JS vs Advanced/Shared Action

I am like you.

I used to use advanced actions exclusively but then I happened across a project that was much more complex. While I believe the end result would be achievable using only advanced actions - I felt it simply became too cumbersome with all the clicking, naming, conditional tab checkboxing, and the thing that constantly drove me nuts which was when I wanted to tweak something related to a variable and other parts of the statement would force me to click through and update them.

Everything was so disjointed and spread across different tabs that it became difficult to "see" what was happening.

I found that neatly placing my commands in the javascript window was not only faster but easier to follow and update. Now if they can just make that window so we can resize it.

I work for a private company where I create lots of interactive modules that mimic menu navigation through our equipment. Since the outcome of the button presses depends on where you are in the menu, there are lots of variables to track location within the menu with tons of conditionals and nested conditionals. Much easier for me to figure this out through Notepad++ and JavaScript than all the actions it would need. It eventually seeped into my use of more simple workflows.

All depends on your jobs. Since I am mostly debugging files, or adding more complicated workflows, for clients I prefer Advanced/Shared actions for the most. Reason: much easier to understand and explain to the client than a script in JS. If they want to do some small edits, I it is perfectly possible with a clearly explained workflow.

I do use JS when necessary. Some examples: random numbers, formatting of numbers/dates, use of arrays. For the most part those will be embedded in a shared or advanced action.

Second type of jobs for me are personalized trainings. It is way easier to introduce trainees to the point-and-click actions in Captivate than having to explain JS and debugging of it

TLCMediaDesign will tell the contrary, which is very understandable because his situation is totally different. Will leave it to David to explain.

I do type very quickly (my former secretary in college complained, she fet ashamed), but that is not the real core of the choice. You always need debugging, which can be hard in any programming language (used programming probably before you were born ).