Adobe Captivate for building complex e-learning course

[Guest]

Hi!

I intend to create some e-learning desktop app and I perceived this authorization tool as promising for that purpose.
There are some features I'd like to have included in this app (some of them are more complex!):
- large movies player
- html source code files/movies/etc. not accessable from explorer level (password protection?)
- source code files packaged in single .exe file
- user interface adjusted to my needs
- working on different platforms

Is there possibility to achieve these features in Adobe Captivate?
Any replies appreciated!

M

[RodWard]

It seems you may not be a native English speaker so I may be misunderstanding your requirements in some cases here:

- large movies player

You can add videos to a Captivate project but how the player looks is largely determined by which way you insert the videos.  In most cases though you DON'T have a lot of control over the player itself.

- html source code files/movies/etc. not accessable from explorer level (password protection?

If you are publishing as SWF, then the code is compressed and packaged inside the SWF.  If you are publishing as HTML5 there is very little you can do about hiding your code.  If the user can download your published output, they can potentially dig into it with Internet Explorer by going into the browser cache folders.

- source code files packaged in single .exe file

Captivate DOES have an EXE output as an option.  It publishes your course content in a self-running executable player.

- user interface adjusted to my needs

Captivate doesn't really adjust to your needs.  The relationship works more the other way around.  You need to adjust to it.  About the only thing you can do is create your own Workspace setup, and define which panels or tabs you want to be visible.  You can also drag some panels off as floating panels.  But not everything in the interface works this way.

- working on different platforms

Captivate is available for PC and MAC but only for 64-bit systems now.  Since Captivate 9 there is no 32-bit option anymore.  The published output can be for desktops or mobiles, but for mobiles it can only be HTML5 or Responsive or an App.

Hope this answers your questions.

[Guest]

Hi RodWard!

Thanks for reply.

Perhaps I wasn't specific enough which could lead to misunderstandings. My comments below should clarify previously given requirements.

- large movies player

I mean both large size and high resolution movies here. I've seen somebody inserting a video on slide added in Captivate. However, time bar was something I was missing in that video player. Is there any possiblity to add it?

- html source code files/movies/etc. not accessable from explorer level (password protection?)

I mean something like this: executable file for starting the application + folder with movies, multimedia, etc. User should be able to turn on .exe file, but shouldn't be able to open any of the files in folder with movies. They could be password protected, but password would be known to exe file itself only. I assume that advanced protection is not possible here (or very complex), but some kind of basic encryption would be enough for me.

- source code files packaged in single .exe file

You gave me the answer I needed. That's it.

- user interface adjusted to my needs

I meant user interface seen as layout (fonts, some basic animations, etc.) opened by potential participant of eLearning course.

- working on different platforms

Ok.

[RodWard]

Videos inserted as Event Videos have to use the players provided by Captivate and none of them have a progress bar.  If the video is inserted as a Multi-slide Synchronized video then the Captivate playbar progress bar applies.

You cannot really stop people from being able to view code or files in the HTML5 content they download.  If you deliver as HTM/SWF or EXE then these files encapsulate the content.  You can password protect Captivate output, but it's usually going to cause you more headaches than its worth.

[christiand58840139]

Hi,

I assume you intent to create a cross-platform desktop application with web technologies (i.e. HTML5, JS & CSS) and distribute it as an executable to all major OS-platforms - so that users can experience the look and feel of a native desktop-application with all the rings and bells, no matter if they use Windows, Linux or OSX ? If that's the case, you can achieve this "easily" 😉 by packaging the HTML5-output of a responsive Captivate-Project with great open source tools like NW.js (formerly known as node-webkit, sponsored by Intel, Github-repository: nwjs/nw.js · GitHub) or Electron (formerly atom-shell, sponsored by Github, Github-repository: atom/electron · GitHub). If you're unsure which one to use start digging here: NW.js & Electron Compared 

I didn't try Electron yet, but I've had a pretty good experience with NW.js so far. NW.js is is an app-runtime based on Chromium and Node.js and enables you to package any HTML5 App (and thus the output of a responsive Captivate-Project as well) into a native executable for 64-Bit & 32-Bit-Desktop-platforms (i.e. Win64, OSX64, Linux64, Win32, OSX32, Linux32), which contains all your source code - apart from a few dlls that NW.js-Apps need to run. Thus your "Web App" is executable via a simple double click and runs in a native window, that you can completely adjust to your needs (adding custom menus, controlling the window size etc.). And what's more: Since NW.js lets you call Node.js-modules, you can access the file system, create databases etc. etc. without the usual restrictions for web apps in a local environment - just like a regular local desktop application. Fracking. Awesome.

As a starting point for NW.js I would recommend this wiki-page of their github-repository: Tutorials on Node WebKit · nwjs/nw.js Wiki · GitHub. And if you want to create an installer for your App / the executable created by NW.js, you can use Inno Setup for example, a free installer for Windows programs.

As for your requirement of a "large movies player": Haven't played with videos yet in Captivate or NW.js, sorry...

Concerning the protection of your source code: Since it's all packaged into one executable, it shouldn't be accessible that easily (at least not to the average user - if you really need more protection, you should study this: Hide source code possibility).

The only downside that I encountered so far: Due to licensing reasons (open source), the ffmpegsumo.dll shipped with NW.js-apps doesn't support patented media-formats such as mp3 & mp4 (H.264). But you can use ogg, matroska, wav instead without problems. And the NW.js-Wiki offers instructions, if you require support for these formats (see here: Using MP3 & MP4 (H.264) using the  video  &  audio  tags. · nwjs/nw.js Wiki · GitHub). The problem with Captivate concerning this issue is, that Captivate excepts wav and mp3 when importing audio-files - but converts the audio to mp3 only when you publish your course. So my shitty workaround to get audio in NW.js playing was so far, to replace the mp3-files in the corresponding output folder ("ar") with wav-files again and to search and replace every occurrence of the mp3-files in CPM.js (located in "assets/js") with a text editor. Question to RodWard‌ : Do you know if there's a way to prevent the conversion of wav to mp3 when publishing a responsive project?

Hope I could help...

Cheers,

Mayinx

(Hint to the Adobe Captivate Team: Add a "Publish as cross-platform desktop-application"-Option to the publishing-menu for responsive projects, which produces executable Cp-NW.js or -Electron Apps for all major platforms with one click. And corresponding preview-options of course. This feature can be realized quite easily and would add real value to Captivate and surely attract more customers, since the subject "Web Technology on the Desktop / Desktop native apps using web technologies" is extremely popular (Electron's Github-Repo has > 20 K Stars and > 1.800 Forks -  and NW.js is even more popular - with > 25 K Stars and > 2.800 Forks). And since those projects are completely open source you shouldn't get into any (legal) trouble utilizing those tools for Captivate.)