Adobe Captivate 5 Widget: Text Area with Variables

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Text Area Widget Enhanced Properties

 

 

 

This widget is a modified version of the Text Area widget that comes stocked with Adobe Captivate 5.  It allows you to use a variable as the default text of the Text Area.  This widget works similar to the Text Entry Box widget.  The Text Area widget will help you to persist text across slides or display text through a variable.  You can also use this widget to create custom quiz questions as described by Lieve Weymeis in her blog post and here as well.

For those of you looking for a way your Learners can write notes and save them to a file, I highly recommend the CpNotepad widget by Whyves.

 

You can try the Text Area with Variables:

Live Demo

 

UPDATE:  Lieve Weymeis ACE, our Adobe Captivate 5 certified expert, has updated her blog with a new article using this widget.  Thanks Lieve!

 

August 30th, 2011 Added the ability to show / hide the text area border. This is great for software simulations.
February 9th, 2012 There’s a timing issue with having the widget on the first slide, but it will work on subsequent slides.

Requirements:

1.  Publish for Flash Player 9+

 

This widget is free for download:

Download Widget

 You can find the Cp6 version of this widget here.

Posted on April 25, 2011 by in All Widgets, Captivate 5.x, Free Widgets

About Jim Leichliter

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  • http://twitter.com/Lilybiri Lieve Weymeis

    Jim, I think you have a crystal ball as well :-) Joe Ganci tells me I do have one. This weekend I was wondering if I should ask you to adapt this widget as you created the widget to have variables as default text in a TEB or in a URL. And the Captivate Community Telepathy seems to work. Thanks a lot! I will probably be adding an addendum to the blog post, to explain how to use this extended functionality in the described custom questions, if you agree?

    • Anonymous

      @Lieve: That would be great! I actually created this widget many moons ago and after seeing your article, I just decided it was time let it out of its cage. Thanks Lieve!

      • http://twitter.com/Lilybiri Lieve Weymeis

        Jim, I used your extended widget to have different Retry options for a Quiz: either user chooses to keep his previous answers and edit them, either he wants all answers to be cleared before a second attempt (like in the default Question slides for Retake), either he chooses to have only the incorrect answers cleared. I heard several users asking for this last way on the user forums. Here is the link to the blog post : http://lilybiri.posterous.com/extended-textarea-widget-more-functionality
        I’m finishing up the article to explain the advanced actions and the link will be in the blog post.

  • http://twitter.com/Lilybiri Lieve Weymeis

    I do not know if this is possible as well, but asking is free :-) In the first blog post about widgets and custom questions I used the checkboxes and the radiobutton widgets coming with Captivate 5. Both have an associated user variable as well, but like the TextArea widget this variable can be changed by an advanced action but the change will not show in the movie. What do you think?

  • Jdedels

     This is a great widget. I am using it to create custom quizzes with custom scoring. Is there a way to take those scores and include them in a quiz variable for output?

    • Anonymous

        @e86bc2fed103ffccc710436588c1208f:disqus Are you using an LMS that supports the SCORM standard?  Since this widget is a static (vs. interactive) widget, there are no tracking options for reporting output.  You could send your results to a google spreadsheet form using one of the premium widgets on this site.  

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  • JV Libunao

    Hi. I tried and used the text area widget which I got from this site of yours. It’s working so well except that when I click next page and then go back to the page where the text area widget is, the answers are all gone. Didi I do something wrong? Please I need you help.

    • Anonymous

      @JV Libunao:  Make sure you have the “Retain Text” checkbox selected in the properties inspector.

      • Jv Libunao

        Hi Jim. I have been waiting for you reply and I didn’t realize that you have 3 days ago. :) . I was looking for the “Retain Text” check box in the properties inspector. Turns out it’s not present with the Text Area Widget but only with the default text area boxes. I don’t know if it’s me or my captivate version. I’m using Adobe CS5.5. Any thoughts? Thanks!

        • Anonymous

          @JV Libuanao:  Sorry, I responded to a different question from another post.  Make sure that when you enter the default text, you surround the variable name in double dollar signs $$myVar$$.  However, when you enter the variable in the “Variable Name” field of the widget, don’t use the dollar signs.  See screen shot in the post.  If this does not work, can you PM me your email address and I can take a look at your project?  Thx,  Jim

          • Anonymous

            Hi Jim,

            I tried adding default text. Previously I don’t have any on that field. It still does not retain the text. Just so you know, I am using Cpguru’s email reporting widget so I use v_custom# as var name. Please send me an email here: jvlibunao@bravedesign.net

            Thanks!

            JV

          • Anonymous

            Hi Jim,

            Any updates? Thanks!

    • Anonymous

      After looking at your project, here’s what I found out:

      1.  All variables that you use in widgets must be defined in the variables panel first.  If you don’t, you’ll end up with a “null” displayed in your TextArea Widget.
      2.  You had a bizillion unused variables from Text Entry Boxes that you’ve erased… you can delete those.  Having that many variables in a project will affect performance.
      3.  In your Preferences, you were externalizing your widgets which breaks it.  So UN-check widgets:

  • http://twitter.com/AmyBlankenship Amy Blankenship

    Does this have a scroll bar option?  I couldn’t find it.

    • Anonymous

      Once you add enough text, the scroll bar will appear.

      • Steve Howard

        This does not appear to be the case – the text is scrollable when there is enough text, but the scrollbar does not appear. To scroll the text you have to click inside the widget, then use your cursor keys or mouse wheel (sort of) to scroll the text.

