This is the first in a series of screencasts focusing on Mediator 9 – a multimedia authoring tool that enjoys some popularity in the education market. This first episode looks at some of the fundamentals of working in Mediator, including an overview of the interface and some of the key tools. Subsequent episodes will delve increasingly deeper into the more advanced features of the application.
You can download a trial of Mediator from the Matchware website.
Jeremy’s Blog is not affiliated with Matchware or Mediator in any way.
Duration: 15min 53secs
Level: Beginner
#1 by Andreas on 19th January 2010 - 12:11 am
Hi Jeremy !!
I was very pleased to find your blog with these great videos teaching me the basics of Mediator 9.0.
Iv’e emaild MatchWare team about a question but their support is soooo poor.. So i’ll ask you instead..
Is there a way in mediator to get some kind of filedialog ? For an example i want to make a Mp3 player for Windows and therefore i don’t wan to include the songs with the application but let the users of my app choose some of their own mp3’s on their own computer ??
Really thankful if you could help me with this and pleast email me back at: andreas.malmqvist76@gmail.com
// Andreas
#2 by jcalvert on 18th June 2010 - 10:21 am
There are no controls on these videos. Most frustrating when you cannot quickly review something!
Can this be done??
#3 by Jeremy on 21st June 2010 - 10:13 am
Sorry to hear that you’ve had problems with this – I can see why this would be frustrating. The control bar should in theory be accessible for all of the screencast videos (it shows up fine for me). You may find that updating your QuickTime Player plugin to the latest version fixes the problem (go to http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/). Alternatively you could try using a different web browser (e.g. Firefox or Safari). One final suggestion – download the video (right-click on the link and choose the option to download the file) and then open it in QuickTime Player where you should be guaranteed to have access to a control bar. Hope this helps.
Incidentally – I’d be interested to hear how you came across my screencasts?
#4 by Curtis Nelson on 2nd July 2010 - 12:25 am
Huge thank you for what you’re doing, Jeremy! I have looked in vain for some sort of Mediator user group. I agree with Andreas in that the support from Matchware is at times extremely disappointing. They did have a user group linked from their site several years ago, but it vanished some time ago.
Thanks for the video demos. As your time allows, keep them coming. They are an important expansion to the manual.
Speaking of which — are there other books out there on Mediator besides the manual? Other user groups?
Again, huge thanks!
#5 by Jeremy on 2nd July 2010 - 8:51 am
Many thanks for the feedback, Curtis. Very happy to know that the screencasts are helpful. To the best of my knowledge there are no books available other than the manual. I’d be interested in writing one if I knew that there was a big enough demand for it. I’ve not found any user groups either. I have plans for some more advanced screencast tutorials and hope to be posting these in the coming weeks and months. If you have any requests for particular topics that you’d like covered I’d be interested to hear about these. At the moment my programme is developed in response to the needs of the students that I work with (who are probably the biggest users of these tutorials) but I’m certainly open to suggestions.
#6 by Curtis Nelson on 11th July 2010 - 7:00 pm
I realise that your website is more informational and educational than tech support, but I’m stymied with a drag & drop problem and wondered if you might have a look at it to see what I’m doing wrong? I have 12 objects that I want to have correctly placed (4 on each of three frames or “doors”) I can’t seem to get the appropriate response each time. Also, I’m not sure how to hide or prevent further drag & drop once the correct placement has been reached. Any possibility of having a look at it to see what I’m doing wrong?
Thanks much!
#7 by Jeremy on 12th July 2010 - 12:29 pm
Sounds like the problem might be in the programming of your ‘IF…’ action. You need to use a statement like the following:
IF… dragged_object = "object1" OR dragged_object = "object2" OR dragged_object = "object3" OR dragged_object = "object4"THEN… [perform whatever actions you want to indicate correct match]
Note that if you write this like
dragged_object = "object1" OR "object2"…then it won’t work correctly.Then you could use a ‘Hide’ action (perhaps nested inside a ‘Timeline’ action) to hide the objects once they have been correctly placed.
I’ve been meaning to do an Advanced Drag & Drop screencast that would cover this kind of thing. Keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks.
#8 by Curtis Nelson on 12th July 2010 - 4:55 pm
Thanks, that seems to solve some of the problem!
On the “hide” action, is that embedded in the events of the object or of the target? If target, how does it differentiate which object to hide?
An Advanced Drag & Drop screencast would be great!
Btw, I use Mediator to create an interactive Etext on American Popular Music History – one of the classes I teach at college. The final product is used like a “book” except that it is interactive with video, audio and self-grading practice tests. Mediator is a great program, even with a few limitations.
Thanks for your help.
#9 by Jeremy on 17th July 2010 - 10:05 am
Advanced Drag & Drop screencast to follow soon, I hope. In the meantime you could try using a series of ‘nested’ IF actions. For example…
IF x=1 THEN do yetc…ELSE IF x=2 THEN do z
Hope this is enough to get you started.
The eBook sounds great. It seems to me that exploiting multimedia technologies for teaching and learning purposes is the right way to go. What is perhaps even better is getting the kids to make their own multimedia and tools like Mediator make that very achievable.
I’m looking into the possibility of setting up an unofficial Mediator community forum where folks can post questions and solutions. In the meantime, keep the comments coming.
