The exchange below took place in the Adobe Captivate Group on LinkedIn.com, and I found it very helpful. I’m blogging it so it’s a reference I can refer back to, but if you find it helps you, too, even better!

<<>>

Can anyone tell me the difference between a Rollover Slidelet and a Rollover Image? They appear to do the same thing.

Thanks! Paula Butts
Training Design Specialist at Circles

<<>>

Hello Paula.

In looking through the Adobe Resource Center I found the following definitions. See http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Captivate/3.0/index.html

Rollover slidelet:
Area on a slide that respond to the mouse action by displaying a slidelet–a slide within a slide that has almost all the functionality of a regular slide.

Rollover images:
A rollover image consists of an image and a rollover area (the “hot” area). A rollover image appears when the user moves the mouse over the “hot” area.

Hope this helps.

Bruce E Richards
Research and Instructional Design Coordinator at Missouri State University

<<>>

The ‘slide within a slide’ is the key aspect of a slidelet for me. A slidelet has it’s own timeline, separate from the main slide. I’ve used slidelets when I want to have a seaparet SWF file run as part of a rollover.

David Kelly, CPLP
VP, Director of Training at Carver Federal Savings Bank

<<>>

This is timely:
http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/2009/04/get_ready_to_wear_that_creativ_1.html

Steve Wilhite
Senior Technical Curriculum Developer at iRise