Captivate 8 versus 7 – What the?

Report · Jun 25, 2015

I just started a project in Captivate 8 after doing everything in 7 for the last year... I was thinking I would pick up some new features and possibly some improvements but so far:

I'm finding things that are well downright ...a head scratcher?

1. Formatting bulleted text without paragraph spacing was always a pita but it appears something is either broken or the workaround I've used for many projects has been rendered useless (if that's possible). My workaround for no paragraph spacing – add a hard return and change the pt. size – now the text block actually has to be "deselected" before I can adjust the spacing on each bullet item??? So if I have a block of text... which had 5 sentences which I wanted to visually space (paragraph spacing), I'd have to deselect it 5 times to adjust the spacing! Crazy... in Captivate 7 I can select the text block and change all the lines at one time! What the?

2. Selecting objects in Captivate 7 highlights the correct properties in the sidebar... in Captivate 8 you have to manually change properties for each item selected? What the?

3. Separating the top menus from the toolbar menus means constantly switching between the 2 which is confusing and just slower... not sure hwy they would do this other than to make the interface look "cooler" which coupled with having to constantly select your properties all the time is just SLOWER overall. What the?

I can't say at this point I'll do another project in 8 unless someone absolutely has to have html 5 compatibility ...and from my testing in that area it's not very well implemented either. Who's working on this program anyway? Do the people who deisgn this actually use the program?

What the?

Report · Jun 25, 2015

I'm not a fan of the new UI at all, but did you try to switch to Expert UI by checking the 4th option in the Preferences, General Settings 'Allow custom workspace....'. At least you can then create some better arrangements of the panels and not depend on what Captivate decides you should see. However, you cannot get rid of that greedy (on space) Big Button Bar. The properties panel has no longer parts that you can collapse, but is split up in two panels (Properties and Timing Properties), and lot of tabs, not always that intuitive and leading to a lot more clicks and mouse movements. I'm very happy now that I'm a shortcut key user, I don't need the BBB that much, but still find the work flows need lot more time than in CP7.

Yes, I am using this version, even though I don't feel that much pleased by the UI. The improvement of shared actions did save me a lot of time already.

Report · Jul 13, 2015

So if I'm interpreting your answer the improvements are in scripting and custom actions? I wonder how many people are using Captivate to write actionscript and custom actions. I'm certainly not, as I have to create an entire presentation with images and animations then add a quiz and upload to scormcloud. I don't really have the time to write custom scripts... nor do I want to.

What would be helpful to me and maybe the average user is some "useful" pre-done scripts that do useful things in the way of navigation and logic branching. What I really need is:

1. A way to add questions that don't count to the final quiz... or multiple quizzes. That would be very helpful!

2. Master slide buttons... which I know is possible now but the instructions for that sounded like more programming... again.

3. Easier setup of custom themes... I still haven't figured out how to get my custom theme into a new document? As it doesn't show up in the new documents theme settings? Maybe I can't remember how I did it but it shouldn't be that hard.

At this point the only thing Captivate has going for it is subscription pricing... you can use it for $20. month and Articulate is in the thousands. Captivate 8 has a number of things that are broken in my usage so far to the point that I'm not sure if I should even continue with it and just go back to 7. Very frustrating program and I've been using Mac software and computers since the 80s.

Report · Jul 13, 2015

Multiple quizzes - that is a SCORM requirement, only one quiz per file. Knowledge slides, yes I agree it should be easier.

Master slide buttons are pretty easy: use shape buttons, that is it, no programming really.

Custom themes: if you save them, they are simply available in the Themes dialog box, what is the problem? Theme colors palette is a bit too complicated, agree about that.