<Steve Howard> :-) not bad in a week
<Barbara Brown> Something threw me off.
<Steve Howard> Hey Paul - Paul who??????
<Amy Blankenship> did you resize?
<Paul> Just a newbie
<andrew lucking> gotta keep the launching window open too
<Steve Howard> don't be shy :-D
<Amy Blankenship> OK, if we try to keep up with who is here and say hi to everyone, we won't
get much discussion done :-)
<Joe Ganci> Paul, you're not JUST a newbie...wear the badge proudly! ;-)
<Steve Howard> Yeah keep it open, and don't use it to browse
<Amy Blankenship> Newbies keep us on our toes
<Paul> Thanks for the welcome:-)
<Paul> I'm in the UAE
<Amy Blankenship> You've come a long way, then
<Steve Howard> WOW ... first middle-east contender
<Paul> Yep
<Barbara Brown> AMY - I'm on the phone with a guy and he's in a chat
room with some other person but not with all of us.
<Amy Blankenship> wow
<Amy Blankenship> what path did he take to get here
<Steve Howard> tell them to go out and come back in
[Sat Apr 13 10:41:00 CDT 2002] Alex Hogan has no profile.
<Barbara Brown> There are two of them. They have gone out and come
back.
<Amy Blankenship> Actually, Paul, we're depending on the newbies to help drive the discussion
<Amy Blankenship> Welcome Alex
<Amy Blankenship> :-)
<Steve Howard> back to where we were - you are right Joe, the bast way to
learn is to try to write about it
<Alex Hogan> Thanks..., Good morning everybody
<Bernard> or to teach it
<Steve Howard> Barbara - did they access through the Chat page?
Obvious I know, but ...
<Joe Ganci> yep, teaching or writing does the trick
<Amy Blankenship> Or just answer a lot of ng questions
<Joe Ganci> that's why I wrote the functions manual to begin with...I wanted
to learn them better
<Steve Howard> I guess I should look at teaching then, otherwise I'll never
learn
[Sat Apr 13 10:42:18 CDT 2002] Suzanne: ID using AW 5.2 Goal: to deliver
web-based lessons to anyone with an Internet connection.
<Barbara Brown> Yes, they accessed Amy's home page, then Chat,
entered their name and clicked Chat.
<Amy Blankenship> Unfortunately, I am not in control over the chat itself
[Sat Apr 13 10:42:45 CDT 2002] Mark Steiner: Somewhat hunched and
aging ; )
<Amy Blankenship> Hey Mark
<Amy Blankenship> you geezer
<Steve Howard> Mark that is a lie and you know it
<Mark Steiner> hello
<Amy Blankenship> The goal is to move to an AW only chat
<Steve Howard> Hi Suzanne
<andrew lucking> hi, mark - no slouching!
<Suzanne> Greetings all
<Steve Howard> that would be much better - more control, and faster bug
fixes
<andrew lucking> and realllly cool to boot!
<Alex Hogan> Gram what do you mean by obvious?
<Steve Howard> well where do you want to start Grace? Lots of it is
common sense if you can remember back to floppy-disc delivery, but
blind science to total newbies
<Gram> Using small graphics and chunking things in the file
<Suzanne> I'm new to chats, so pls excuse any breaches of etiquette )
<Amy Blankenship> We are a tough crowd to offend
<andrew lucking> here's a web del question - any magic bullets for large
flcs? transparency is a must
<Steve Howard> we don't do etiquette - beyond no name calling ;-)
<Joe Ganci> almost always it's the media that causes slow delivery -
authorware code itself is very compact
<Gram> I'm interested in controlling what happens on the web side. Closing
windows...using JavaScript in Authorware...
<Steve Howard> how large is large Andrew?
[Sat Apr 13 10:46:14 CDT 2002] gorsky has no profile.
<Barbara Brown> Yea! Lee you made it.
<Amy Blankenship> I think for flcs the best you can do is break it down among multiple movie
icons
<Mark Steiner> Does anyone have some code to display something when
the cab files is automatically downloading?
<andrew lucking> >80K and some are big
<Steve Howard> well I have done quite a lot of shoehorning AW with
JavaScript over the last few weeks have you got specific Q's Grace .. er
Gram
<gorsky> Yeah. This is a different machine with a different version of java
<Mark Steiner> something=feedback . . . User: don't worry, some
downloading's going on
<Amy Blankenship> Grace: One fun thing I have done is used text in layers to provide feedback
on the page that changes as the lesson progresses
<Amy Blankenship> Like "please wait while the lesson loads" "Please don't close this window"
and "OK, you're done"
<Steve Howard> I used Layers one time to show a loading sequence while
the plugin downloaded
<Mark Steiner> SPECIFICALLY when they don't have the plugin and its
downloading
<Steve Howard> then told Authorware to poke a function in the web p[age to
switch layers when loading was complete
<Gram> I'd like to show something on the web page that tells the user the
course is loading then have the web page close when I quit. How difficult
is this?
<Bernard> Can you do something in Flash to act as a loader
<Steve Howard> if you use layers you can make a loading sequence with
anything
<Amy Blankenship> Mark, if you don't mind using OnTop or OntopMinimize you can hide the
control and show whatever you want
<Gram> Amy, are those layers in the html? That's the type of thing I'd like to
see?
<Suzanne> I want to deliver to the lowest common denominator re
computer and modem speed. The lessons work fine, but downloading
the plug in seems insurmountable for the low end user.
<Steve Howard> Suzanne are you using AW 6 or 5
<Suzanne> 5.2
<Amy Blankenship> Grace, what you do is control the visibility of the lasers with CSS
[Sat Apr 13 10:49:32 CDT 2002] Ole Kristensen has no profile.
