Creating Rollover Captions


Chapter 4, "The Captivate Timeline and Objects," explained how to create a rollover with an image. You can do the same thing with captions.

Similar to the rollover image, a rollover caption is composed of two elements: a hot spot and a caption. When the mouse rolls over the hot spot, the caption appears on the screen. This is especially useful for drawing the viewer's attention to important areas of the screen or to provide an immediate response to a question. For example, you could assign a series of hot spots to the icons in the Captivate Start page; when the user rolls over the "Record new movie" icon, a caption appears identifying the icon and how to use it.

Not only that, but many applications display a tool tip when the cursor is placed over the object in the interface. You can convert these tool tips to rollover captions during the capture.

Rollover captions are extremely flexible. They are highly customizableyou can modify location, opacity, outline, and color as well as make additional choices in the New Caption dialog box.

To create a rollover caption

1.

Open the target slide in the Edit View panel.

2.

Select Insert > Rollover Caption (Figure 5.8), press Control-Shift-R, or click the Rollover Caption button on the Object toolbar.

Figure 5.8. You can add rollover captions from the Insert menu.


The New Rollover Caption dialog box opens.

3.

Select a background style for the rollover caption from the Styles pop-down list. You have 30 choices, ranging from Windows to Custom.

4.

Select a font.

5.

Select or enter a point size.

6.

Select a text color from the color picker.

7.

Select a caption style.

8.

Enter the caption text.

9.

Choose a transition effect.

10.

Determine if these properties will be applied to all rollover captions in the movie.

11.

Determine if any audio will be added to the caption.

12.

Click OK.

The rollover caption and the hot spot are added to the slide (Figure 5.9). The hot spot (the green overlay named "Rollover Area") is where the mouse must be for the caption to appear.

Figure 5.9. The hot spot that triggers a rollover caption is green and named "Rollover Area."


Tip

  • Keep an eye on the Caption style that you choose. Certain caption types don't contain balloons. This is indicated in the Caption Style dialog box. The caption's shape is shown beside the caption type.


To convert application tool tips to rollover captions

1.

Create a new recording and, when the recording window opens, click the Options button.

2.

Click the Recording Options tab and set the recording mode to Custom.

3.

Click the "Edit settings" button.

The Custom Recording Options dialog box opens.

4.

Select "Covert tooltips to rollover captions" (Figure 5.10).

Figure 5.10. You can capture application tool tips as rollover captions in the Custom Recording Options dialog box.


5.

Click OK.

The Custom Recording Options dialog box closes, and you are returned to the Recording Options dialog box.

6.

Click OK to return to the recording window.

Manipulating Rollover Hot Spots

It is all well and good to create rollover captions but there is a lot more you can do with them than simply have them sit in the same location as the caption. Here are a few ideas:

  • To change the size of a hot spot, click it and drag one of the handles inward or outward.

  • For disjointed rollovers (the caption appears in a different area of the slide), drag the hot spot or the caption to a different location in the slide.

  • To change the look of the hot spot, double-click it to open the Rollover Area dialog box.

  • If you have a number of hot spots in a slide, determining which hot spot triggers which caption can be confusing. If you click a hot spot, its corresponding caption appear when you click it in the Edit View panel.




Macromedia Captivate for Windows. Visual QuickStart Guide
Macromedia Captivate for Windows. Visual QuickStart Guide
ISBN: 321294173
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 130

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