Topic: Training manual in Flash

My boss has asked me to develop a training CD to compliment our personal training. It's not going to be anything fancy, more like an enhancement to our conventional paper manuals.

I'm just looking for some suggestions on how to put this together. There is going to be a lot of content and I'm uncertain as to whether I should use scenes for the various chapters or if I should use seperate .swf files.

Basically we know exactly the platform (WinNT), the resolution, this is going to run on because its going to be included with our system. I was thinking about use a Window's Projector file since I've never been in a pharmacy that uses Apple and it would prevent us from having to install the Flash player in our software builds.

I'd just like somethings to think about while developing this. Are there any limitations to using a .exe file?

Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Must you use flash exclusively?

About 75% of my job is developing on-line/CD-ROM training. If you can afford it (in terms of money and your own learning time) I'd suggest incorporating flash, text, avi and jpg/gif into an Authorware or maybe a Director piece. These software packages are incredable powerful...far more powerful than flash. Easier to update content, create templates...all the things you are going to want.

I can go into more detail if you're interested, or have specific questions.

mobrul

What do you mean when you say Authorware?

Authorware is a Macromedia product.

It is an 'authoring' tool -- originally for CD-ROM authoring but now for web based stuff and hybrids too -- used to develop multi-media pieces. (I know all of that is self-referencial...let's see if I can do this any better.)

Alright, you collect the stuff you want to show people. Multi-media -- text, audio, video, flash animation, graphics, whatever -- Authorware provides a method by which you can organize this stuff, put it into courses, chapters, units, sub-units, etc.
You design the GUI.
You write the content.
You script various actions.
(real world applications:
you can design tests for each chapter -- if your customer gets a certain % wrong you can make them take that chapter again...or just put a sign on the screen that calls them a dumb ass
or it could be something as simple as sounding a 'beep' when they get a wrong answer
...just examples. Scripting is very flexible...do almost anything you want, or nothing at all but present a series of 'slides' for viewing. It's up to you how complicated you get.)

When you are finished designing your course, you 'package' it into an executable, burn it and auxilary files to a CD, burn 25,000 copies and pass 'em out to all your favorite pharmacists.
They put this CD into any computer with a CD-ROM drive and go to town...learning all there is to know about all those robots.

I'm sure Macromedia does a better job of marketing their products than I do

I use this product virtually everyday and love it. Ask any questions you want.

mobrul