<Bernard> You can achieve a lot if you have some relationship with the
end-user
<Amy Blankenship> then cal JS from AW that changes the class on the fly
<Bernard> send the plug-in out on CD for example
<Gram> Thanks Amy...I guess that's getting into DHTML and not
Authorware per se.
<Steve Howard> OK, well it has the minimal plugin that is 800k - you have
to add Xtras but it means you can get started more quickly than if you
download the full 4Mb plugin
<Amy Blankenship> Suzanne, if you use the automatic download code from Macromedia, the
main thing the user should have to put into it is time
<Amy Blankenship> it is a combination, Grace
<Bernard> Grace if you're using Dreamweaver then you can control the
layers over time or on actions very easily
<Gram> Spoke too soon...that is Authorware...just what I was asking
about...J
<Amy Blankenship> I think the direction AW will have to go will involve more integration
between AW and the web page
<Joe Ganci> That's for sure
<Steve Howard> If you want to mess with the default web behaviour you
have little choice but to play with JavaScript, CSS, DHTML
<Joe Ganci> What was the original question again?
<Amy Blankenship> Which one? :-D
<Steve Howard> from who Joe? From Grace?
<Joe Ganci> uhm.... :-D
<Joe Ganci> the questions that has generated this discussion...was it how
to make web delivery as smooth as possible?

<Joe Ganci> ah, ok...yep, there's no getting around DHTML for that sort of
thin
<Alex Hogan> I think some one asked how to use Flash as a loading screen
for aware
<Amy Blankenship> that's not an easy task
<Gram> So...where do you (quickly) find the JS information that makes all
this possible
<Steve Howard> using JS is easy - you just call the function with ReadURL.
After that you just need to decide what you want JS to do
<Bernard> I think that was me Flash to load AW. Not a question, but a
suggestion
<Amy Blankenship> You need to look at the Document Object model to figure out how to refer
to objects
<gorsky> Do people tend to include the libraries or keep them separate
when delivering on-line?
<Joe Ganci> www.javascript.com has tons of javascript that you can
choose from and use
<Amy Blankenship> and you need to look at CSS
<Gram> But which function do you call? Where can you find information
about the JS functions and what they do?
<Joe Ganci> one approach we used with a large gov't agency was to have
an installer file that users would download first. the installer would
include...
<Amy Blankenship> You have to write your won function
<Steve Howard> also, as Bernard says you can get a good ruining start if
you employ Dreamweaver to do your initial layering code. It is real easy to
get started with. Then you go in and tidy it up
<Joe Ganci> libraries, external media files, and other ancillary files
needed. it also installed the plug in and any other aids needed
<Gram> I package libraries with the program when delivering on-line...even
if they're used by several courses.
<Steve Howard> Grace that is a waste of download time
<Amy Blankenship> Grace, what you'll need to do is call object.classname="different class"
<Joe Ganci> that meant that the only stuff being downloaded from the web
site during the normal course of things was authorware code. it ran
almost as fast as off a cd
<Steve Howard> libraries should be external in that case
<Joe Ganci> normally, I package libraries and external media internally, the
map file then takes care of everything (almost)
<Gram> Yes...but it's necessary if you're deploying over a period of time
and not all lessons are ready at the same time.
<Amy Blankenship> But they still have to go through that long setup process
<Amy Blankenship> there does not seem to be a way around a long setup
<Joe Ganci> yes, it's true.
<Alex Hogan> Joe were you using any kind of back end or just aware code
and libraries
<Joe Ganci> they preferred doing it at the beginning one time only though
<Steve Howard> I did something similar a couple of years ago - 60k of AW
code, and loads of external files. Just pass a directory location to the AW
engine and run the course. One engine handled all modules. Worked
really fast, better than "traditional" web page
<Amy Blankenship> Grace...an idea I got from Steve is that you download zip files containing
some of your course elements
<Amy Blankenship> you unzip them where you want them
<Amy Blankenship> once the files are down it runs almost as fast as from CD
<Joe Ganci> back end? no. we did write an installer exe that they
downloaded and ran once...it also got around the security window issues
because the installer changed the awshkwv.ini file to trust our site
<Joe Ganci> they in essence were trusting our site by downloading the exe
and running it
<Gram> That sounds like a good idea ... but you'd need to provide updates if
those externals ever changed
<Amy Blankenship> Sure, I built in a simple text file that contained a version number for each
zip file
<Steve Howard> so what kind of updates do you have in mind?
<Amy Blankenship> the web file compared versions every time it ran
<Steve Howard> If you have a dynamic course it is easy
<Joe Ganci> actually, gram, in a later project we took care of that by having
our aw code check for updates of external files every time the user
started the course. it would then download any updates and overwrite the
older files
<Joe Ganci> it was slick, we use that approach a lot now
<Alex Hogan> I did something similar with a gov contract in that we used
Oracle to store all of the text content, a majority of reusable code and
pointers to rich media
<Gram> If you have phased deployment and the libraries were external,
you'd need to update those with each new course that was released.
<Amy Blankenship> I prefer to use internally packaged libraries too
<Amy Blankenship> It just seems less hassle
<Alex Hogan> we then had the users download and install the rich media to
predetermined directories and they ran the course on-line
<Amy Blankenship> And does not add that much to the file size
<Steve Howard> forget libraries in that case, Grace, make ALL content
external - the development cycle is a little longer, but the updating of
courses is far simpler
<Mark Steiner> depends on what's in them ; )
<Amy Blankenship> I like to do stuff like that quietly in the background, Alex :-)
<gorsky> On the hassle issue: That one-button publishing sure took away
a lot of headaches for me.
