No. When you publish your publication you get a version that runs entirely independently and needs nothing else to be distributed with it, or installed on the computer on which it is viewed.
The exception to this is any object viewed in a DocView object and either Flash or QuickTime movies. These objects need the original software or a viewer for that file format to be installed on the computer you want to show the publication on. Most computers have Microsoft Office. Adobe Acribat and Adobe Flash installed so DOC, PPT, XLS, PDF and SWF files are usually no problem.
You only need to distribute additional files if you have used the Launch action to play a particular file such as a PDF or a PPT, or have included a DocView object to view a file. All other files, including video will be incorporated into (or published alongside) the final publication (which is why you need to be careful with large video resources).
Note:
This means that files launched using Launch action must be manually distributed with your publication, or included in the Publish Settings using the Additional Files option. On the Launch Action dialog there is an option to copy the file you are launching to the publicaiton directory to assist with this. There is also an option to Store in Published File which will embed the document into the final published EXE. See Launch File for further details.
For resources which are normally included with your publication you can set them to be viewed from their current location using the Publish Settings and Location options in Resource Manager.
You have set an action to launch another program or document and it works well on your computer but it doesn’t work when installed on another computer.
Make sure you have distributed the additional file(s) with your publication (see above) or checked that the document required is on the other computer and is in the same location as on yours.
It is most likely that the program or the files you are launching are not in the place Opus is expecting it to be. This is caused by a mismatch in the file location on another computer and what you set as the path on your own computer – you need to make the two identical.
Most often the best solution is to move the file on your computer so that it is in the same directory as your publication and then use the special variable <SYSTEM-PUBLICATION-DIR> to tell Opus to look for the file in the same directory the publication is in, irrespective of the actual path. As long as you include the file with your publication when you distribute it then Opus will find it.
See Launch File for further details.
The internal preview of HTML5 publications does not use an HMTL5-compatible browser and so will produce very different results to a browser, including spurious errors which may be incorrect. The preview also does not give a good indication of performance speed.
We therefore strongly recommend you preview your HTML5 by publishing and using the Test button to display the file in an internet browser.
If you have problems with HTML5 not performing as expected try putting key activity on a timeline or run the action when a particular so you can ensure activity happens in the right order as this can often be an issue with HTML5.
Note:
Opus reads the objects on your page from the bottom up so ensure any script which sets variables you need on the page is the lowest object in the Opus Organizer.
The Opus Preview is very different to the final output and should only be used to test appearance and basic functionality. Combinations of actions can work different
This may be due to the background colour of the HTML5 being differeny to your content. The background colour for the HTML is set by the Surround Colour setting in Publication Properties.
This means an item on the page in your publication is stopping the HTML from running. This is often caused by an empty action (an action without an object) – for example a Show action where the object to be shown has since been deleted. It can also be caused by a script failing to find the variable required or other critical failure.
Something is preventing the Opus.js file from being loaded. Either it is not present in the same location as you HTM file or there is an error in the HTM file which is preventing it from loading. If you have edited the HTM file the latter is the most likely explanation. Try publishing again and use the original, unedited HTM file to check.
At the current time several browsers, including Chrome, actively prevent audio and video being played automatically when on mobile devices. This is to prevent extensive data usage without the user’s permission. This means audio and video can only be started by user interaction and will not play via timelines or On Show triggers. The limitation does not apply to HTML5 installed as Android apps using the APK packager.
This is currently under review buy Google and others so please check our website for further updates or follow the technical discussions on Chrome development online.
For HTML5 publications not all fonts may be appropriate and so some are deselected in the Web Font Manager and so do not appear in your font list for this publication type. You should review the information on using web fonts and using the web font manager and decide which how you want to use different sets of fonts (divided up into different directories which are then switched on or off in the Web Font Manager..
If your question uses radio buttons (including image radio buttons) then you must ensure that each button which is part of the same group of answers has the same Group number and that this number is different to any other group of buttons used for another question as Opus will not know which set of buttons you are controlling.
If a text input answer is already filled in it will be because the variable you have attached to that text input box already has text in it. You may have used the same variable in one question as you have used in a previous one. Or you may have allowed the user to try the question again but have forgotten to empty the variable before returning to the page.
In the first instance you need to assign the text input box to use a different variable via the Store input information in this variable drop down (use the New button to create a new variable if required). In the second instance you will need to have an action which uses Set Variable to empty the variable by making it equal 0 or "",
If you are trying to install an .APK file on an Android phone and get an error message such as "Cannot Parse File" or even "Not Enough Disk Space" or similar this is almost certainly because the Unique Package name is incorrect. If you have missed out the Organization name or used unsupported characters. Please check the Android Publishing topic for further details.
Smartphones are not as powerful as desktop computers and may therefore struggle with lots of graphics and/or lots of animation. Furthermore, the default browsers wqhich come with phones seem less effective than commercial releases such as Chrome.
You try to publish your publication but the process stops with an error and a message saying the publish could not process because of an error. This is usually due to something in the publication which is not understood or is fundamentally incompatible with the format you are trying to publish to. For example you may have an action without an object (often left over when an object has been deleted or you copy an action from another page to one which does not have the object on).The other cause for this is if a resource has become corrupt or somehow unreadable.
Make sure the Show Details option is switched on for the Publish process and watch for when the red X icon appears in the list of activities. This will give you an indication of the page which is causing the problem. You will need to work through the actions on that page and/or replace the resources until the page publishes correctly.
