Captivate Classic and built-in Preview

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Sorry if this was posted already...

I noticed the "Preview Next Slides" option was still available in the preferences, so I started wondering if Adobe just removed the Preview Next X Slides menu and the (built-in) Preview menu--but not the features.

Sure enough, using the F10 and F4 keys still brought up the built-in previews. Handy for quick checks of the work and not having to render the entire project to view something in the browser.

[Lilybiri]

Yes, David, I have answered the same question multiple times. Even before this version 11.8.2 I have warned that all Preview options for a non-responsive project were obsolete with the exception of Preview HTML in Browser. Reason: all other preview methods were using a SWF-based temporary output which was not at all representative for the HTML output. In 11.8 most of the SWF-features have been taken out, including these Preview methods. The only one remaining is F11, because Preview HTML in Browser and Preview Project are identical (to me this is cheating the user). 

I was very disappointed because I logged this issue since many years. Why is it possible to have all the Preview methods with temporary HTML output for responsive projects and not for non-responsive projects, using localhost? Because of that obsession for responsive projects perhaps?

BTW my workaround since long time is to activate the TOC in overlay, with navigation enabled. You still have to wait for rendering the full project, but at least you can navigate to a specific slide.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I figured you would have noticed it. Just to clarify, for non-responsible previews, the features weren't taken out--the menus were simply removed--the SWF preview functions are still there when accessed by F keys. (I realize they are not representative of HTML but are still handy for quick-and-dirty testing.)

Storyline has a nice browser preview that allows one to select the project, scene, or slide so one is not wasting time rendering other slides.

[Lilybiri]

Yes, I know that the shortcut keys still work, but the SWF preview can be quite different, I didn't use it since HTML became the normal output. For that reason I really regret that the CP team didn't carry over the HTML preview to non-responsive projects.  And it is ridiculous to leave Preview Project which is identical to Preview HTML in Browser (F11). F4 used to be the shortcut key for the SWF Project Preview.

There are many reasons why I don't like SL, but in some features they are better.