<Amy Blankenship> Yes
<Gram> Sorry, Steve, I can't live without libraries even when the content is
external.
<Amy Blankenship> added a few, but took away more
<Paul> While folks are chatting, is there a smooth running aware piece on
the web anyone could suggest I take a look at?
<Steve Howard> OBP is wonderful when you are doing simple stuff - but it
can add a couple of headaches
<Joe Ganci> me too...obp rules!
<Barbara Brown> Paul what do you mean by smooth?
<Mark Steiner> I've had some problems with it crashing AW, anyone else?
<andrew lucking> things to watch for Steve?
<gorsky> I haven't ran into the headaches yet. What have you folks seen?
<Joe Ganci> the bane of our industry is that most of our web based projects
are behind firewalls and logins...anyone?
<Paul> Well, not a lot of wait time while it downloads I guess
<Gram> I've had OBP crash on some course files. I'm forced to package
those manually.
<Steve Howard> I tend to use libraries all the time, but if I know certain parts
will change and I have a delivery machanism like you describe, I'd use
external media - is just a different way to achieve the same thing
<Barbara Brown> I had a problem with a firewall. We had to change the
audio to internal.
<Alex Hogan> Getting past firewalls is probably the single biggest issue I've
run into
<Amy Blankenship> We have all kinds of IT problems
<Gram> Have to bow out for a while...my Mom's on the phone
<Amy Blankenship> Our IT department constantly changes stuff that screws up our courses
<David Lynch> Paul what type of a connection do you have
<Bernard> Paul try this URL www.kgv.ac.uk/vle/web/vle.htm

<gorsky> Joe: another bane of my existence is that there are so many
LMSs and the word 'standard' has not been standardized yet.
<Paul> A poor ADSL connection
<Bernard> use the username ff and a password of password
<Steve Howard> Paul the issue with long download times is that mostly the
stuff in the public real is folk showing off- and they are more interested in
being on the web than in optimizing for web delivery
<Amy Blankenship> Lee, LMS's will be their own chat, in due time ;-)
<Barbara Brown> Paul, I have an online game on my website in the
"games" section of www.babrown.com
<Bernard> don't complain about the content, its more of a pilot site at the
moment
<gorsky> OK Amy
<Joe Ganci> agreed, lee!
<Steve Howard> LMSs are almost all crap. Stitched together with chewing
gum
<Suzanne> Paul, take a look at www.mmhtraining.com.
<Amy Blankenship> I built a mini lms a couple of weeks ago
<Amy Blankenship> I think if we all put our heads together, we could build one that we liked for
AW delivery
<Amy Blankenship> But, LMS's are another day
<Amy Blankenship> :-)
[Sat Apr 13 11:05:03 CDT 2002] Paul: Mac
<Steve Howard> The issue is being compliant - have you seen the docs ??
THEY are spaghetti
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, that is why it would need heads
<Amy Blankenship> but LMS's ARE ANOTHER DAY
<Amy Blankenship> We were talking about web delivery ;-)
<Joe Ganci> hey, Amy, can we talk about LMSes another day?
<Amy Blankenship> Ok, Joe, if you insist
<Joe Ganci> :-)
<Bernard> I'm working on an LMS that is for web delivery - when can we
talk about that?
<Amy Blankenship> LOL
<Steve Howard> Alex - you asked what to look out for with OBP - there is
nothing wrong with it per se - what I am referring to is that if your packaging and delivery needs are complex, it can be difficult to get it to do what you want. Of course if you are being so smart you can easily go back to the 'old fashioned' methods
<Amy Blankenship> One problem that really perplexed me was getting extra copies of u32's and Xtras when packaging
<gorsky> Even with OBP, though you still need to go into the aam file and
make some changes to get exactly what you want
<gorsky> But I like that it rounds up the Xtras for you
<Bernard> particularly if you are using external media
<Amy Blankenship> Turns out you have to go into each library FROM EACH FILE THAT USES IT and turn off the files you don't want
<Steve Howard> what editing are you doing Lee?
<gorsky> I never got extra copies of Xtras.
<Gram> But OBP seems to miss some U32s...RTFobj.u32 for one
<Alex Hogan> I didn't ask about OBP, but thanks for the info
<Amy Blankenship> Have you ever delivered multiple modules that shared assets?
<gorsky> making my swf files download on demand and recycle.
<gorsky> I'll bet there is a setting for this.
<Amy Blankenship> Gorsky...there was a tip for that this week on my mailing list.
<Amy Blankenship> You will be able to see it when I get my "Archive" page going
<Steve Howard> Ah :-) you can add files with the add files button, but I
guess you are right, you cannot change the attributes for each file
(recycle etc.) from OBP
<Barbara Brown> I've helped develop a piece that is different modules, but
uses many of the same u32, etc.
[Sat Apr 13 11:09:37 CDT 2002] Paul: Mac
<Amy Blankenship> you can, actually
<Amy Blankenship> but the problem is the ondemand
<Amy Blankenship> you have to demand it from within the file
<Steve Howard> Is OnDemend the only one you cannot change?
<Amy Blankenship> it doesn't automatically come down at the beginning
<Gram> You can create an Authorware file to read in the map file and make
any additions necessary to it.
<gorsky> And I like the on demand so that the front end download is held to
a minimum.
<Steve Howard> Yeah me too
<Amy Blankenship> lee, so I don't have to look you up in the aware archives, what is your address? I'll forward you the tip
<gorsky> gorsky@xbx.com
<Joe Ganci> the map file is just text, which is great. I've always appreciated
that about the aam file
<Barbara Brown> Lee, be sure to tell Amy your problems with getting in the
chat - later.
