Essentials of Adobe Captivate 4: “Skills and Drills” Learning > Finishing Touches > Preloaders

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Preloaders

If your users have a slow Internet connection and your project is on the large side, it could take a significant amount of time for the project to begin playing on the user’s computer. Since most people will not wait for more than a few seconds for something to happen on their computer before giving up, a loading screen would prove valuable. A loading screen is an image or message that appears during those first critical seconds while the first part of the project is downloading.

Student Activity: Add a Loading Screen

1.	The PublishMe.cp project should still be open.
2.	Add a loading screen to the project. choose Edit > Preferences select Start and End from the Project category ensure Auto Play is selected from the Project start options area With Auto Play selected, the lesson will being playing as soon as it is downloaded. if necessary, select Preloader click the three dots (the Browse button) to the right of Preloader You should automatically be browsing the Preloaders folder. If not, browse to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 4\Gallery\Preloaders now. from the AS2 folder, open DefaultPreloader.swf [View full size image] AS2 stands for ActionScript 2 (there was also a folder named AS3 for ActionScript 3). ActionScript version will be discussed in just a few minutes when you publish the project.
3.	Set a Preloader %. change the Preloader % to 50% The Preloader % is the percentage of the published Captivate SWF file that must be downloaded before the lesson begins to play.
4.	Set the project fade options. if necessary, select Fade in on the first slide ensure Stop project is selected from the Action drop-down menu in the Project end options area deselect Fade out on the last slide Fading in on the first slide is a nice effect. However, I’ve discovered that fading out on the last slide doesn’t offer near the same bang for the buck. In fact, if you leave it on, you may find that it causes other problems with items on your Timeline that also fade in and/or out or objects that pause the slide action. I recommend that you leave the Fade out option off. As for the Action area, I prefer the Stop Project action. When the lesson is finished, it will stop. The user can then elect to replay the lesson or close the lesson. click OK
5.	Preview the project and observe the preloader that appears in the instant before the movie plays. Since you are viewing the movie on your hard drive, the preloader is gone in a blink. However, when viewed over the Web, the movie would not begin to play until 50% of the movie has been downloaded to the user. In that case, the user would have plenty of time to appreciate the preloader. You may not have noticed it, but the movie faded in. After the movie is finished playing, it will simply stop.
6.	Close the preview.
7.	Save your work.