Button on form to play a video - like a Flash rollover/play effect?

[legallogic-DqvA]

I have a bunch of forms that need to communicate complex information, and we are building in tool tips and explanations etc throughout them - but what would be ideal is if you could click on a button and have a video file play in the form/over the form - the idea being that we could use audio files and video files to communicate much more data.

I dont really mind if a new window is opened and resized to the middle of the screen to play the video, or if a frame /location is built into the form - i though i could perhaps use the geturl command on a button and point it to the video file - but i dont know if i can put a frame/designated play space into the form, or if i can open a new window and resize and centre it in the screen?

any pointers would be great - thanks

Also can you get flash style buttons/cutom picutres/art etc as buttons in livecycle - rather than the standard rectangle jobs that come built in?

thanks for the help folks,

as always its much appreciated.

[Niall_O_Donovan · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I think you have a few options here.

Thom Parker (Windjack Solutions) has an excellent example of a video within a PDF (developed in LC Designer). You can download the 10Mb file here http://www.windjack.com/DownLoads/MultimediaXFA.pdf

For complex solutions we sometimes do a series of short screen captures using Adobe Captivate. These focus on particular parts of the form, rather that one continuous video. The next step you can do in earlier version of Acrobat, but the implementation in version 9 is best (if your users have v9 Acrobat or Reader).

In Acrobat we insert the .SWF files from Captivate into a blank PDF (you can set up a corporate background to the PDF, rather than a blank white one). In v9 you can insert the .SWF files as Flash objects or as Movie objects. You can also include basic instruction about the form, e.g. how to...

Then package the form and the help file in a portfolio. This way you are placing the form and the help file together, side by side. The video does not take over the form, but is close to hand for new users to the form or experienced users who want a refresher.

Lastly one benefit to this approach is that the bytes from the video are not sitting in your form (they are in the help file), so that when the form is submitted, you are only getting the form and not the video as well.

This is one we did to demonstrate a system. The buttons on the left had mouseEnter and click actions; with the info appearing in the main area.

In that particular form, we also had a static image that appeared over the lefthand fields when the user hovered over one of the fields on the righthand side. This allowed the user to see additional information that they would need in order to fill out that field.

Lastly (phew...) the blue guidance field at the bottom changed depending on which field the user was hovering over. This gave written instructions / guidance for each field. It was a simple mouseEnter event script: guide.rawValue = "some text";

Hope that helps,

Niall

[legallogic-DqvA]

wow, niall - thats really helpful, thank you!

Just to clarify one point (still a bit of a newbie, sorry) - can the acrobat portfolio function package a livecycle generated form and an acrobat generated form into the one portfolio; ie can you have the livecyle questionare and the pdf video and text guide in the one portfolio? and if so is there any limitation on how you can distribute the portfolio - ie do you need to use abode form server or anything like that? We would want people to be able to download the portfolio via our webstie, also we would look to distribute a whole raft of similar portfolios, that operate together to form our product range (once we have one that works!!) on dvd  to our clients (so that we can load up on the interactive content/guidance without blowing the website out to multigig status)

even the example additional information is osmething cool we had not though of (as a startup we are not blessed with a form designer) _ so thanks for that also _ being really cheeky, i dont suppose you might be preparesd to share a code a code sample of how that section works -

I'll have a look at thom's video too (i know he has some great tut's) _

Much appreciated

Reagrds

Greg

[Niall_O_Donovan]

Hi Greg,

You can put all sorts of files into a portfolio. As long as the recipient has the application to open them. I have uploaded an example onto Acrobat.com (https://share.acrobat.com/adc/document.do?docid=1bbc9d04-e11d-4596-ad4d-6235dc4f380d). Please note that this should be used in Acrobat/Reader version 9.

Here is an example of a form with an additional guidance note.

Good luck,

Niall

[legallogic-DqvA]

Niall, thank you very much for this information. It is great to see such a supportive forum, and I really appreciate it.

Cheers

[legallogic-DqvA]

Niall,

Thank you very much for the help and support on the question

regards

greg