<gorsky> thanks
<Amy Blankenship> Barbara, so you know what I mean about OBP creating that subdirectory for each a6p file that includes all the Xtras, etc.
<gorsky> BB: will do
<Barbara Brown> yes Amy
<Paul> Barbara, your squares games is working nicely.
<Amy Blankenship> That is aggravating, isn't it?
<Barbara Brown> Thanks Paul
<Steve Howard> what is aggravating?
<Barbara Brown> Yes, Amy but so often much of this work is
<Amy Blankenship> :-D
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, but the extra xtras that I could not figure out how to get rid of had me stumped for a bit
<Steve Howard> There is a good point about the aam being a text file - does it say anywhere in the docs about using a text editor to edit them?
<Amy Blankenship> Pardon me for disappearing now and then...I am trying to keep up
with the log
<gorsky> I don't know about the docs
<Steve Howard> There seems to a be huuge empty void where web packaging info should be
<Amy Blankenship> So much about learning AW isn't in the docs
<gorsky> But I've gotten into the habit of making a template aam file for a project that I
can cut and paste from for the exceptions I need.
<Barbara Brown> You can edit the aam through the web packager. You don't need a
text editor.
<Amy Blankenship> I guess they figure OBP makes up for it LOL
<Suzanne> Steve - here, here!
<Steve Howard> yes, true, and the same for most things, but now more than ever good info about web
packaging needs to be made available
<Amy Blankenship> That's a great idea, Lee
<Steve Howard> OBP does not solve the problems on its own
<Barbara Brown> OBP can make it worse for new people.
<Steve Howard> Barbara I know you can - and it is a right ******* pain to do so. Text editor is way
faster
<gorsky> BB: I agree. Struggling with packaging is what taught me how to work around
the issues.
<Barbara Brown> I mean, they become complacent with the OBP and don't learn what
everything does.
<Steve Howard> Yes exactly
<gorsky> I would hate to think that you could really do anything all the time with only one button.
<Amy Blankenship> Kind of like KO's
<Joe Ganci> I've actually started writing a book about web publishing more than once, but never got it off the ground. While I think I have some good tips and such, I think it's better to get a lot of input from everyone before writing it, and I've never tried it
<Suzanne> Yes, and that leaves us with AW5 in the dark
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, we'd be out of work :D
<Joe Ganci> besides, there are probably those who are better qualified than i am, who
live and breathe web publishing every day
<Steve Howard> so should we try to arrange more FAQs about web packaging? I have a couple of
good bits of info on my site, but it is hardly comprehensive
<gorsky> Even elevators (or lifts) have more than one button
<Amy Blankenship> I have a few too
<Amy Blankenship> But where would we put it?
<Joe Ganci> authorware.com, of course ;-)
<Amy Blankenship> Hit hog LOL
<Steve Howard> Well any of yes could host it - I'll volunteer
<Barbara Brown> All of us with sites can put it up. That will give a broad audience.
<Amy Blankenship> I think it is a good idea. We can each contribute our web packaging FAQs
<Joe Ganci> good point
<Barbara Brown> But who's going to compile it.
<Amy Blankenship> And we can link back and forth
<Bernard> Got to go and eat. I'll read the archive later. Bye all
<Steve Howard> well [I might regret saying this] but I don't mind compiling info, hosting some, linking etc.
<Amy Blankenship> I think that anyone with web Faq's should link to the central location
<Steve Howard> see ya Bernard
<Barbara Brown> Good idea Amy
<Amy Blankenship> and the central location should link back out to the other sites
<gorsky> Maybe everyone with tips could send them to a central person to put into a
FAQ
<Amy Blankenship> because the other sites have OTHER AW info, not just web
packaging
<Steve Howard> And we all link to that central FAQ and to each other - we're back to the Web ring :-D
<gorsky> and maybe that person is Steve???
<Steve Howard> Like I say, I am happy to do it. I already have some web packaging tips anyway ...
<Alex Hogan> What if you had a search that went to everyone's site on the topics asked
about?
<Amy Blankenship> Actually, I do have a Metasearch on my site
<Amy Blankenship> It really needs better keywords
<Steve Howard> you mean a "Search AW Sites" search?
<Amy Blankenship> Yes
<Alex Hogan> Yep
<Steve Howard> COOL
<Steve Howard> Ehem - so now I gotta learn Perl?:D
<Barbara Brown> How are the keywords set up Amy?
<Amy Blankenship> The sites that are on it are ones that are on the "add a link" site
<gorsky> Speaking of web packaging. What would you all guess that ratio is of your CD:
web delivered projects?
<Amy Blankenship> They can happen one of two wasy
<andrew lucking> that's easy, just write a book about it Steve
<Alex Hogan> I mean there's a lot of information out there and a great deal is duplicated in one fashion or another
<Amy Blankenship> When I put the site into the Metasearch, it "spiders" the site
<Steve Howard> I have not delivered to CD in a year. But my latest project
is CD. All others have been intranet
<Barbara Brown> My current project is for a LAN.
<Steve Howard> Cool - I never thought of writing a Perl book before :S
<Amy Blankenship> If the spider gets a bunch of nonsense, I look through the page and try to
come up with something coherent
<Amy Blankenship> I have done mostly CD, but my future is all web
<Barbara Brown> My last project was web delivery and this current one on
the LAN might eventually go to Web
<Steve Howard> Are we all agreed this is a worthwhile project? All raise
your hands ... er ... say Yay or Nay .. :-D
<Gram> I've done only two web delivery projects. My current one is
cross-platform CD.
