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OK, isn't Adobe supposed to be an Awesome design company???!!!

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
May 17, 2011
15 replies
11966 views

Can someone PLEASE tell me why Adobe Captivate (MAC) SUCKS so bad. This is a horrible program. Come on!!! You guys are some of the best at design and creative... Why, Please, WHY, does the Captivate experience have to be so ... AAAAHhhh!!!!!

I'm open to feedback on this!!!

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karolcholewa

Known Participant

I am hoping that this post has already become a features wish-list for the next updates and that Captivate team appreciates users feedback at no cost.

So here is another one:

Unable to apply effect to a group. In other words, effect apply only to single shapes.

Any comment on this. Any workaround?

Lilybiri

Legend

I don't think this will work, you have to introduce feature requests and then hope that a lot of users will do the same.

This feature request I have already logged several times (as well...). No workaround, you can save a custom effect where all parameters are set the correct way. Applying them to each object of the group will then be a little bit quicker. Or if you are adventurous (depends on the type of effect, will not always give the correct result), you can apply the custom effect using an advanced action, copy/paste as many statements as you need and each will be Apply Effect....

karolcholewa

Known Participant

Thanks for a prompt reply. It looks like you've experienced all the pain and glory with Captivate. Perhaps it is a case for a short JavaScript snippet and loop through elements in the group. Not sure exactly how but hope to explore it some day...

karolcholewa

Known Participant

I worked with Cp7 now switched to Cp8. Previously I worked with Articulate Presenter. I am not comparing these two products.
I use Captivate on a daily basis and people ask me how I find this product. I am glad I found this topic though.
I could say it sucks (and I think it does suck as an Adobe product) but instead I will be editing this reply as I am feeling very, very constructive and serious about commenting on its usability. Regardless my constructive criticism the silver lining is that probably there is no better e-learning authoring tool on the market right now.

Workflow is a new buzzword for Adobe but Captivate really lacks integration with other products. Integration with Photoshop is only possible if you have a full TCS. I love using Illustrator for vector artwork. Captivate should be integrated with it but it is not. At least it should support scalable vector graphics (SVG) as it claims to support HTML5 output.
In a nutshell, Captivate is really falling behind the CC mainstream, features, integration, and #workflow in overall.
Solution: make it CC.
Animating in Captivate can turn into a nightmare. If you are ambitious to create 30 seconds long animation, you will fail in Captivate. Controlling timeline after about 15 seconds or 500 frames is literally wasting your productivity and company's money.
Gotta switch to Flash and...struggle with conversion to HTML5 hassle during production. Too many workarounds.
Solutions: use Flash technology to control timeline.
Text formatting: ALL CAPS formatting is missing.
Navigation: some interface parts do not support mouse scroll. Painful e.g. for a large number of master slides selection to use a little triangle.
What I found Captivate does pretty well is a movie compression (SWF to MP4 for instance). But I used it once...and because I had to import SWF animation in Flash.
Advanced actions and system variables are cool stuff. For any advance work you may end up with a bunch of variables and hardly reusable actions but for anything more advanced you can use JavaScript and widgets.
Not compatible with Adobe Bridge - no preview thumbnail for at least a first slide. In fact this is a proprietary Adobe extension so it should provide preview for each individual slide - just like for Illustrator artboards or InDesign pages. No default metadata for e.g. the number of slides or so.
Finally, there are 3 different states for shapes with a button function. You can show a different color for hovering over a button. Nice.
I would expect a better support for drawing tools like: shape builder (shape + shape / shape - shape, etc) as well as more flexible text formatting options for text boxes, e.g. area type tool. You can't fill an oval with text, but you can fill any polygon created manually. Something is missing here.
You can not save your own Workspace.
Panels, e.g. Swatches, can not be docked likewise Library or Properties.

Lilybiri

Legend

@karolcholewa I must have missed your post, because I was travelling/presenting in the USA.

Just want to answer some of your remarks: maybe you didn't discover Expert mode in CP8 (check 4th option in Preferences, General): that will enable you to create workspaces to dock panels etc. I switched immediately to that UI, because I hate the lack of control in the newbie one. And you can keep your workspaces when upgrading: Captivate 8.0.1 Install? Keep your Customisation! - Captivate blog

I totally agree about lack of features for shapes, have been begging for the real stuff since shapes (most innovative feature in 6) appeared: all what can be found under the Pen tool in Photoshop and adding/subtracting/intersection... for shapes to create custom shapes. At least you can now save custom shapes and reuse them over and over again.

Advanced actions can be shared actions, and if you grab the logic of advanced/shared actions they can be really powerful. My blog has its main focus on use cases for them. Variables can be reused and can be parameters in shared actions.

@Bob... I started blogging about 4 years ago out of frustration because good tutorials were lacking for Captivate and a lot of the useful features not even mentioned in the Help documentation. But I'm of course only a user, nothing more.

karolcholewa

Known Participant

There you go @Lilybiri! Thanks, you fixed one issue that I was not really aware of. So it is called the Expert mode though. I feel gratified and appreciated to have switched to the Expert mode, although from a usability perspective having two modes which in fact disable or enable standard interactions is a misunderstanding of basic affordances in the UI.

Well done, you've earned another reader of your helpful blog.

R

rsauchuck

Known Participant

I have recently been tasked to use Captivate 7 to build several eLearning courses. I have been developing eLearning since the mid 90's. Back in those days there weren't any Rapid Development Tools. I had to build my courses by hand using Javascript or Flash. Over the years I have used many different tools with various levels of disappointment/dissatisfaction with most of them. Here are some MAJOR issues I have with Captivate.

