Captivate 7 new features

[jay fresno]

Adobe recently announced new features added to Captivate 7. There are several videos discribing these features here:

http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=8940148143744880004&gid=2009048&type=member&item...

The descriptions in the videos don't help much because I learn best by doing things myself. Does anyone know where to find hands-on exercises using these new features?

[RodWard]

If you're quick you can still buy the Infosemantics Guide to Advanced Actions e-book for half price:

http://www.infosemantics.com.au/e-books/guide-to-adobe-captivate-advanced-actions-01

The first full version of this e-book goes live next week and then the price will be full price as well.  The book covers all the new enhancements to variables and advanced actions that came in with the Cp 7.0.1 patch.

[jay fresno]

Rod,

The ad says that the price of the book will increase as more information is added in subsequent editions. It also says "you'll never have to pay full price." Does that mean that if I buy now, I will recieve subsequent editions without charge?

[RodWard]

That is correct.  Once you buy the book, even if the price should later increase as more content is added, you pay nothing more.

[jay fresno]

Would I be able to print the book?

[Lilybiri]

Hi Jay,

Has been a long time now since you posted a question

You are the same kind of learner I am, never even bought one book for Captivate. Rod's book will be great I think. Had plans to create some cookbooks, but still hesitating because I don't think it will sell when there is already a good book on the market. That is not the primary reason, which is that I don't want a book like there are already a lot around. And when you want it to offer more, like exercises, interactivity, audio, etc... it is a huge work, not to create the content, but to format it properly for all the distribution channels.

Maybe you could help pushing me: what do you as a user expect from such an ebook? My first surprise is that you want to print it, which will normally loss a big deal of functionality with the type of ebook I had in mind? Do you expect to get start files as I provided early on in some of my articles? Do you expect to get shared actions, templates to play with? My plans were not for a 'manual', nor a 'reference book', but for a 'do-book' with tools, ingredients and recipes as examples, but where the user can refer to tools and ingredients to cook his own meals.

Thanks for any advice.

Lieve

[jay fresno]

Hi Lilybiri,

I just happen to like printed books, especially thoss that have hands-on exercises. I find them easier to learn from. I don't have to take precious monitor real estate trying to read the ebook in one window and do hands-on exercises in another window. I find video tutorials way too time-consuming, and it is frustrating not to be able to skim back and forth in them in the same way I do with printed books. With a printed book I can quickly go back to review parts, whereas with video tutorials it is difficult to find just the sections I want to review without looking at the whole video again.

I agree that publishing a book is a huge undertaking when it's done right. It's nice to have start files. I like getting actions that I can adapt to my own projects. I don't care about templates because I prefer to develop and design my own templates.

I truly admire your depth of knowledge and am very appreciative of all the helpful explanations you've given me.  If you published a "do-book" I'd buy it in a split second.

[Lilybiri]

Hi Jay,

If I need an ebook, I put it on my tablet... never on the monitor. Think I'll just abandon the idea, seems not worthwhile at all. I suppose you like the system of 'Classroom in a book', have some of them for other applications, when I was teaching (never taught Captivate, don't laugh). And the big advantage of a good ebook is one with plenty of hyperlinks. Another dream that crashed for me

Lieve

[RodWard]

Yes Jay you can print it if you want, but you'll need plenty of paper.  The book is currently about 170 pages in length. 

The first 100 pages deals with all the building blocks of variables, events, actions, standard actions, conditional actions, shared actions, and capturing user input via TEBs and other types of interactive objects. 

The rest of the book is made up of short tutorial practice exercises that apply the theory and principles from the first part of the book.  These tutorials are divided into logical sections such as navigation, user input validation, date formatting, etc.

Although the book will be released this week, I still have lots of tutorials that I intend to add over time.  But I need to get this project at least out there in a finished saleable form before the holidays start.

[Sreekanth_S]

Lieve, there are all kinds of learners and you can cater to both types of users. So, please publish your ebook. You can combine multiple methods for this. Here are my two cents (not sure if this makes business sense though).

1. You can have step-by-step procedures in an ebook (which can be printed of course) and direct the users to your blog/ website/ youtube channel for practical demonstration. You can include the cost of videos in the book price or you can charge separately.