<andrew lucking> we've been doing a big conversion from CD to web -
plenty of headaches & rather monotonous
<Barbara Brown> YAY
<gorsky> YAY
<Alex Hogan> I'm currently on my first non-web project in almost three
years
<David Lynch> yay
<Gram> YAY
<Suzanne> Yay
<Alex Hogan> Yay
<Steve Howard> COOL
<David Lynch> most of mine is CD web is new
<Amy Blankenship> absolutely yay :-)
<Joe Ganci> haha
<Steve Howard> So I am volunteered
<Alex Hogan> Yay
<Amy Blankenship> But my site can handle the metasearch
<Steve Howard> Hey you quit laughing at me Joe
<Barbara Brown> Yes Steve you are volunteered
<Steve Howard> :-(
<Steve Howard> OK :D
<Joe Ganci> I wasn't laughing at you, I was laughing WITH you ;-)
<Amy Blankenship> I just did a weird one that was hard drive based, but downloaded part of
itself from the web
<Amy Blankenship> I was just laughing near you
<Steve Howard> So you will all be working on your favourite tips tonight in
front of the TV yeah?
<David Lynch> a hybrid
<gorsky> Yeah, but for a lot of us, the night is still a long time away.
<Barbara Brown> Sorry, Steve, my husband's coming back from 6 weeks
in London this afternoon. No TV tonight.
<Steve Howard> One of my current projects is a weirder hybrid than that.
Web packaged files are stored locally, served through PWS, but the are
accessed through Docent on a remote server
<Steve Howard> Lucky you Barbara - I won't grudge you a quiet night in ;-D
<gorsky> Steve: maybe your next project can be a little more convoluted.
<Alex Hogan> Steve, how do you get those?
<Steve Howard> Figners cressod
<Amy Blankenship> People know he is smart, so they track him down for the toughies
<Steve Howard> I have this reputation that means folk offer me work like
that
<Amy Blankenship> he can't spell, but he is smart ;-)
<Steve Howard> <blush>
<Amy Blankenship> Paul and Suzanne, don't be shy
<Joe Ganci> Steve is the man - everyone knows Steve
<Mark Steiner> who's Steve?
<Mark Steiner> ; )
<Suzanne> I'm just looking on in amazement :)
<Steve Howard> <blushing more>
<Amy Blankenship> if we are not giving you total attention, it is because there is a lot of chat going on
<David Lynch> me too
[Sat Apr 13 11:30:44 CDT 2002] JSM: TX Dept of Health
<Alex Hogan> Steve's the guy who keeps his figners cressod
<Steve Howard> well you should barge in
<Suzanne> I'm not feeling left out, never fear ;)
<Steve Howard> :D You remembered :D
<Amy Blankenship> OK
<Amy Blankenship> Just trying to do my hostessly duty
<Steve Howard> Are we saying stuff that is useful?
<Amy Blankenship> ;-)
<Barbara Brown> Is that how Britishers say it Steve? Figners cressod?
<Steve Howard> if spellt badle
<Steve Howard> badly
<Steve Howard> :-)
<Amy Blankenship> Only Scorts
<Amy Blankenship> er, Scots
<Steve Howard> Nah - I just have a terrible tpying problem
<gorsky> Maybe that's Old English
<Barbara Brown> Did you just wash your hands and can't do anything with
them?
<Paul> I'm popping in and out
<Steve Howard> I wanna know who JSM is - you've missed some good
chat about web delivery
<Amy Blankenship> sure, blame the victim ;-)
<JSM> just got out of our Flash SIG
<Amy Blankenship> What, they finally started having meetings on weekends???
<Amy Blankenship> Heresy!
<Amy Blankenship> :D
<JSM> But, thought I would see if the chat was still going ...
<Mark Steiner> No its not hearsay, its real
<Steve Howard> Well here we are
<Steve Howard> Am I being dense? I haven't figured out "JSM"?
<Barbara Brown> OK JSM, Step out from behind the curtain
<Amy Blankenship> If I am not mistaken, that's Jim Morrison, from Austin
<Steve Howard> Ahhhh.
<Mark Steiner> isn't he in Paris?
<JSM> Steve
<Steve Howard> It all becomes just as cloudy ;-)
<Amy Blankenship> Oops
<JSM> Jim died some years ago :)
[Sat Apr 13 11:34:29 CDT 2002] Rick Zanotti: rzanotti@relate.com
<Steve Howard> Hey Rick.
<Barbara Brown> Another newcomer
<Amy Blankenship> Hi, Rick
<Amy Blankenship> glad you could make it
<gorsky> Everyone say Hello to Rick
<Amy Blankenship> At least I got the last name right
<David Lynch> hey Rick
<Barbara Brown> Hey Rick, you on the wrong time zone?
<Rick Zanotti> Hi Folks, I made it!!! Sorry I'm late
<Joe Ganci> greetings Richard
<Suzanne> Well, I will leap in. My issue, the blasted plugin. With much help
from the MM list I was finally able to get IE to work with my stuff, but still haven't got Netscape to work. I have a new computer - XP. Any known
problems with XP and NS6?
<Alex Hogan> Hello Rick
<Amy Blankenship> How are you? Feeling ok?
<Steve Howard> To recap for the guys who just arrived ... we have
decided theater I am going to host/gather together loads of web delivery tips, since the AW docs are so empty of such info
<Amy Blankenship> How are you trying to install the plugin
<Rick Zanotti> Sore but fine... :)
<Amy Blankenship> good
<Joe Ganci> XP = Microsoft, Netscape = Microsoft competitor. I'd be
shocked if there weren't problems.
<gorsky> Anymore, you mean, than the fact that NN6 is a monster?
<Suzanne> I went to the plug in site and followed directions. To no avail. It's
on my system in the NS plugins folder, but still won't play the aam file.