#10 by Curtis Nelson on 20th July 2010 - 5:50 pm
Thanks! I’ll try that! How would that work to return an object to its original position if an incorrect choice was made?
A Mediator (unofficial) community forum would be fanatastic!! Let’s pool our knowledge, discoveries, and experiences!
#11 by Jeremy on 21st July 2010 - 9:04 am
I’ve started work on a new screencast that explains this and more stuff relating to drag & drop. I’ve already made up some demo pages which I will be uploading along with the screencast. Just bear with me and I’ll try to get the screencast up within the next week or so. This one takes a bit more time to make as the concepts are a little trickier to explain and I want to make sure that it is really clear and easy to follow.
I’m definitely going to look into setting up some kind of Mediator forum/user group – and I have some ideas about making this part of a broader online forum for folks who have an interest in both learning and technology. Watch this space!
#12 by Curtis Nelson on 3rd August 2010 - 8:05 pm
Thanks for providing the screencasts! They certainly fill in the gaps from the manual provided.
Looking forward to the next one!
#13 by eLearning Bird on 10th September 2010 - 12:51 pm
Nice tutorials! Well done!
Wish I could find more details on using some of Mediator 9 advanced features / abilities. I see great potential in this product for many things I do!
Would love to find (or perhaps even start) a user forum/exchange.
#14 by Jeremy on 13th September 2010 - 7:17 pm
Thanks for the positive feedback and if you set up that user group then do let me know. I have thought about setting one up myself but haven’t had the time to do so.
#15 by wil on 27th July 2011 - 6:23 pm
hello, im a advanced mediator developer and might be able to assist some of your posters with their. I have successfully created a drag and drop that disabled the dnd feature once it was placed. I did this using a array that flagged whether or not a tile was placed and then checked this array each time a tile was picked up.
#16 by Jeremy on 28th July 2011 - 2:29 pm
Hello Wil and thanks for offering your support to other readers of this blog. Whilst I never intended this to be a Mediator support forum it seems to be heading that way. If I get time I may well set something up that is more suited to that function. I’ve received a few comments that suggest this would be welcomed but it needs people like yourself to post responses to prevent it from ending up as a list of unanswered questions.
I like the idea of using an array for the purpose you described. Keep the good ideas coming!
#17 by wil on 28th July 2011 - 3:02 pm
Sounds good, I have a ton of mediator projects that i could share, and it would nice if someone could help me at times! lol.
#18 by wil on 22nd August 2011 - 12:21 pm
Hey up,
You still about these days? I was thinking about taking the mediator forum idea further and maybe setting small n cheap forum for mediator issues/development. would you be interested in helping me get it started?
Mail me back on my registered email address, if you are!
#19 by Jerry Lyden on 7th September 2011 - 8:00 pm
Jeremy-
I am trying to develop a testing product for learning disabled students, including the viusally impaired. I am trying to find a way to control the playback speed of audio with Mediator 9. Most VI kids listen at much higher speeds than sighted persons and need to be able to vary the speed of the playback. I contacted Matchware and after a week they got back with an explanation to insert an activeX control (third party) but nothing further. I am not a programmer (which is why I chose Mediator to begin with). Can you offer some insight.
Thanks.
#20 by wil on 13th September 2011 - 11:41 am
Hello, don’t think jeremys about much at the moment.
Im assuming that if the matchware guys have told you to do it using an activex then its probably not possible just using their scripting language. I have had limited success with active x controls, most of the tem dont work! As a work around you could include multiple versions of the audio at different speeds and have the user select one?
#21 by Stan Hjerleid on 27th September 2011 - 7:21 pm
Thanks Jeremy, I was looking for a user group using Mediator 9.
#22 by wil on 11th October 2011 - 12:51 am
i know of one usergroup, just starting up that would love to hear from you.
mediator.interestsme.co.uk
#23 by Jeremy on 11th October 2011 - 11:52 am
Ah ha! This looks like an official Matchware forum – is that right? Or is it one that you’ve set up? I’ll add a link to my blogroll. I expect to be sending some traffic in that direction
#24 by wil on 11th October 2011 - 10:45 pm
hello there,
yes, its one i have setup! ive been adding content when ever i get the chance. thanks for any linking you can do!
#25 by Colum Higgins on 4th December 2011 - 7:08 pm
Hello, i was wondering are you able to add a search bar into mediator?
I’m using it for my A-level coursework, im creating a Diary of Events within my local area.
I was wondering can a user input dates dd/mm/yy to dd/mm/yy and local events will come up?
Please email me back as quickly as possible
Thank you
#26 by matthew on 21st December 2011 - 1:43 pm
Hi Jeremy !! thanks to your basics! i’ve got a lot. but for me, i feel it will take me more steps to learn it. I wonder if you have a documentation to illustrate how to use mediator both at basic level and deeper. if so, would please send me a pdf. thanks for sharing.
#27 by ben on 17th January 2012 - 1:26 pm
how do you put music on to it pleace
#28 by Jeremy on 18th January 2012 - 10:16 am
I’m afraid I don’t have anything along those lines. I recommend using the Help files – although they aren’t brilliant.
#29 by Jeremy on 22nd January 2012 - 6:27 pm
Could you be more specific?