Integrate Captivate Files With Adobe Flex

Adobe Flex came to rescue when we hit the wall with Captivate, need some customizations in the Captivate UI.  Had to struggle to find a good documentation on access Captivate Variables and Events in Adobe Flex

Following are the Steps

Step1 : Setup

Download and Copy the classes Actionscript classes to your project..events and helper classes from http://code.google.com/p/widgetfactory/downloads/list

Create package (com.widgetfactory) and copy the events and helpers to your project

Step 2: Access Captivate Variables and Events

Create a Flex Project and add Image comp for Captivate File,Captivate  Access Events and variables

   1: <s:Application>

   2: <fx:Script>

   3:     <![CDATA[

   4:         import com.widgetfactory.events.QuestionWidgetEvent;

   5:         import com.widgetfactory.events.WidgetEvent;

   6:         import com.widgetfactory.helpers.CaptivateEventsToWidgetEvents;

   7:   

   8:         private function loadCaptivateFile( url:String):void {

   9:               if( !contentLoader.hasEventListener( Event.COMPLETE ) ) {

  10:                         contentLoader.addEventListener( Event.COMPLETE, handleCaptivateLoadComplete );

  11:                }

  12:               contentLoader.load( url ); //url points to the swf file

  13:         }

  14:  

  15:      private function handleCaptivateLoadComplete( event:Event = null ):void {

  16:             var captivateMovie:MovieClip = MovieClip(contentLoader.content);            

  17:             CaptivateEventsToWidgetEvents.registerEventsWithWidgetEvent( this, captivateMovie);

  18: //Access captivate events

  19:             if( !captivateMovie.hasEventListener( WidgetEvent.ENTER_MOVIE ) ) {

  20:                 captivateMovie.addEventListener( WidgetEvent.ENTER_MOVIE, movieStartedEvent, false, 0, true );

  21:             }

  22:      }

  23:  

  24:     private function movieStartedEvent(event:WidgetEvent):void{

  25:           var captivateMovie:MovieClip = MovieClip(contentLoader.content);

  26:           captivateMovie.cpCmndMute = 1            //acccess cpativate variables

  27:     }

  28:  

  29: <s:Application>

Gotchas

Captivate variables take a little time 10-20ms to take into effect, so if you set it and right away try to access it, you will still see the old value.

Ideally, I feel, if the project is getting too complex, it better to your Flex directly and create a database centric application instead of Using Captivate and doing workarounds. But again this is case by case.

Happy Flexing!!