<Steve Howard> I have successfully installed NS6.1 on XP - tell me more
about your problem
<Amy Blankenship> I think that the plugin was developed prior to NN6, so it may not be fully
tested against it
<Steve Howard> you have to run the exe file, not just place it in the folder
<Amy Blankenship> I wish Netscape would just go away
<Steve Howard> you downloaded a file called authorwarewebplayer.exe,
right?
<Amy Blankenship> it makes developing for the web about 20x harder than if IE were the only browser
<Suzanne> yes, I think I've tried everything, but there must be something I
did wrong :(
<gorsky> Amy, I couldn't agree with you more.
<Alex Hogan> Netscape is the Saddam Hussein of the browser world
<Steve Howard> Suzanne have you tried double-clicking on the exe file and
letting it rune? It is an installation program
<Steve Howard> er - rune = run
<Amy Blankenship> Have you tried running the NS installation routine from your CD?
<Suzanne> I did that at least once, but will do so again. Thanks!
<gorsky> Suzanne, did you remember to swing a dead chicken over your
head?
<Barbara Brown> Alex, actually wasn't Netscape first? Then Microsoft
became the Saddam Hussein
<Suzanne> You got that right!
<Amy Blankenship> but IE works better and has more features
<Amy Blankenship> and is more intuitive
<Alex Hogan> Well everything's right from a certain point of view
<Steve Howard> The thing is that NS 4.75 will autoinstall the player, but NS
6.x no longer will do that - you have to do it manually - and you have to
close/reopen the browser for it to work
<Suzanne> I want everyone, home user, etc. to be able to access the
materials - for free.
<Rick Zanotti> If Netscape died, do you think anyone would really notice?
<Joe Ganci> not me
<David Lynch> just the Mac guys I know
<Amy Blankenship> yes...web developers everywhere would have a drunken revel
<Rick Zanotti> LOL
<Steve Howard> it can be done, you just might have to make very clear
instructions for your users. I delivered generic stuff to a company in
Canada, it has an installer that worked for all versions of NS 4++ and IE
3++ - was a pain to do, but it works
<Rick Zanotti> AOL is having some major issues and Netscape could be a
victim of that soon (quote from news show)
<David Lynch> my question is why flash and shockwave come with ie but
not the aw player
<Suzanne> Any chance for a looksie?
<Mark Steiner> too big of file, to small of audience
<Alex Hogan> Good question David
<Rick Zanotti> Dave, I imagine it's because MM doesn't always talk to itself.
:)
<Amy Blankenship> Because MS is not going to put the kitchen sink into their browser
<Joe Ganci> David, no real surprise there - authorware is a niche market,
flash and shockwave is a consumer market product
<Barbara Brown> I still use Netscape Messenger for my email. I like it much
better than Outlook.
<David Lynch> what's another few meg
<Steve Howard> I can share info. You would have to host the installer on
your own server - the full thing is like 60MB or something
<gorsky> Mark, how big is the IE download now?
<Joe Ganci> oh, and the fact that aw often is the bastard stepchild at MM
<gorsky> I think its around 5 MB or so.
<Mark Steiner> lee, I'm not saying I agree, I'm just saying those are the
reasons
<Steve Howard> Shockwave is not part of IE6 - just Flash is
<Suzanne> DL, that was another question I have. At times the terms
shockwave and web player seemed synonymous. There're not?
<Amy Blankenship> I think Director is more of a stepchild than AW
<Mark Steiner> these days
<Rick Zanotti> Shockwave is definitely declining vs. Flash
<Amy Blankenship> No, that terminology dates back to Aw 4
<Barbara Brown> I didn't know shockwave was still around. I thought that
was an old term.
<Alex Hogan> Authorware has always been the red-headed stepchild
<gorsky> shockwave = Director Flash player = Flash AW Web Player =
Authorware
<Steve Howard> Shockwave was once Macromedia's name for everything
web delivered. It caused a lot of confusion, so now it is only Director that
uses the Shockwave name
<Amy Blankenship> They wanted everything web delivered to be shockwave
<gorsky> at least that's the way I understand it.
<Amy Blankenship> I kind of like red hair
<Rick Zanotti> Yep Marketing - remember the Attain fiasco?
<Mark Steiner> ouch
<Mark Steiner> ouch
<Steve Howard> Suzanne - mail me privately and we can talk more about
the delivery to the masses
<Amy Blankenship> Looks like the next DW will be called MX too
<Amy Blankenship> er, hon...giver your e.mail addy
<andrew lucking> and coldfusion mx too
<gorsky> btw: what's MX stand for, anyway?
<Steve Howard> Jennie is calling the new Flash ... Flash Attain ;-)
<Joe Ganci> the stepchild named biff!
<Amy Blankenship> MiXup
<Suzanne> Thanks Steve, will do.
<gorsky> :)
<Rick Zanotti> Amy, LOL
<Alex Hogan> I wonder if there'll ever be a day when Authorware is in the
spotlight with the others in the shadows
<Joe Ganci> the original brand they wanted to add was "achieve" but that
was already in use by another product, so they changed to attain...either
way, a fiasco
<Steve Howard> Amy thinks you might not have my address ... so just in
case ... steve@tomorrows-key.com
<Amy Blankenship> Honestly, I don't think Authorware per se will be
<Rick Zanotti> Could happen one day Alex
<Amy Blankenship> but if they take the AW concept in another direction, it well could be
<Alex Hogan> What other direction would that be
<Rick Zanotti> Most people who use Flash, non-programmers, are dying
with MX
<Steve Howard> I think Authorware is well placed for a high bandwidth
market. But it still needs beaten into a better shape
<Mark Steiner> if one fourth of this eLearning hype ever materializes ; )
<Joe Ganci> dream on, our audience is still too small for aw ever to
become the big product at mm...even with all the talk about elearning that
is in the news now, authorware isn't given due recognition at mm
<Alex Hogan> And it never has
<Suzanne> Amy was right on, thanks both.
