after a bit of snooping and frustration I’ve got it working. If you are a Platinum member of Articulate Support they will give you the software dev kit (SDK) for their Presenter product. This is a great thing to have! They even provide sample FLA files to tear apart.
Here’s how I used Flash to have the Articulate Play advance to a particular slide number:
1. Creat a button in your flash movie. (make it a MovieClip)
2. On the same frame as your button, insert this actionscript (MUST BE ACTIONSCRIPT 2. AS3 IS NOT SUPPORTED)
var ArtAPI = _level0.ArtAPI;
mcButton1.onPress = function()
{
ArtAPI.PlaySlideNum(9);
}
3. Give your button an instance name. It must match the code above. In this example the button instance name is mcButton1.
4. Determine which slide number you want your button to jump to. In this example it is set to advance to slide number 9.
5. Export your Flash. (IMPORTANT: I had to export using Flash Player 7 for the scripting to work. I don’t know why but that’s how is worked for me. You can try a 8-10 versions if you’d like.)
6. Insert the swf into your PPT slide. Your flash import settings should be to play the flash independently from the slide and have the user click next to advance.
7. Publish your Articulate Presentation.
When you look at your published course you should be able to click on the flash button and your presentation will advance to slide 9.
You can also use these code snippets to navigate:
mcButton1.onRelease = function()
{
ArtAPI.PlayNext();
}
mcButton1.onRelease = function()
{
ArtAPI.PlayPrevious();
}
Good luck and have fun! Let us know how it works for you.
Another tip on using flash with the Articulate API.
View our Articulate eLearning games, flash interactions, PowerPoint style kits, and clipped-out people.
Awesome! I’ve been working in Flash for the past few years, but I just landed a job where they rely heavily upon Articulate Presenter (which I’m new to), and after trying your code out and seeing it actually work, I’m very excited to be able to create cool, animated flash buttons and spice up some of the company’s training.
Thanks for sharing!
Matt, thanks for the comment. If you’re interested in flash interactions and games check out e-LearningTemplates.com. All of the games, interactions, and PowerPoint styles work in Articulate. I use them all the time.
hi….. please help
how would you load a articulate quiz into a as3 instance ?
ie a as2 swf into a as3 file
its works with a normal as2 swf but with a quiz swf the quiz does not run ?
please help woudl be very greatfull
kind regards
Adam,
I’ve never loaded a quizmaker exported .swf into another .swf. I have created a lot of flash that integrates into Presenter however and when importing flash into Articulate Presenter you can’t use AS3.
If I were you I’d check out the Articulate forums on their website. They usually respond within minutes and there are tons of resources there. They will probably invite you to upload the files so that they can look at them. Good Luck.
Hi, we have a problem with playSlideNum method. We have crete a custom skin with outline tab custom.From this outline we call method PlaySlideNum(x) when user click on title (normal use) but in some case we have blank page!!! We load swf in every slide so seems that in some case swf file is not load. Any suggestion for us?Any workaround?
Thank you
G.
I’d look at the Articulate discussion boards. There is a group just for SDK developers. Look for the Articulate MVP James Kingsley…he’s great at these kinds of things and is a good guy.