2. You can provide overview of steps in an ebook (just like you do on these forums) and charge for more detailed steps and video demonstrations. As a bonus, you can provide source files to the users who want to customize your solution. Here again, you can decide whether you want to charge separately for source files or not.

Irrespective of your approach, if possible, please make sure that:

1. Users can pay in all popular currencies -- USD, AUD, Euro, GPB, and my INR. Atleast in my case, as much as I want to buy few ebooks, the seller's inability to accept payment in my currency has put me on hold several times. My bank charges a huge money for foreign currency transactions, sometimes the charges are more than the book cost itself.

2. Keep the multi-user license cost low. Users working in a company buy one copy and share it among their team. Having hefty multi-user cost will be a hindrance in such cases. Being the Queen of Advanced Actions, users will be ready to pay a premium upfront for your advanced actions book.

Overall, it is indeed a huge task to have the setup in place. But that is a one time task.

Sreekanth

[Lilybiri]

Sreekanth,

I did some calculations. If I put such an ebook on Amazon, available for all currencies, and it sells for 10$, after deducting everything I'll keep myself less than 1$. Did you know that? It is not very inspiring, even if I really want to create ebooks, it is so depressing to see that kind of reality. Better go for Rod's PDF, and I'll continue to contribute for free everywhere. And I didn't tell what the Belgian taxes will start to try to get from the remainder...1$. They'll never believe it is so low and will accuse me of financial fraude.

Lieve

[Sreekanth_S]

How about selling it for 50$?

In any case if you don't publish, it is certainly our loss.

Sreekanth

[Lilybiri]

Royalty for books>10$ are double... on Amazon. They take 65% before all the other taxes I have to pay everywhere and the transaction change.

[jay fresno]

Have you thought about teaming up with Rod? What a knockout book that would be with the two of you as co-authors!!!

[Lilybiri]

Rod preferred writing the book alone AFAIK. That is his privilege. so have to respect it.  You'll have to do with his book, because I'm starting to put my dreams about books in the cellar.

[Captiv8r]

Hi all

One of the issues with books, be they eBooks or books made of dead trees, is that often they are specific to a particular version. And often, by the time you get one completed a newer version of the software appears and you find yourself in a constant cycle of chasing your tail trying to keep up with new screens, dialogs and features.

Collaboration is also challenging because each author has his or her own preferred style of writing and presenting content. While not impossible to achieve, care must be taken so the collaboration doesn't end up looking a bit like a ransome note written by a person with multiple personality disorder.

Just my own $.02 worth

Cheers... Rick

[RodWard]

Rick is correct.  Collaboration  when writing a book can be problematic.  I've had some memorably unsuccessful 'collaborations' in past lives, so I now believ being a 'lone writer' is the best way for me.

Before I got into creating e-learning, I was a Technical Author creating online help and user manuals for software companies.  So my style of writing has developed in a very specific way based on what I found worked well for people trying to learn to use software.

Having said all of the above, I would like to go on record as expressing my personal appreciation for Lieve's work over the years on this forum, especially when it comes to Advanced Actions.  Her selfless and tireless efforts have helped thousands of people and we all owe her a debt of thanks.

[jay fresno]

Rod,

Thanks for letting me know about your book. I went ahead and bought it; well, actually someone else bought it for me and I'm getting it as a gift.

I like the writing style -- very clear -- and the fact that it covers 'gotchas.'

I'm looking forward to the updates that include the new features of Captivate version 7.01 and the exercises at the end of the book, when you get a chance to add them.

[kevin_stagg]

I love Rod's book - but I print because it's easier, as someone with one monitor - to look down at a printed document, than to constantly alt+tab between windows. Searching through the PDF is fantastic and I constantly use the PDF, but having a printed copy is invaluable.

[Barbara Ash]

I concur with Kevin. I have found Rod'sebook to be excellent. The ability to print and have everything in one PDF reference, without having to refer to lengthy video movies, is great. While I haven't completely finished reading it, the more time I spend with it the more I realize how valuable and well thought out it is.

[RodWard]

Awww shucks.  I'm blushing!