<Rick Zanotti> Anyone think MM will sell AW off?
<Steve Howard> as a tool with the power for the job, it is well placed. Not
well marketed of course :-(
<Mark Steiner> wouldn't count it out, says Pathware
<Joe Ganci> who knows what aw would be today, better or worse, had it
remained at authorware inc.
<andrew lucking> interesting point Rick, I was at a flash demo this week and
when they asked the room how many used actionscript there were very
few hands in the air. scaring designers you think?
<Steve Howard> MM seems to have done a good job of placing the tools
they bought prominently in the market
<Joe Ganci> MM will sell aw off only if they lose money on it or can get a
higher price than they're earning
<Rick Zanotti> Lotus almost purchased AW with Pathware but the price
was too high then...
<Joe Ganci> but they turned down a lot of money in the past
<Joe Ganci> exactly
<Rick Zanotti> Andrew, that's totally correct
<andrew lucking> I was pretty pumped about that direction though...
<Steve Howard> Andrew the same thing happens with Director - Lingo
users are revered as specialists
<gorsky> Along the flash line, how many people are seeing their time
shifting from AW to Flash?
<Rick Zanotti> Graphic artists can be trained to do AW, but Flash MX is
gonna kill 'em :)

<Steve Howard> I did 2 months or so Flash work last year. I don';
<Steve Howard> I don't do design though]
<Steve Howard> most of my stuff contains flash animations
<Steve Howard> very little interaction between Flash and AW though
<Rick Zanotti> We're doing more Flash now due to customer requests
<andrew lucking> "flash remoding" was let out of the bag looks very cool!
<David Lynch> I use flash and or director for animations but always AW for
the driving engine
<gorsky> No, neither do I, but I do the scripting and design of the overall
structure.
<Amy Blankenship> I think graphic artists these days are graduating with more programming skills than ever
<Rick Zanotti> The plug-in size is almost the same now and not as big a
differentiator anymore
<Steve Howard> what is "Flash remoding" ???
<Alex Hogan> I find myself using Flash for a large amount of graphics and
menuing and the sort but AW as the delivery
[Sat Apr 13 11:51:35 CDT 2002] greg has no profile.
<gorsky> Hi Greg
<David Lynch> hi greg
<greg> Hello gang
<andrew lucking> bad name huh? somehow they were connecting directly
to the app server - no ReadURL stuff
<greg> Sorry I'm a little late
<Amy Blankenship> That's ok
<Rick Zanotti> Ho Greg, hey, I'm not the latest. :)
<Amy Blankenship> we are veering somewhat OT, but since time is almost over, that is cool with me
<greg> lol Rick
<greg> What's the topic now
<Joe Ganci> time for me to go...lots of errands today
<Joe Ganci> ciao for now
<andrew lucking> bye Joe
<Amy Blankenship> OK, have a good one
<greg> later Joe
<greg> Are we still talking about Authorware on the web?<Rick Zanotti> Do you think there will be an AW MX?
<David Lynch> can I ask a question not web related?
<Amy Blankenship> Sure
<Amy Blankenship> It is a free for all now
<andrew lucking> I really hope they tie it in Rick!!!
<Alex Hogan> I can see it now AW MX, drag n drop database connectivity
like UltraDev, Timeline like Director, ActionScript like Flash
<Amy Blankenship> greg, we are, but it is not narrowly targeted towards technically how to do it
<David Lynch> a client needs to be able to select backgrounds and text
fonts so they can decide what they like best
[Sat Apr 13 11:54:49 CDT 2002] Steve H: intermediate user
<Rick Zanotti> It would mean object-oriented scripting...
<Steve H> phooee - lost connection :-(
<David Lynch> so I put together a piece that uses box and fill for the top and
main areas
<andrew lucking> good or bad?
<David Lynch> and the text I am doing a jump and return
<David Lynch> for the font changes
<Amy Blankenship> I am not sure I am following you
<David Lynch> but each time the fill is done the text is removed
<Steve H> nor me - but I had a gap
<greg> At FedEx, we have about 200 hours of training on our intranet all
done with Authorware... a few embedded flash files... and LearningSpace
as the CMI
<David Lynch> where did I lose you?
<Steve H> this is where Authorware has it's real market - places like Fed-Ex
<Rick Zanotti> I'm hearing lots of issues with LearningSpace- how are you
guys with it?
<Paul> I have a newbie question before I depart...
<Amy Blankenship> How does the Jump and return come into it. And which function are you
using?
<greg> Yea, we can't really publicize the work that we do in Authorware, nor
show examples... but Authorware is almost our enterprise solution for
E-learning
<Steve H> the way I hear it LearningSpace 5 is the least troublesome LMS
<Gram> Rick...what are you hearing about Learning Space. I thought it
worked well with Authorware
<Amy Blankenship> Shoot, Paul
<Paul> Is NetPreLoad worth using?
<Steve H> Sort
<Steve H> sort of
<Amy Blankenship> It depends on what you want to accomplish
<Steve H> if you choose the right moment - a page where your user is
reading some text
<Rick Zanotti> One of our customers is having major support issues and
lots of bugs with AW
<greg> The only problems we have with learning space is that the
client-side applet that runs in the browser is a little quirky
<Mark Steiner> poor programming? ; )
<David Lynch> I needed to take the same paragraph and show it in 8
different fonts with a click of a button
<Gram> Paul, I think you need to use NetPreload if you're using onDemand
in the map file.
<Paul> So it has to be at a time when nothing is happening?