        Did I overlook a setting? Or are the scrollbars somehow invisible?

        • http://twitter.com/CaptivatePro CaptivateDev.com

          @fc064f3812cdb751e67f33de61c6968e:disqus :  I just tested this on my XP machine using CP 5.5 and if you add enough text at runtime, the scrollbar will appear.  Try the online demo and see for yourself.
          http://captivatedev.com/demo/cp5/textareawithvariables/textareademo.htm 

          • Steve Howard

            Well I see your test fie, and it works as you describe when you add text to it to make it overflow …

            … and the same is true with my test file if I start with an empty text box and type text into it.

            But that is not how I am using it. The widget is displayed on screen with the text already populated, and in that scenario, there are no scrollbars.Thoughts? 

          • http://twitter.com/CaptivatePro CaptivateDev.com

            @Steve Howard:  Thanks for pointing out this bug.  I’ve updated the widget download link with the latest release that has the fix.

          • Steve Howard

            Sweet. I owe you a beer or something  :-)

            Thanks Jim!

  • http://twitter.com/AmyBlankenship Amy Blankenship

    Jim, I downloaded the widget from the link above, and though it does make the task I’m working on at least possible, it interfere’s with the Captivate movie’s ability to scale.  This makes it unusable in our application. Is there an upgrade available that fixes this issue?  We’d be happy to pay for this if that is what we need to do to get it.
     

    • Anonymous

      @Amy Blankenship:  I’ve fixed this.  Go ahead and download again.  You may need to clear out your browser cache first.

      • http://twitter.com/AmyBlankenship Amy Blankenship

        Awesome! Thanks!

  • http://twitter.com/AmyBlankenship Amy Blankenship

    Awesome! Thanks!

  • Justin

    Jim, I’m using this to output to your pdf app. One minor problem is that if the user puts a carriage return to start a new line, there will be no space between the last letter of the previous line and the new line… Its ok if they leave a space then press enter but no one does that when typing. Any ideas / suggestions on what to do about this, aside from giving instructions not to start a new line?

    • Anonymous

      @Justin:  Line breaks have been a difficult subject in Captivate especially with Advanced Actions.  Typically a “n” will perform a line break.  

  • Justin

    Jim, Im using the text area widget to export values to the pdf creator widget. I’ve noticed that when I use the carriage return in the text widget there is no new line exported to the pdf, whats more there is no space between the two lines. Aside from giving instructions not to use the carriage return in the free text fields, any suggests/idea on how to handle this?

    • Anonymous

      @Justin:  I’ve made some mods to the Text Area widget and I’ll email you with the enhancements.  Please test and let me know how it goes.

      • Justin

        Jim, it works a treat. The line breaks transferred to the pdf with no prob – it picks up the document line height set in the pdf widget for each new line. Thanks so much, you’ve made my day.  

        • Anonymous

          @Justin:  Glad to hear it!  I wish you success on your eLearning project!

  • Justin

    Jim, just noticed that cant resize / change font in the new text widget. Any ideas? I’ve tried adding in again without success. Tested the old one in the same module and was able to change font / resize text without any issues.

    • Anonymous

      @f275f18817f419f41832a50f7e6df0ff:disqus :  I’ll be working on this issue over the weekend and get back to you.

      • Justin

        Hi Jim, any resolution to this yet? Thanks Justin.

  • Marc_cheatham

    I am trying to use a widget (Check Box) that displays one thing (using variable), but the output is the the displayed acronym. EX: The word “Snow” check box would display on another screen as “SN”. If anyone could help I would be very grateful.

  • Steve Howard

    Hi Jim,

    I’m seeing something else. It seems that the text size setting is not being honoured at runtime. Whether I choose (say) Arial 16 or 20, it still displays as something that looks like Arial 12.

    • http://twitter.com/CaptivatePro CaptivateDev.com

      @fc064f3812cdb751e67f33de61c6968e:disqus :  It does work, but the UI is a bit flaky (thank Adobe).  After setting it, click somewhere else on the widget props and make sure it loses focus.  If you don’t, the settings don’t stick.

      • Steve Howard

        Weird. Because the font size was set, and ‘stuck’.But here’s what was happening:I have a bunch of TextArea widgets and I grab the text from each, into a Captivate variable, and then display the Captivate variable in a final ‘results’ TextArea widget.Seems as if the font size is also being copied across all of the widgets … so if I don’t set the font size correctly in each and every one, it can appear as if the result widget is not displaying the text correctly …
        I wasn’t expecting Captivate to be retaining the font info between widgets.
        Thanks for pointing me in the right direction :-) !!!

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  • http://www.facebook.com/christian.education Nathan Conkey

    Ta muchly :)

  • Lara Frayre

    Hi Jim,
    Why is it that in some slides the widget does not display the same size as it is in edit mode, so that when I preview the entire project the textboxes seem misaligned or too large. What do you think is the problem?

    • http://twitter.com/CaptivatePro CaptivateDev.com

      @Lara:  This widget was written by Adobe.  I simply added a few lines of code to make it work better with variables.  The discrepancy between edit mode and preview mode has always been a problem with this widget.  When I get the time to port these to Cp 6, I’ll take a closer look.

  • JimLeichliter

    You can find the Cp 6.0 version of the Text Area Widget with Variables here:
    http://captivatedev.com/2012/09/16/adobe-captivate-6-x-free-widget-text-entry-box-with-variables/