Digital Workshop

Hi

At the risk of amusing (hopefully not annoying) you experienced Opus users ... This is a pretty basic question but I have only just started using Flex so do bear with me.

I want to produce a pub that will end up as both a PC exe and a flex swf, both versions to be deployed on CD ROM (for PC and Mac).

My question is about the method: assuming I want to use the full feature set of Opus Pro for the PC version and am happy to have some features left out as is necessary in the Flex version, how should I approach the page building task?

Here is my plan of action: develop the Flex version first (on the assumption that I should start with the lowest common denominator), then copy the sources into a new publication of type 'Opus Professional' and then add in the features that would not work for Flex output. I would then end up with two sets of sources to be compiled as appropriate. Does this make sense? Am I missing something?

As my functional specification calls for some 400+ pages I really don't want to get into a muddle in trying to achive two parallel source versions. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

best regards,

Brian

Hi,

Thank you for your enquiry.

To achieve this, I would recommend starting the publication in Opus Flex mode. This will ensure that any objects or actions which cannot be exported to Flash are disabled within the editor and should ensure that the Flash file can be compiled without warnings or errors.

Once the project is complete, click Publication > Publish to create the Flash version of the project, then go into Publication > Publication Properties > Type and set the publication mode to Opus Professional. You can now publish the project to a standalone executable, which will produce a publication which runs in the same way as the Flash file or, if you wish, add some previously disabled elements (such as DocView/Browser objects and advanced script actions) to enhance the Windows version of the publication.

Please note that Flash SWF files will not autorun from CD on Mac systems and you will need to embed the SWF file within a Mac 'projector' file using third-party software. Some users have previously recommended MDM's ZINC V2 (http://www.multidmedia.com/software/zinc) for this purpose. This software will wrap the SWF file within a .hqx (Mac executable) file and should allow the publication to autorun when inserted into the drive (although other users may be able to clarify this).

Kind regards,

I've done this for a couple of pubs and as your ighty guess it's far easier to start with the Flex pub so you don't accidentally put in things that won't work. There are a few "gotchas" I've discovered, not shown in the list of unsupported features in Flex and it's better to find them earlier than later!

Thanks to you both. What are the gotchas, leiafee?


Brian

Things I've found that don't work in Flex and are not (yet) mentioned in the helpfile...

Listboxes (lack thereof) (thread)

Advanced conditions in IF_ELSEs don't seem to work. (thread)

Multiline text boxes behave oddly--there's a workaround for that one (thread)

Nothing major and catastrophic--there's alternative ways of creating the same effect, but sometimes you don't find out that you need to until you publish it. Several of these things don't show up in preview only once published.

So that's another thing I'll say about Flex pubs--don't trust the preview too far--publish test versions often to check. (It doesn't take as long to publish Flex pubs as standalone ones anyway so that's not too much of a hardship)