<David Lynch> one at a time
<Paul> So it won't hold things up?
<Steve H> because when you call NetPreload, AW stands still while the
download takes place
<Rick Zanotti> Is the Advanced Streamer gone in AW6? Haven't checked
yet...
<Amy Blankenship> David, why not use {Test(font=1, "Font1 Text, "")}{Test(font=2, "Font 2
text", "")}, etc.?
<Steve H> Advanced streamer should still be there
<greg> If you have the resources in your organization, it might be worth just
writing your own CMI.
<Alex Hogan> The Advanced Streamer is still there
<Steve H> greg this is not as easy as it sounds - it is better to go buy an
off-the-shelf solution for most folk
<Rick Zanotti> Anyone using it, Alex? It worked well last we tried it.
<David Lynch> still learning I guess
<Amy Blankenship> gorsky has an example on his site
<Alex Hogan> I have a project I'm using it on.
<Paul> I've never used onDemand...I should look into that
<Amy Blankenship> you may also want to look at DispText.u32 on the CD
<greg> Yea, I know... the only way to do it is if you have the resources... but
it is also the only way to get exactly what you want.
<Amy Blankenship> We've discussed building our own where I work
<Amy Blankenship> the boss said no because we only have 1 aw developer
<greg> We are discussing the same also
<greg> We have a guy that said he can do the whole thing plus more in
Java... all server side driven
<Rick Zanotti> Take a look at Xtention from www.teamxtend.com - it's a free
LMS written in ASP
<Amy Blankenship> I don't like the idea of making people download applets and such
<Steve H> the trouble is - getting what YOU want is not too difficult - getting
what SCORM, AICC etc want is a whole other thing
<andrew lucking> we've discussed the same - what we need to put together
is a nice open source development ;)
<Amy Blankenship> That would be cool.
<Steve H> The MediaShoppe have something like that don't they?
<Amy Blankenship> If we all worked together, we might be able to develop a compliant LMS
optimized for AW
<gorsky> Are we talking about an open source LMS?
<Rick Zanotti> Open Source would be cool...
<greg> Exactly Steve... In my case, we really don't have to worry about
SCORM or AICC, since we are on our own intranet and do everything
in-house.
<Steve H> that's easy - give Chris a shout ;-)
<andrew lucking> lucky you greg!
<greg> No applet Amy... All Java servlets that send straight HTML output to
the client browser. That is one of the issues with Learning Space... the
Applet
<Steve H> of course, Greg. Same for most places **today**. In fact I have
not seen anywhere where folk use the compliant LMS's to deliver
compliant courseware - at least not courseware that utilizes the three
million features available to them. But some day they may HAVE to.
<Gram> Have to go now. Bye all...
<Steve H> See ya Grace
<JSM> will watch for future chats - bye
<Rick Zanotti> "Balanced Scorecard for HR" new book which could tie in to
MS work...
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, you never know when you might want to buy something that can interoperate
<Amy Blankenship> have a good one Steve M
<Steve H> for most folk, just knowing John Doe took the course and passed
the test is plenty. No need for any half-million dollar solution for that is
there?
<greg> Yea Andrew, we are pretty lucky... Our designers just tell us what
metrics they want tracked... and we send everything out through PostURL
to Oracle.
<greg> bye gram
<gorsky> Amy, looks like LMSs are on everyone's mind.
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, another day :-D
<Amy Blankenship> We really should end this now. I am sure people have taxes and such to do
[Sat Apr 13 12:08:04 CDT 2002] Ron McNutt: anti Dave Burnett
<Rick Zanotti> Carol Fallon's done a great job with her product - she's on
the right track
<Steve H> LOL
<Steve H> good profile Ron
<Steve H> Yeah she has the right idea
<Amy Blankenship> So would that make you Christ Ron?
<Amy Blankenship> :-P
<David Lynch> c ya thanks for the day and advice
<Rick Zanotti> Bye folks, this is fun! Thanks Amy
<Steve H> K David
<Amy Blankenship> Have a good one, David
<Suzanne> Thanks so much! I learned a great deal and hope to attend
more chats!
<Barbara Brown> anti Dave Burnett???
<greg> Thanks for the chat... I will try to be earlier next week
<Amy Blankenship> Have a good one Suzanne
<Mark Steiner> you mean Mr. Personality?
<Steve H> Did we say something to offend these folks?
<Amy Blankenship> I said "let's end it"
<Amy Blankenship> ;-)
<Steve H> Oh - seems to me like since folk are still chatting ...#
<greg> Amy, will you post the next chat time on the AWARE list?
<Steve H> plus I want to hear more from Ron ;D
<Amy Blankenship> Sorry, Ron...you kind of walked in at the end
<Amy Blankenship> Absolutely
<greg> ok, thanks
<Amy Blankenship> will probably be an evening again
<Barbara Brown> The REAL time?
<Barbara Brown> Evening for us?
<Steve H> Oh thanks
<Amy Blankenship> I want to rotate between weekends and evenings to try to give everyone a chance to attend
<Steve H> you are so kind
<Steve H> :-(
<Amy Blankenship> hem
<greg> Bye everyone
<Amy Blankenship> the real time
<Steve H> <sniff>
<Amy Blankenship> :-)
<Mark Steiner> bye
<Amy Blankenship> Have a good one Mark
<Amy Blankenship> Thanks for dropping in
<Alex Hogan> Gotta go...., bye everyone
<Amy Blankenship> Yes, the evening for us
<gorsky> Bye everyone. Thanks Amy.
<Barbara Brown> Bye all, Lee I'll call you during the week.
<Steve H> Se ya
<Amy Blankenship> thanks Alex
<Amy Blankenship> Appreciate it much