Digital Workshop

I've got an Opus 6 pub produced on XP.

There's a button to launch a file, a powerpoint show called "success01.pps" with the setting "the file will be found at this location" C:\Temp

After publishing, I've put the file in C:\Temp on a number of pcs, and each time the launch button opens the file correctly.

But on a Vista pc the launch button does nothing.

The pps file definitely works on the Vista pc.

I'm running into very basic problems with playback on a Vista pc - has anyone overcome any of these issues yet?

Thanks, Linda

Hi Linda,

I've tried this every which way I can think of and the PP file loads fine under Vista from C:\temp

I've inlcuded the sample IMP I used so that you can check this against yours.

Mack

Mack, Thanks for looking at this for me.

We've used XP for so long, but have just got a new Vista laptop for Sales, to demonstrate the sort of presentations we can produce.

Last night I put around 30 different presentations on it, and then went spare as either video, flash or programme launches wouldn't work.

I know others here are saying to avoid Vista, but if a customer buys a new laptop now, they're likely to get it installed, so our presentations have to work.

Someone's gone off with the Vista laptop for today, but I'll look at your launch imp tonight and find out what setting needs to change.

Can you also solve the flash and video problems I'm having?!

Thanks again, Linda

Hi Linda,

Yes Vista is a five letter bad word for most people, but like you, more and more of our customers are wanting to run publication under the new OS and therefore our products and solutions need to be compatible.

The update to Plexus seems designed to switch Vista to Aero Basic which is something we have been using for a year now anyway as this solves the video / graphics issues but this will happen automatically at the customers' end.

Until the update to Opus is released - it is worth turning Aero to basic manually to see if this solves the problem. The reason this works, is that Aero advance use the GPU not the CPU (like older windows) to handle the GUI and the drivers for a lot of graphics simply are not compatiable. Vista SP1 is basically a lot of driver updates that will help this problem and at some point during the last year the automatic updates in Vista have meant that some of the graphic issues we've been having simply vanished

As for flash, if it's not playing at all - this maybe the quicktime issue that paul highlighted int he lounge - viewtopic.php?t=3042

Let me know now if the IMP doesn't solve the problem or if you can send me the publication and I'll check under our Vista configs. Contact details below.

Mack

Hi Linda,
When published, Mack's example works ok in Vista showing Camtasia demo's. These are running external to Opus in a browser window.
I'm using a Compaq Presario dv6000 notebook with Vista Home Premium.
Vista SP1 RC is installed, and UAC and Aero are enabled.
Quicktime is not installed, but Flash player 9 is.

Paul

Tackling my vista problems one at a time:

Launching powerpoints: Mack, your pub proved that I can launch any file from c temp correctly, EXCEPT .pps files.

I don't have powerpoint on vista, but do have the powerpoint viewer.

If I open a .pps file in c temp from within Explorer, it plays fine.

If I launch it from your pub, it doesn't open.

Text files, mpg files, everything else all launch fine.

So do me a favour... unzip the attached, put it in C temp and see if you can launch it with your pub?

Hi Linda,

Tried everything but the PP Viewer. Will have a look shortly and let you know.

Mack

Hmmm... it must be something about the Powerpoint viewer - I've downloaded the 2007 Word and Excel viewers, and those files launch from C:temp fine.

I've also downloaded the Powerpoint 2007 SP1, but still .pps and .ppt files will not launch from the opus launch pub.

Hi Linda,

Well have tracked down the cause - the PP viewer uses and older method for opening files "%1" compared to the /n /dde method employed by the Word / Excel viewer.

I'm not an expert on this, but you don't seem to be able to change the one method for the other - and Vista makes it more difficult because you have to make all changes via the registry not the nice old dialogue box

However, you can workaround this issue by executing the viewer directly and passing the filename /path. This does assume the location of the viewer, but Opus includes script commands to check file existance. It may even be possible to determine the path of the default program for the .pps type and use this in the method above - thus elimating any problems with users having different applications to open the file - but this would need looking into.

I'm attatching a revamp of the launch imp.

Mack

Boy, you are so smart, and I'm really grateful for your help today.

I'll stop and thank you properly later, but for now, I need to get the last bit right...

On Vista, the Powerpoint Viewer is in Office12. On XP it's in Office11.

