Creating Custom Engage Color Schemes

by admin on October 23, 2006

Update: Engage ‘09 has been released and contains a built in Color Scheme Editor so you no longer have to hack the color schemes to get them to work. You can find out more about Articulate Engage ‘09 at http://www.articulate.com/products/engage-new-in-09.php.

Ok, now that Articulate Engage has launched and people are getting more familiar with the program, I wanted to start showing some examples of things you can do with Engage that you might not notice right out of the box. Well, one of the cool things you can do is create your own Engage color schemes so that you can customize the colors of your Engage Interactions to match your corporate color scheme.

In the presentation linked below I show you how you can create your own custom color schemes for use in Engage. It is a short presentation (7:07) that should walk you through the basics of creating your own color schemes.

Launch Presentation (7:07)

Also, I have created 3 new custom color schemes that you can download here. The colors are:

Fata Romana
Off 2 Africa
Grunge school

To install the color schemes unzip the 3 attached zip files into the following folder:
C:\Program Files\Articulate\Articulate Engage\schemes

After unzipping the files close and restart Engage and you should see the new schemes.

The color schemes I created were inspired by http://beta.dailycolorscheme.com/ (cool site).

{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }

NWH November 8, 2006 at 2:46 pm: This is great. I have several clients who have very strong branding/color palette requirements.

Is there any way I can do something similar for timeline colors and markers?
annyak December 6, 2006 at 11:46 am: It would be really great to be able to print this presentation so I can refer to it while I am actually creating a custom palette!

Thanks so much.
Julie January 30, 2007 at 5:10 pm: How do I go about viewing the presentation – the link here seems to just take me back to the articulate home page. Thanks.
Dave Mozealous January 30, 2007 at 6:14 pm: Sorry about that, the link should be:
http://mozealous.knowledgeflash.com/3671554721
Karpagavalli June 16, 2007 at 11:39 pm: Thank you so much for this. I have created a new color scheme with light yellow for the tabs, but I am not able to change the colour of the text on the tabs from white to black. Is there a way to do this?
Anonymous August 3, 2007 at 2:27 am: Karpagavalli,

Try changing colors in item 8 or 9 in scheme xmls.
Anonymous September 5, 2007 at 11:53 am: Dave hi,

I am creating a new color scheme that our dept is going to use. Loved your presentation, great info but you didn’t give the details on items #8 through #20 in the xml file. (for example what happens when I change the hex value for listselect and listhover?)
My problem is I am trying to change the color in the interaction tab- when you you click on the tab is that activenavbutton or listselect?
I tried changing list select it didn’t seem to make a difference..
Dave September 5, 2007 at 1:12 pm: Hi,

Yeah, I didn’t include all the details on what exactly 8-20 did because most of the time they changed only something really minor, and rather than bog down the whole presentation I only included the major colors.

The selected state of the tab should be “activenavbutton” if I remember correctly. The best thing to do if you are curious as to what an element is, is to change it to a bright ugly color, save the xml, and then launch the interaction again.
Anonymous September 25, 2007 at 12:20 pm: This is sort of off topic, but is there a way to publish an Engage module without the header? I’d just like the flash and the interactity, but be able to use my own header from my PPT file.

thanks,

Andrew

btw, the custom scheme explanation is great.
Dave September 25, 2007 at 9:23 pm: Hello Andrew,

Currently there is not, but you might want to suggest that the next release of EN supports this:

http://www.articulate.com/support/contact/feature/
Anonymous October 24, 2007 at 8:16 am: Is there a way to assign custom colors to Engage Interaction segments?
Anonymous June 18, 2008 at 12:46 am: hello,

i found some greate tips on this side, but how can i change the color for the “CORE” text in the e.g. Circle Diagram
is ther any way to change it?

Thank you very much
Anonymous July 11, 2008 at 9:55 am: Recently I read this article about which ppt to flash converter is the best one and checked both Articulate and iSpring. You know, iSpring’s player templates are very good too and allow you to change the color as well. Check and see!
Brynn's Mom July 30, 2008 at 9:15 am: Does anyone know how to remove the step buttons. I really do not want a number scheme at the bottom of the screen, or if you you can add an additional slide to a step, keeping it within the same “setep”. Any held is appreciated.
Anonymous August 5, 2008 at 12:39 pm: Please can someone tell me how to change the blue tabs in the Engage Tab Interaction to match my custom color scheme (.xml)?

I’ve changed background, text, etc but cannot figure out how to change the Tab itself.

Thanks ~ Cris
Ruchi October 30, 2008 at 4:07 am: Dave,
The presentation just keeps loading. Can you please provide the link again?

Thanks,
Ruchi
mozealou October 30, 2008 at 5:45 pm: Hey Ruchi,

Unfortunately I think I accidentally hosed that presentation. I had it up on my site, but had to rebuild my site to make way for using wordpress as my blogging tool, and in the process of doing that I broke the presentation

Sucks to because I no longer have the source.

In any event, you should check out Engage ‘09:
http://www.articulate.com/products/engage-new-in-09.php

It has a built in Color Scheme editor so you know longer have to go through my hacky suggestion.
Ruchi November 3, 2008 at 4:02 am: I have already looked at Articulate ‘09 and it indeed looks really cool.

We just bought two licenses for Articulate 5.2 this June and it seems very unlikely (add a few more ‘very’ there) that my company will pay for an upgrade.

So, even though my heart leaps forward for ‘09 interface and features, I will have to continue with 5.2.

~Ruchi
mozealou November 3, 2008 at 8:29 am: Hi Ruchi,

Crap, that sucks. What happened was I downloaded that presentation and accidentally transfered in ASCII mode, which hosed the presentation.xml file.

Bummer, really sorry I lost it. I’ll see if I can find a backup anywhere.

Sorry.

Dave
JackMcCarty January 17, 2009 at 11:01 am: It seems the FlashPlayer 10 Update fiasco strikes again! I came looking for how to Create Custom Engage Color Schemes and found that the interaction I watched before now gives me the now infamous and annoying blank screen 100 of 160. Any chance you can republish this handy tip for those of us who cannot yet afford the ‘09 upgrades?

Thanks and (I can only use this a few more days) Happy New Year!

Jack
mozealou January 19, 2009 at 8:50 am: Hey Jack,

I just updated the links to point to an updated version. It should be working now.

-Dave
Gautham February 3, 2009 at 6:24 am: Dave,

The presentation does seem to load mate. Is there a problem with viewing the presentation to create custom color schemes in Articulate Engage?

Cheers
Gautham
mozealou February 3, 2009 at 9:08 am: Hi Gautham,

It loads for me…what browser/FP you using?

-Dave
Gautham February 3, 2009 at 10:28 pm: Dave,

My Bad. Its working now.

Cheers
Gautham