Inserting Mimic Movie Links in Content Files

If you have used Mimic to produce a movie, you can use this feature to create a link in a topic to the movie's output. When you are finished, a link to the finished movie is inserted into the topic. When a user clicks the link in the output, the movie plays.

How to Insert a Mimic Movie Link in a Content File

  1. Open the content file.
  2. In the XML Editor, place your cursor where you want to insert the link.
  3. Select Insert > Multimedia > Mimic Movie.

  4. In the dialog that opens, find and select an individual Mimic movie or a movie collection that you want to link to. You can select any of the following types of files.

    • MIMOV This is an individual Mimic movie file (whether part of a collection or standalone). When you want to work on an individual movie, you open this file.
    • MIPRJ This is the main Mimic collection file, which contains one or more movie (MIMOV) files. It is not required that you create a collection in Mimic; it is simply an option that you can use if you want to create a movie collection, as opposed to a standalone movie. Neither the MIPRJ nor the MIMOV files are finalized movies. They are merely the files that are used to generate the finalized movies. When you want to work on a movie collection, you open the MIPRJ file.
    • MCMOVIE This is an output file that is created when you generate a movie (whether the movie is part of a collection or standalone). A Mimic collection can contain several movies. When you generate the finalized movies in Mimic, an MCMOVIE file is created for each movie in the collection (e.g., myfirstmovie.mcmovie, mysecondmovie.mcmovie). The output plays in the MadCap Movie Viewer.
    • MCMV This is an optional output file that lets you view the movie(s) in the MadCap Movie Viewer, rather than in a browser window.
    • MCMOVIESYS This is an output file that is created when you generate a movie collection. The file is named after your collection (e.g., mycollection.mcmoviesys) and can be used as an entry point to view the movie collection. The output plays in the MadCap Movie Viewer.
  5. Click Open.The Edit Mimic Movie dialog opens.

  6. Change the options in the dialog as necessary.

    • File Displays the path to the movie or collection file after you select it.
    • The browse ellipsis button opens to more options. Lets you find and select a different movie or collection file.

    • Format You can use this drop-down to select the type of output to be generated.

      If You Have Mimic 8 or Newer

      • (default) If you build a Microsoft HTML Help, WebHelp, HTML5, or WebHelp Plus target, the movie uses the HTML5 movie format.

      • HTML5 The movie is generated in the HTML5 movie format.

      If You Have Mimic 7 or Older

      • (default) The most appropriate movie format is used, based on the Flare output type that you generate. If you build a Microsoft HTML Help, WebHelp, HTML5, or WebHelp Plus target, the movie uses the HTML5 movie format. If you want to override these settings, select one of the specific movie types below.
      • MadCap Movie Player The movie is generated in MMF and displays in the MadCap Movie Viewer.
      • Adobe Flash The movie is generated in a Flash SWF file.
      • Adobe Flash (Embed) The movie is generated in a Flash SWF file and is embedded in your output.
      • Microsoft Silverlight The movie is generated in the Microsoft Silverlight format.
      • HTML5 The movie is generated in the HTML5 movie format.
      • HTML5 (Embed) The movie is generated in the HTML5 movie format and is embedded in your output.
    • Style Class Select the kind of style class to be used for the link to affect the way it looks and behaves. You can select the main hyperlink style (a) or a class of that style. See Styles and Stylesheets.

    • Link Text Displays the text that you highlighted in the topic, which will be used as the movie link. Leave the text as it is, unless you decide you would like to change it. If you want to change the link text, type the new text in the field. It will replace the previously selected text in the topic. If you do not provide link text, the file name for the movie or collection will be used.

    • Screen Tip Type a phrase that will appear when the end user hovers over the movie link in the output.
  7. Click OK. The movie link is added to the topic with a small movie frame icon displayed next to it.
  8. Click Save the active file. to save your work.

Note If instead you want to insert a movie directly into a topic (rather than a link), see Inserting Videos.

Note You do not need to add the Mimic movie files to your Flare project. When you generate the target(s) in Flare, the movie output file(s) will automatically be copied to the target output file or folder.

Note For more information, see Multimedia File Types Supported.