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I
I-Am-So-Professional
Known Participant
December 16, 2020
Question

Share undocumented features and constraints

  • December 16, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 381 views

I have not seen a thread yet, so I am starting this one. I've been working in Captivate for 6 months, and these are a few things I found:


Object selection

  1. The Tab key allows you to toggle select every visible object on the timeline.
    I discovered this when I accidentally hit the Tab key. Just make sure that your cursor isn't in a text field. It will not, however, allow you to select hidden items. It will toggle selection starting from the topmost object on the timeline to the bottommost. Want to go in the opposite direction? Hold down Shift as you Tab through objects. To edit the contents, click the F2 key.

    Bonus:     This also works for objects in groups! So if you have a large grouping and you want to quickly change something without having to select it from the timeline, this will help immensely. Again, to edit the contents, click the F2 key. This allows you to access buried items that are fully covered by other objects.

That’s all for now. Please share!

 

Undocumented Constraints

  1. Smart Objects with text can have a maximum margin of 100 on any side.

 

  1. Text maximum size is limited to vertical height of project.

  2. Project maximum size is limited to 3200 x 3200 pixels.

  3. Synchronized video maximum size is limited to 999 seconds. (This is odd, because the reference manual states on p. 64 that the maximum slide duration is one hour =3600 seconds. Then p. 117 states that maximum slide duration is 999 seconds. Anyone with better information, please share!)

  4. Minimum duration of a portion of video on a slide (per Synchronized video) is 3 seconds. This duration is necessary to ensure that at least a couple of keyframes are assigned per slide.

  5. Hotspots: On p. 33 the manual states, “On any slide, you can use a maximum of four hotspots to link other slides.” However, if we’re talking about hotspots in general, the manual states on p. 423, “You can add a maximum of 10 hotspot areas to a slide.” YMMV

  6. Guides: the View > Create Multiple Guides dialogue allows you to create 50 max.

 

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    Lilybiri
    Lilybiri
    Legend
    December 17, 2020

    There is a lot more undocumented or outdated information in the official documentation. It was the reason I started blogging 10 years ago. Some of your points are relevant, others are confusing. What do you mean by 'synchronized' video? I suppose you refer to slide video?  I never experienced limitations for the duration, but I would avoid too long videos on one slide for other reasons (loading time, loss of synchronisation if you add static objects) but distribute them over multiple slides.

    There are lot more shortcut keys available for the Timeline panel and on the stage, they are barely documented. Have several blogs about them. Here is one link:

    http://blog.lilybiri.com/captivate-timelines-color-coding-and-shortcut-keys

     

    I never was restricted in the number of hotspots (if we mean the same) on a slide.   Have created tons of dashboard slides which are mainly meant for navigation. Must be a very outdated help page, because hotspots have a lot more possibilities since many versions.

    You can set up a grid with guides, never needed more than 50 guides and I use them all the time, contrary to most Captivate developers and trainers. 

    http://blog.lilybiri.com/guides-rule

    http://blog.lilybiri.com/guides-and-fluid-boxes-best-buddies

     

    I
    I-Am-So-ProfessionalAuthor
    Known Participant
    December 17, 2020

    Hi!

     

    Synchronized video: I have no clue as to what it means! I was quoting the manual, the "reference manual". It's the only "reference documentation" available to us users. The "User Guide" is another story. I do not like its structure. It's a series of how-to's, and it leaves tons of stuff unanswered. 

     

    Number of Hotspots: again, quoting the Adobe documentation, which seems to contradict itself. Also, I have not tested its limits. 

     

    My goal was to bring focus to a few glaring shortfalls and to also aggregate related documentation from the manual that is buried in conversational text throughout the manual.

     

    Object Selection: the Tab key

    I was testing it out, and it worked great for a group of objects that were smart objects. However, the next time I tested it, it was unable to toggle between objects in a different group that consisted of text captions. So I don't know what's happening there, but I wanted to share that. However I did like the way that it allows you to access editing objects that are covered by other objects. I work on other people's projects and I see people doing things like covering a button with a highlight box. I usually like to Cmd/Ctrl click on objects like in Illustrator and InDesign, but somehow that level of functionality is missing from Captivitae!

     

    I do so wish with all my heart that a knight in shining armor would come and rescue us peasants from the dungeon that is the current state of this program, because I really need it to be an efficient tool! Who do I need to contact? I wonder if Kanye West is interested in buying a software company?

    Thank you for the links, Lilibiri, I will check those out!

    Lilybiri
    Lilybiri
    Legend
    December 17, 2020

    I don't even know how many blog posts I already created to supplement the Help documentation which is indeed not up to the powerof the application. Just know that I have around 2,000,000 page views so far.  

    You may have seen a lot of bad practice indeed. In most cases that is due to the developers who continue to use old workflows because they do not want to learn about new features. Some of those new features are just hype, the real gems are often too hidden.

     

    If you want training, visit my website. I explain my view on software training and how I set up a personalized curriculum for each trainee or trainee group. There is a lot of training around which is not taking into account the existing trainee skills, nor their needs. A multifeatured tool like Captivate is not well served with a canned superficial training. Help documentation: I use to say since 12 years: do not look at it, ask on the forums.

    Synchronized video: that term doesn't appear anymore in Captivate since multiple versions.  6 years ago I was asked to moderate the Help documentation online, which meant taking out the bugs, adding links to other articles, videos etc... Suddenly they stopped that workflow without any announcement. You may also know that 99,9% of the answers to CP questions are given by other Captivate users, for free...

     

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