Digital Workshop

Hello everyone:

I'm having problems with text input in a flex publication, and I'd very much appreciate any help. The setup is quite simple: there's an input box where the user types what they think the answer to a question is, then they click a button to check for correctness. Everything runs smoothly in the Preview inside Opus Pro (6.01), but when running the published file, text input objects often don't work as expected: the variable to store that text isn't updated correctly. It is the last character that doesn't get stored in the variable. Although I've changed some settings for the input objects with no improvement, here are the ones that are ticked in case it helps:

allow letters
limit to 9 characters
auto-focus
update variable...
tab skips...
return skips...
single line (radio button)
to lower case (radio button)


I've noticed that pressing the space bar forces the last character to "reach" the target variable, but I find this solution wouldn't be practical. I've tested the publication both in IE7 and Firefox 2.0 sorry for this long post and thank you in advance.

I'm not an expert on Flex, but might not the following excerpt from Unsupported features in Opus Flex have some bearing on your problem?

These features are not supported by static text:

Inserted variables
...
Text input

I have no idea why your pub works in preview and not in published versions.

It's unlikely that the problem is related to v6.01, but there have been some reports strange behaviour. I installed 6.01, had a couple of issues that appeared, so I got rid of 6.01 and went back to 6.0.

Just a thought. Others who are using 6.01 might be able to comment.

Doesn't seem to be a flex issue in 6 or 6.01

Mack

Thank you both very much for your help.

Sentosa, I've checked the list of unsupported features in Opus Flex again and you're right. What I'm not so sure about is whether my text is treated as static or not. Besides, I don´t get any warnings or errors while publishing.

Mackavi, I've downloaded your imp file and everything is fine in Preview. However, when trying the published file the issue is still there. I've added two text objects with your variables inserted to check how they update and get things like "hors" or "fis". Not all the time, but I'm afraid that this occasional occurence breaks my project. I've also run the file on a different computer. This is crazy since the keyboard works perfectly all the time, but I'm a bit desperate. By the way, publishing the imp file causes some warnings about certain effects. I know that is beside the point, but mention it just to insist on the fact that maybe I would get warnings about text input not being supported too.

Again, thank you

6-7 years ago I tried to use Flex for a number of publications. I found it impossible to produce an effective pub because of the restrictions embodied in Flex. I understand why some of the restrictions exist, but that knowledge is meaningless when Flex was unable to produce usable output.

I think an oft quoted claim by Maxwell Smart might be appropriate: Missed...by that much!"

Not sure what your doing, but I've run the flash file a dozen times and not having this problem.

Publishing errors are important as they may be causing something not to complete.

I think you need to post your example as this doesn't seem to be a flex issue alone.

Mack

Mackavi, the pub you posted reflects exactly what I'm doing. And as I said I also get the problem when I publish it and run the flash file. Furthermore, I don't get any errors when I publish my file in Opus. However, I'm starting to think that the problem might originate at that time, since the Preview runs perfectly. Maybe I'm not asking too much, but could you publish it yourself then post the flash file?

Sentosa, I agree with you about Flex. The problem is an important part of my target audience are using computers running Linux. I wish the plexus plug-in would run on that OS, but since that's not the case I guess I'm stuck with Flex.

Sorry, I meant "Maybe I'm asking too much"

One shockwave coming up...

Plexus on Linux - now that would be a dream come true.

Mack

I've tried the flash file several times and it never fails. Just to make sure, I've published your imp file again in Opus and believe it or not I keep getting errors now and then. To make things worse, now every time I publish a pub and exit Opus I get this error message : Opus.exe - Application Error, The instruction at 0x04e... referenced memory at 0x02d... The memory could not be read. I've uninstalled and reinstalled Opus and nothing has changed. I've even installed Opus on another computer and the same happens. Both machines run on XP SP3. I forgot, I've evn reinstalled Flash player.

I can publish Mack's imp to swf without problems on an XP SP3 computer.

cheers
Paul

Thak you, Paul. I've just tested in W2k and there's no improvement. I've attached a simple swf which I published with no errors in Opus. For testing purposes, I typed the same ten name of animals ten times (yes, I'm that desperate) and 30 of them were stored in the variable without the final character. The reason for repeating the same words was to check if there were specific characters that failed more often than others.
However, the errors were rather erratic.
One more thing: I've tested the attachment here in the forum and it doesn't seem to have the issue. Could the problem appear only when launching from an html document? Well, I've published again choosing the no html option but it still fails (both locally and in a remote server). Frustrating!

I can't think of any reasons for your problem offhand.
Could it be related to the version of the flash player installed on your computers.
I don't know what version of Flash that Opus uses to build the swf.
Just curious -- are you working on an english version of Windows?

Paul

I appreciate your interest, Paul. Yes, I'm working on an English version of Windows XP Professional. I've also tested on systems running non-English versions of Windows 2000 and XP with the same (bad) results.
I've also considered the possibility of the flash player being the source of the problem. In fact, I reinstalled it two days ago, although I already had the latest version: 9,0,124,0 It's quite probable that all the computers I've used for testing have this same version. I wonder if it's possible to install previous versions of the player.
Yesterday I even installed Opus Pro 05 XE and the problem came up with that version too.

Just a thought. Have you tried setting File Associations manually, or to the Defaults. (which Program is assigned to run various file types... .swf, etc).

You might also try looking on Adobe and Flash forums to see if you can pick up any info.