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MadCap Mimic
For years, software training was primarily text-based... paste a screen shot into a Word document, add some text with descriptions and instructions, and voila!
The results worked, but think how much more effective it could be to have someone actually “walk you through the steps” on the screen. That's where Mimic comes in, letting you create that “someone”.
Mimic lets you create simulations inexpensively and quickly. It lets you capture what's on the screen as you perform some software-based task, save those screen shots as a “filmstrip”, add explanatory and instructional captions, special effects, and interactivity features to make users think they're using the software, and play the result back as a “movie”. It's a deceptively simple but powerful tool that lets you create movies for use as demos, marketing presentations, role-playing simulations, and tutorials.
Those movies are also very flexible. They can run locally on users' PCs or from a network drive or web site. There's also a choice of outputs ranging from the traditional Adobe Flash to the proprietary MadCap Movie to the newer Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe AIR.
Mimic also has a feature that, to my knowledge, isn't available on any other such authoring tool. It supports variables, AND can share variables with Flare and Capture, the help authoring and graphics tools in MadCap's MadPak suite. This means you might create a Mimic movie for client X, and then sell that movie to client Y by simply changing the value of a "clientname" variable from X to Y and seeing that change ripple across the entire movie and the related online documentation or help system.
And with all this power (and more), Mimic is inexpensive - $299 on its own or, essentially, free as part of the MadPak suite. If you have MadPak, or if you bought Flare and are now looking for a movie-making tool that has a similar interface, supports variables, AND integrates those variables with Flare, look at Mimic.
This two-day, hands-on seminar is aimed at trainers, training developers, marketing staff, and disaster recovery staff who need to quickly get up to speed on the mechanics, design, and planning required to create training movies using Mimic. The only prerequisites are a basic knowledge of Windows, Internet Explorer, and PC skills in general.
Note that this seminar uses the official MadCap Mimic curriculum, created by Neil Perlin of Hyper/Word Services.
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| Mimic Overview | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What is Mimic? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Getting Around in Mimic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Opening an Existing Project and Running a Movie | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Movie Planning and Design | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Why Plan? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Workflow Review | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Recording Movies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What Is a Movie versus a Project | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| About the Course Project | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Recording Screens to Create a Raw Movie | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Saving a Project | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Previewing a Project | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Closing a Project | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Opening a Project | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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