If I just duplicate the launch action, and have one point at
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\ and one point at
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\

Then it seems to work on both pcs.

Is this OK, or is there a better way?

Hi Linda,

The only glitch I can forsee with that is if a customer has both 11&12 installed it will run the PP twice (?) - in theory anyway.

You'd need to put a check in to see if 11 exists and if not run 12 or even then check 12 and display error if none exist.

Mack

Edit: Checked this and it will run twice

Sorry, but script is the only way to check file existance: Use this script on the left click instead of your actions:


ALSO, caught your IE post. IE7 uses the new protection mode when running under Vista and this seems to stop access to the browser object

Spoke to an member who is running an Opus upgrade and this doesn't seem to be an issue any more - go DW!

Mack, your advice over the last couple of days has been invaluable.

I've got the most important presentation working well enough in time to meet tomorrow morning's deadline.

I've also asked DW about the Opus upgrade to solve the browser problem.

Having used Opus for almost 10 years now (from back when it was Illuminatus) I realise it's time for me to learn more... I see an Opus scripting course on your site - do you have more details on this?

Thanks, Linda

Morning Linda,

Glad the project was completed OK.

The LMS, like Vista, is still very much in the exploration stage for Interaktiv at the moment. The LMS, Moodle, was a technical exercise to assertain whether we could run this system on our web server for demonstration purposes.

Moodle is a powerful and importantly, free, LMS that is built around a sound teaching and learning philosophy and is likely to be the LMS of choice for schools meeting the UK Government's new Personalised Learning Platform requirements. Part of the available modules is a SCORM complient system which is where Interaktiv and Opus come in and with our background in education we are looking to develop high quality learning resources for Moodle and provide support for others developing these materials.

Coordinating SCORM, Moodle and Opus is not something that is likely to happen over night but is something being developed. A look at the Moodle forums will show the number of issues currently being debugged with regards to the SCORM module alone

We opted to publish a sample course to evaluate Moodle rather than the SCORM software (captivate). At the time, and still, there was a lot of rumblings on the forum and from our customers about eTraining for Opus and thus we decided to produce the sample lesson that is available to gain a better understanding of the workings of the LMS in the public domain.

The feedback has been excellent - but this is only one lesson and Captivate, in MHO is not a suitable development enviroment for high quality learning modules. It is not a patch on the content we have produced using Opus - but the really big difference is that Opus requires you understand how SCORM works and be able to script whereas Captivate is click and compile (although in reality the SCORM file from Captivate turned out not to work with Moodle!).

Oddly, all the issues that we are currently exploring at Interaktiv have an element of interconnectivity which is why we're are taking our time to consider the best solution(s) whilst continue to develop our standalone educational products and provide commericial scripting support.

I'm glad that the possiblity of including scripting in your products is something that interests you. I like you, have been using Opus for a long time. Although I'm showing my age to say that Illuminatus was the software I first taught back as a nieve teaching practice student when the RM Window Box was first released

Mack

Good day Linda and Opus Fan,

I’m not contributing to this forum for sometimes but still following the forum from time to time. As for viewing PowerPoint slide, I would suggest you do away with Power Point viewer. Nothing against Microsoft, but thing along protection of intellectual property and SCORM requirements, not to mention the size of presentation. I strongly recommend you to consider converting your PowerPoint slides into java applets that will protect your work, reduce your presentation as much as 85%, generate SCROM compliance presentation while maintaining the interactivity, and the most important just insert into your Opus publication as web object. You can have more information of the software at Impatica com. I been using this software for few years.

Azmi,

Thank you for your reply. I'll explain the reason we have to use Powerpoint files, in case you or someone else can see another solution:

Using Opus, we produce bespoke presentations that our customers use as Sales presentations - so they go along to their client, amd play the presentation we've produced explaining about their company, facilities, etc etc.

But with every sales presentation, along with slides of general material that's relevant to all, there's always some specific details required, perhaps on turnover, or something unique they can offer that client.

So I design a number of Powerpoint backgrounds in the same style as the presentation, and programme in some launch buttons on the navigation bar. Then our customer can fill in these powerpoints as they wish for different presentations.

It would be possible for them to fill in field to populate an opus page, but their material is often graphs and charts they already have in Powerpoint.

Personally I dislike powerpoint, as it never does what I want!

Thanks again, Linda