Leave an Authorware file (on cd) and re-enter at the same place! 1

[PaulShotgun]

I am looking for an easy way to leave a packaged Authorware file and then re-enter at the same place?

My deliverable will be on CD, so I am assuming a small text file will have to be saved somewhere on the users hard drive when they leave, and read again when they return.

They enter a username at the start of the file(CBT project), so I am assuming the best way of re-entering will be to have a button available after they login that says "click here to return to a previous location"... or something, and then it will read the test file on their hard drive, and from that it will know where they were when they left.

The project is pretty linear, so even if it just took a record of the icon (IconID?) and then returned them there it would be fine.

I am using AW5.

Any ideas? It would be greatly appreciated!

Paul

 

[RonMcNutt]

Modify / File / Properties / Interaction - Click on "On Return: Resume". Authorware creates a 'yourfilename.rec' file in the Windows\AW5_Data directory in order to resume. Delete this file if you don't want the program resumed, leave it if you do. You need a small menu file to start your program if you want to do this (the menu file is always set to restart not resume) - you then ask the user in the menu file if they want to Restart or Resume the main program - it is is Resume you just jumpfile to the file (which is set to Resume), if it is Restart then you delete the yourmainfilename.Rec file before you jumpfile to the main file - then, failing to find the .rec file it will be forced to restart.

RonM

 

[PaulShotgun]

Thanks Ron - Really helpful.

However I am still experiencing problems. I do everything you say in your post, but when I resume my file it just shows a blank white presentation window and nothing else! Then I have force the program to close!

This is really annoying - I think I am so close to amking it work!

Any help greatly appreciated!
thanks,

Paul

 

[multimed]

I've had some problems with the resume method on the Modify / File / Properties / Interaction approach. One thing to try is to make sure you manually save the records before quitting--Authorware is supposed to automatically do this when you quit but under some circumstances, it doesn't seem to be enough--especially if you have a lot of variables--it's worth a try to put a calc icon right before your quit icon & just put "SaveRecords()" in it. This way, it should completely execute the SaveRecords() function prior to quitting.

Another point to consider is the location of your quit function. Depending on what sort of navigation you're using, the problem could be that Authorware is actually doing exactly what it should--it's returning to where it left off. For example, if you're using a Framework, and the user quits when they're on page 2 (in the second map hanging off the framework) when they return, that's where it will begin executing. And it won't execute any icons in the framework or anywhere else on the flowline besides what's in page 2. A background image that was previously loaded will still be there, and it will still display any buttons that are in the framework, but if for example, you erased the background image right before the quit, it won't redraw it when the user returns.

Personally, I've always found the way the Resume setting behaves to be more trouble than it's worth for most of the pieces I do. More often than not, if I need the program to pick up where the user left off, I will create my own bookmarking functionality.

steve