Having to insert an interactive object just to get the player not to auto-advance through your course. REALLY??!! I can't just make a course's navigation default to user control? Not all courses are narrated simulations, Adobe. And even this work around is flawed.

Having almost no control over how questions/quizzes function. If a user reviews a quiz they can't retake it? You can't have both unscored Knowledge Checks and a scored Quiz in the same course?

RodWard

Community Expert

LOL.

I Just love watching control freaks encounter Captivate. You can hear the sound of splintering glass all the way to Australia.

R

rsauchuck

Known Participant

Perhaps you would care to provide a constructive response to my issues with Captivate?

signed,

Control Freak

A

Anonymous

I know this thread is old, but I just found it and others will as well.

Yes, you are right. Adobe Captivate sucks. Really bad.

Rick, while it's true that this claim seems vague, and we cannot trouble shoot an issue with such a claim, yet it remains true: Adobe Captivate sucks. Still.

Just open the program and start using it. That's all you need to do...and you will come to the same realization that Adobe Captivate is garbage.

But that doesn't matter, because every other elearning product out there sucks too. So why make something great when crappy is still better than super crappy?

I wouldn't care though if it weren't for a couple points:

1) Macdavid is right, we should expect more from a company like Adobe. But it's apparent they tend to rest on their laurels, and also offer many sub-products that fall far below any desirable bar.

2) They charge a bloody $900 for it. If it were $20 I would understand. Wow, what an amazing overprice. But thats what happens when you have to pay for a bloated, oversized waterfall style corporation.

There's my rant.

Adobe, time to step up your game.

Cheers

RodWard

Community Expert

I'm always amazed at how different people's perceptions are of the same product.

I open Captivate every day and think it's a great product. After having to build e-learning over the years with an assortment of applications I'm very grateful for what we have nowadays. They may not be perfect, but man they are streets ahead of what I had to use when I started out.

I don't think Captivate is overpriced. There are plenty of other apps out there that don't do anywhere near as much which are a lot more expensive. It's all relative as far as I can see. I know $1700 might sound like a lot to ask for ELS. But when you start adding up all the apps you get in that package and what they are worth individually, you start to realise what a bargain it is.

I often wonder what people that rant about Captivavte on this forum actually think they accomplish. If the objective is to shame Adobe into kowtowing to their demands, then I have to say it's a fruitless gesture. It's about the online equivalent of walking into Macdonald's or Burger King and yelling at the top of your lungs about the evils of hamburgers. There'll be a momentary embarassed silence while everyone contemplates your lack of taste...and then we all go back to doing what we came there for in the first place.

AndyKingInOC

Legend

from the original post, going from Cp3 to Cp5 wow.. that's a jump.

I don't think it's fair to compare Captivate to Photoshop. Photoshop is what, version 13 now (PS CS5 was v12, not sure about CS6). Eight more iterations than Captivate is comparing apples and apple seeds.

I use Lectora Inspire also, probably 50/50 on my deliverables and they both have strengths and weaknesses. When we're designing some instruction I have to take careful note of what we want to accomplish so I can pick the best (for the deliverable) authoring tool.

Captivate handles most simulations much more smoothly than Lectora. I think the way Lectora handles advanced actions is a little more intutitve (and easier to manage later).

Ranting about how terrible one may be doesn't help resolve it. I'm sure auto mechanics are the same way, ranting out how terrible one brand may be compared to another. Doesn't change the fact you have to deal with both regardless. I think it's just human nature to define our existance by our suffering

Still waiting to get my hands on Cp6, supposed to be sometime this quarter. I look forward to some of the new features now that everyone else has figured things out.

Captiv8r

Legend

Hi there

Instead of issuing a very broad, nebulous and generic statement such as "Captivate Sucks", it would be more helpful if you were able to articulate exactly what about it sucks.

What are you attempting to do that you are having issues with?

Kind of like going to the doctor and saying you are there because you feel bad.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links

Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form

Adobe Certified Captivate Training

SorcerStone Blog

Captivate eBooks

macdavid777Author

Participating Frequently

Rick, you're correct. That rant was building for quite some time. I have been using Captivate 3 (PC) since late 2007. Any limitations in the software were chalked up to "It's only version 3" or "It's on a PC" while I did have higher expectations of the software considering it's parent (Adobe) produces AWESOME products such as Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash to name a few.

Sadly I found myself relying on PowerPoint to make simple picture adjustments (crop) because don't have PS on that PC.

So fast forward, now I have Captivate on the Mac. Simple issues that even worked well on the PC don't seem to work at all.

1. FTP publishing: I must change the actual server address in the Server list to publish to a specific folder. On the PC I could set the Root of the Server and then add any file path info in the dialogue below the server selection.

2. SKINs: I can't get Captivate 5 Mac to default to a Skin consistently. Once I post a project, close then open another project, I must reset the SKIN.

3. Space Bar Play: When in the audio dialogue, (this worked even in Cp3 PC) when I want to edit, the SPACE BAR should toggle play/pause. However in Cp5 Mac, SPACE BAR only toggles the last button highlighted.

These are the kind of STUPID (sorry, I'll calm down) things to which I refer.

We have chosen Captivate as an eLearning platform over Camtasia, Articulate, and many others due to the things it does do well. It's just that the user experience leaves quite a bit to be desired. This is not a Refined Product yet.

Thanks to anyone listening!

S

silverdroid-NEKvyB

Inspiring

3. Space Bar Play: When in the audio dialogue, (this worked even in Cp3 PC) when I want to edit, the SPACE BAR should toggle play/pause. However in Cp5 Mac, SPACE BAR only toggles the last button highlighted.

Still happens with CP8 on OSX. Super annoying.

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