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Subject:RE: TRAINING SOFTWARE (a bit longish) From:Justin Soles <justinsoles -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Thu, 14 Aug 2003 02:49:13 -0700 (PDT)
Hi Olga,
With regards to your post:
1. Word will import graphics by reference too, so you
could use the same strategy to display these
screenshots. (As an added bonus, the size of Word
files also shrinks tremendously!) To do this in Word
(2000):
a) Choose Insert > Picture > From File
b) Select the graphic in the Insert Picture dialog
that appears.
c) Click the drop-down menu beside the Insert button
and choose 'Link To File'.
The picture is inserted in the document. You can check
the link to the graphic by choosing Edit > Links.
2. There are lots of screen capture programs like
ScreenCam (used to be Lotus, now IBM?). I've used
HyperCam and Viewlet Builder, <shameless plug> which
are both TECHWR-L sponsors </shameless plug> as well
as TurboDemo. You should be aware that these two
programs are designed for very different purposes:
- HyperCam is designed for developing demos captured
at a single sitting. You use it like a video camera
that just captures everything that happens on the
screen in one long recording.
- ViewletBuilder is designed for developing online
instructional material from multiple screenshots that
can be added over time. You can use it to develop
demos from discreet screenshots and/or integrate
teaching tools like questions/tests/etc.
Whatever you decide, I recommend that you use a
program that exports your screen captures/audio to
Macromedia Flash format since the resulting files will
be smaller and can be streamed if posted to an
intranet/common server.
HTH!
Cheers,
Justin
-------
One of our consultants has asked me about software
that can do the
following:
1. Allow for the generation of documents that
always display whenever
they are printed the latest version of any given
screen. I told him that any
word processing application that imports graphics by
reference would do
this. The directories for the graphics could be set up
on our network and
the programmers instructed to add new screen captures
in as .gif files. This
requires some planning and work by our already
over-worked programmers, but
it could be done. I recommended FrameMaker, as I am
very familiar with that
application, but I think that other applications could
work as well.
Everyone has Word around here and I have our only
FrameMaker license, so the
company would have to get a license for him. Any
comments?
2. Capture his language and screen movements as he
explains the
procedures. When I worked at Bechtel we had an
application that may have
been called "ScreenCam" that did this, but I'm sure
there are more and
better aps today. The trainer could put the file on
CDs for distribution to
the class. Does anyone have suggestions for
applications that might work?
Thanks in advance for all your expertise.
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