Text can sometimes disappear from view if it’s container is not big enough for the text. This calculation includes an allowance for any border and also for the text margins set in the Text Properties.
If your object has custom text margins set and you have imported the publication from a previous version or copied an object across the clipboard the text margins may have been reset. You will need to select all your text objects and reapply the custom margin – remember that you can use Ctrl and Shift to select multiple objects in Opus and then set the Properties for one will apply that changed proprerty to all.
Text can also sometimes be temporarily repositioned after publishing to Flash because it uses a different co-ordinate system. Simply close your publication and reopen it to reset the text.
This usually means some of the objects are in a frame whilst others are not. Either move all objects into the same frame or to the top level of the Organizer Tree, group them and then put them back where you want them.
If you get a warning that a resource is missing you should run the Resource Manager to locate te missing file. But if all your main resources seem to be present and you still get the message then it is probably an internal resource which has been misplaced. This sometimes happens with bullet graphics or similar "internal" graphics when a publication has been moved or consolidated. Check any bulleted lists and if everything looks as you intended it, try running the Purge Resource option.
If it persists and you cannot find the cause it can be ignored as it will not effect the published file.
Yes you can. There are two ways you can play Adobe Flash movies in your publication: the first method is by using the Video tool; the second method is to use the DocView tool.
Using the Video object allows you to replay the Flash movie as you would any other video in Opus although the play, stop and seek controls will not work.
Note:
If the Flash movie is interactive you need to use the Always on Top setting for video to allow users access to the controls in the Flash movie.
You only need the DocView tool for Flash movies if they involve some special scripting which does not function when launched as video or if you want to update the Flash file independently of the Opus publication.
This is caused by virus checkers with Real Time Scanning or On Access scanning turned on. It seems to affect particular versions and updates of some virus checkers more than it affects others. It particularly affects Windows v7 installations. It usually resolves itself after you have opened Opus a few times.
The solution is to go to your virus checker control panel and turn this feature off. In many cases you only need to do this for a short period when you run Opus but it does vary – even between updates of different virus checkers. If you experience this problem please contact the developers of the virus checker.
The Play Video action will play the video from the current frame so this will be the same as Restart Video if the video has been running and then Paused. If you use Stop and Reset, the video will go back to the beginning.
Note:
Not all video formats allow a video to be paused by Opus and not all video formats will allow Opus to restart a paused video from the same location. In these cases Play will always play the video from the beginning. The best format for full control is MPG.
Always use the Bilinear Resampling option for bitmap images – this is set via the Image tab on the Properties dialog.
Always try to make sure the original image you are using has the same pixel dimensions as the frame used in Opus.
If your graphics look stretched then make sure you have set the Keep Apsect Ratio option on the Image tab of the properties dialog.
IIf vector graphics look poor when published try importing a better quality format such as EMF. If you are drawing the object in Corel Draw or Illustrator, try adding more nodes to the shape or increasing the size of the original before exporting.
If you set a number of things to happen in quick succession the timing of these events can sometimes be thrown off. This means that when Opus realises it is behind it jumps to the position it should be, in a similar way to a video dropping frames when it can’t keep up on a system.
There are a number of factors that can cause this. It is usually that material is still being read from disk or CD-Rom because you are using several large pictures or a video. The solution is to use a timeline (only available in Extended mode) to ensure that the succession of activity is processed exactly and not to use the Show after option to try to time things.
Sometimes, when opening a publication, Opus may report that resources are missing or you notice that contents of objects are missing when you reopen a publication saved to disk. The background of a page is black when it should contain a picture. Text objects linked with disk files are empty or produce an error saying the file can't be found.
As Opus does not incorporate a copy of your resources in the publication until it is compiled or published, this indicates that Opus cannot find the original file. This may occur because the original has been deleted or that the publication has been moved.
If the originals have been deleted you have no alternative but to create or find replacements.
If you are having problems with the background of a graphic not being transparent, or being only partly transparent this is likely to mean that the background colour is not actually all one colour. The colours in a high-colour image can be so close together as to fool the naked eye
Opus provides a Tolerance setting on the transparency edit box to get round this problem.
Drag the meter bar underneath the transparency colour well and it will set a range of very similar colours to be transparent not just one.
The only solution to this is to use the lasso tool of a paint program to cut out the portion you want to keep and paste it onto a plain background or to use the fill tool or colour-replacer to replace the colours. Most paint programs have a "tolerance" setting for these tools which sets the number of similar colours the tool will effect which can be useful if the background is of several similar colours.
If neither of these options produces the result you want you will have to use a paintbrush tool to do the job by hand.
This problem occurs when previewing your publication on lower specification machines and the publication includes large graphics files and/or very detailed transition effects. Opus is working with the original file and some graphic file formats can take longer than others to load. When you compile or publish your publication this will be reduced to a minimum and will be consistent for all graphics, so the slideshow will accurately reflect your timing settings.
To make even more sure of timings and smoothness ensure the Exclusive option for transitions which will ensure the slideshow takes precedence over anything else in your publication, but note that any other events you want to happen at the same time will be delayed.
This mottling is called dithering and occurs when a computer program tries to convert a 16.7-million colour image to 256-colours. This may be temporary if, say, you are trying to view high colour images but your computer is set to 256-colour display (check Control Panel to verify this).
It may also be permanent if the high colour image has been physically reduced to 256-colours in a paint program.