Adobe Captivate 3: What to Do When Links to External Projects Break

by Kevin A. Siegel

I've received a significant number of emails from Captivate developers who are having fits linking one Captivate project to another.

 

While linking projects together is a relatively simple process, and can be accomplished in more than one way (via a button, click box or end of project settings), the broken link problem won't present itself during the testing phase.

 

After publishing the project and the external projects, and then testing the links, many developers report that they are greeted with a less than friendly "Page Cannot Be Displayed" message. Why? More often than not, the culprit behind the broken links is one of the following:

1. Published files go to different folders. The source project and external projects must be published to the same root folder. (External projects, also known as targets, are those projects being linked to.)
   
   For example, if you link Project1 to Project2, Project1 is the source and Project2 is the target. You will need to publish both projects into the same folder.
   
   However, what typically happens during the publish phase of development is that Captivate projects are published into individual folders. In that case, clicking a link to the target from within source will not work. Why? The link inside the source won't be able to drill into the folder containing the target.
   
   The solution: Publish both source and target projects into the same folder.
   
   
2. The Project Titles are wrong. When creating the link to an external project, the published file name of the external project MUST be the same as as the one used in the source project. While this sounds like a simple thing to keep straight, every time you save a Captivate project with a new name, the name that appears in the Project Title area changes too.
   
   Here's the scenario: I wanted to create a link in Project1 that automatically opens an external project called Project2.
   
   Here's how I did it:
   
   I opened Project1 and chose Edit > Preferences.
   
   On the Start and End category, Project end options drop-down menu, I selected Open other project and then selected Project2.
   
   
   
   
   After that, I published the source project.
   
   All I needed to do now was publish any and all target projects and do a little testing.
   
   
   I opened the target project (Project2) and saved it with the name Project2_v2. (I tend to save my projects with updated names throughout the development process.)
   
   I knew I needed to publish the project with the Project Title Project2 because that's the name I used back in the source project.
   
   Upon clicking the Publish button, the Project Title changed to Project2_v2. Dohhhhh! If left alone, the link back in Project1 (that will be looking for a published file called Project2) will fail during testing.
   
   
    
   
   I changed the Project Title to Project2 and published. During the testing process, the links between the projects worked as expect.

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