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bengallienne
Participating Frequently
July 16, 2015
Question

Debugging Captivate 8 advanced actions?

  • July 16, 2015
  • 1 reply
  • 1317 views

We are building a relatively straightforward piece of training using captivate 8, out first time using it, but have been regularly running in to issues trying to use advanced actions on Slides. It appears that any kind of complexity to some actions, such as multiple if statements, or conditions, regularly results in statements just being ignored. So we are hoping there is a way we can step through the logic like a trace, as you would in Flash or Javascript. Anyone know if this is possible please? Is the program just buggy and we have to work around it?

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1 reply

Lilybiri
Lilybiri
Legend
July 16, 2015

This is very vague! I have been debugging a lot of advanced actions for clients and up till now always found the problems were due to the creator of the advanced actions: either lack of understanding about the way they work (sequence is a typical example) or lack of logic. I don't say that Captivate is without bugs, but seldom I did see a bug in the functionality of advanced/shared actions. If you put a screenshot of an advanced action in which statements are ignored, maybe I could help.

Captivate has multiple decisions, not multiple IF's. You cannot nest IF's. There is no debugging functionality, because it is really much more simple than a normal programming language: no loops, no functions, no arrays to mention some. I'm used to drop some variables (system and user) in a text container at the start of the course, and time this container for the rest of the project. That will help when testing to see where the logic is going awry. After about 5 years of intensively working with advanced/shared actions, my conclusion is that if an action is not functional, there is 99% chance that it is due to a failure from my part, not from the application.

    RodWard
    Community Expert
    RodWardCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 16, 2015

    One of the things programmers usually trip over when they start building Conditional Advanced Actions in Captivate is that ALL of the decision blocks get executed in turn.  None of them will get missed. 

    So if you build a complex Conditional Action, you need to allow for the fact that ALL of the conditions and their related actions will be executed.  At no point in the Conditional Action will it break and exit the sequence. 

    Once you get your head around that, as Lilybiri said, you will actually see that Advanced Actions are actually a lot simpler and easier to work with.  But that also means they are much more limited than traditional programming. 

    They were specifically designed for NON-programmers to use to include some interactivity. Real programmers were expected to get stuck in with ActionScript or Javascript to do their dirty work.  But like a typical programming shop, Adobe neglected to provide documentation about that side of the app.

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