Captivate-to-Flash Communication: ExternalInterface Workaround

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This example demonstrates communication between a Captivate SWF (left) and Flash SWF (right) via Flash's ExternalInterface class. The quiz was created in Captivate using a combination of built-in quiz question templates and homemade 'quiz' slides (simple buttons and click boxes with captions). The 'scorekeeper' SWF was created in Flash and displays score information as well as end-of-quiz feedback based on the total score.

This example isn't meant to be a great example for quiz building (it's very flawed!), but is useful for demonstrating how a Captivate SWF can work with a Flash SWF embedded elsewhere on an HTML page.

How it works:
The basic chain of events looks like this: Captivate invokes a JavaScript function > JavaScript invokes a Flash EI callback > the Flash EI callback invokes an ActionScript function

This particular Captivate quiz is configured to call three JavaScript functions at appropriate times:

correctAnswer() is called whenever a question is answered correctly
wrongAnswer() is called whenever a question is answered incorrectly
endQuiz() is called at the end of the last slide of the quiz

The corresponding JavaScript functions are located in the HTML's <head> section. These functions act as a proxy, triggering a corresponding ActionScript function in the Flash SWF via an ExternalInterface (EI) callback.

The JavaScript function correctAnswer() uses the EI callback "sendCorrectToFlash" to invoke the ActionScript function getCorrectFromJavaScript()
The JavaScript function wrongAnswer() uses the EI callback "sendIncorrectToFlash" to invoke the ActionScript function getIncorrectFromJavaScript()
The JavaScript function endQuiz() uses the EI callback "endQuiz" to invoke the ActionScript function endQuiz()

Important notes:

ExternalInterface requires Flash Player 8 or higher.
If run locally (from a CD or hard drive), your Flash Player security settings must be edited to allow files in that partcular directory to communicate with each other. Here's how Adobe explains it:
- Security note: For local content running in a browser, calls to the ExternalInterface.addCallback() method will only work if the SWF file and the containing web page are in the local-trusted security sandbox.

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Captivate-to-Flash Communication:ExternalInterface Workaround: 2 SWFs on one page

Captivate-to-Flash Communication:
ExternalInterface Workaround: 2 SWFs on one page