Global changes to the styles crashing Captivate

[hertan22944122]

Hi,

I tried to change the global styles (Captivate 2017 / Mac OS X El Capitan) so that I don't have to do it every time I do a simulation for the same project, which does not load the custom project styles.  Now the default styles have disappeared and every time I open the styles form a project, Captivate crashes. I just can't work anymore and I'm starting to get very frustrated....

I contacted technical support, and they indicated in might be my user account.

I already reinstalled, cleaned the cache, cleaned the preferences, created another user and the issue replicates in the same way. The issue reproduces itself with any user.

Don't know what else to try. For the moment, just working without using text captions, so that I can advance with my work.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Lilybiri]

I am not sure to understand really. Do you want to go back to the situation before changing 'object styles'? Which theme are you using? Is it a custom theme or one of the default themes?  You can restore a default theme. All object styles are part of a theme. The themes you are using are stored in Public Documents (on Windows, on Mac it is another folder, shared?) under Adobe\eLearning Assets. That folder 'Layouts' is a copy of the original folder which you find under the installation folder of Captivate in the Gallery. If you know which theme you used, you can overwrite that theme in the Public documents by the original theme from the Gallery. I'm sorry not to be able to give you the exact paths for a Mac.

[hertan22944122]

I'm working on a project where all styles are custom, according to the requirements of my employer. I have to work with custom styles and a custom theme.  The project has lots of simulations, but every time you record a simulation from within that project, the custom styles are not loaded. So what I did according to the Captivate documentation is to close all projects and open the preferences to globally change the styles for all projects. As soon as did that, all styles disappeared, and not just that, but now when I'm in any project, opening the styles manager crashes Captivate.  Its practically unusable, unless you avoid opening the styles manager, which is what I'm doing now so that I can continue working. I will deal with the styles when I find a solution to this.

If found the eLearning Assets forlder in Users/Shared/Adobe/eLearning Assets, but I don't see any Layouts folder.

Not sure what else I can do.

[Lilybiri]

Custom styles are part of a custom theme. Same for Recording Defaults. Did you set those Defaults up, because the styles used during capture are part of the set up?

I would never change object styles globally, but just apply that custom theme when starting a project. If you have to do several projects with the same theme, you can indicate it as the Default theme. All has been explained in the articles below (Theme article has links to more articles about Theme).

Timeline, quizzes and themes are THE stumbling blocks for any CP starter. Each basic training for Captivate should focus on them, which is not happening at all because a lot of trainers do not have my opinion (based on almost a decade of answering questions on these forums). Maybe you are bumping also on one of them?

Here some links to articles:

Challenges for Starters - Captivate blog

What's in a Theme - a Template? - Captivate blog

[hertan22944122]

Of course, if you are working on a project, it is expected that you use the same theme and styles for both the project and any of its simulations.

On the other hand, Captivate is not a software you can just start using without doing any training. I did a whole training with an expert. 

My theme and styles are loaded into my project. An my project has lots of simulations. I learned that to do a simulation you just go to File > Record a New Software Simulation. The custom style for the project is not loaded at this time, this is another step for the user, it should load automatically since your are working on the same project, it is not another project.

Now, if you try to load the styles from within the simulation, there is no way to do it from the simulation Settings, there is no option to import your styles, only to create a new one.  Then you just go ahead and create the simulation.  After that, if you try to load the theme, first of all it does not appear in the themes list, you have to browse it, and when you select it, this is what you get (see screenshots).  Until now, what I was doing is importing the styles from the simulation every time, and with around 20 simulation per project...it gets very frustrating.  So, this is why I thought it would be a good idea to change the styles globally to what I use the most. But in the end, it turned out to be worse, now all styles are gone and Captivate crashes when I try to restore the Defaults. 

[Lilybiri]

You seem not to understand me. Did you setup the styles in Recording, Defaults? Did you save the theme after setting up everything: object styles, master slides, Recording Defaults and skin? Theme consists or:

• All object styles
• All master slides
• Skin
• Recording defaults, which do indicate which style to use for any object during recording a simulation.

[hertan22944122]

[Did you setup the styles in Recording, Defaults?] Yes, in my project. That does not do anything to simulation recording. The styles do not load into the simulation.

[Did you save the theme after setting up everything: object styles, master slides, Recording Defaults and skin?] Yes, my theme has been saved many times from the project, and I also have it saved in the HD.  But now when I try to load the theme it says that it cannot load it.  Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that this theme was created with Captivate 9 and now I'm using Captivate 2017.  It shouldn't though, because I resaved the theme from Captivate 2017 and it still it wont load into new projects.

I have no choice than to reinstall my system, see if that fixes things.

Thank you for your help.

[Lilybiri]

Is this about Camtasia? I don't understand anymore.

Never transfer a theme between projects. You didn't mention that this theme wasn't originally created in this version, if you are talking about Captivate.

[hertan22944122]

No, I work with Camtasia as well, just too many things in my head.  I corrected the post seconds after. This is about Captivate.

[hertan22944122]

Finally, I reinstalled my computer's OS and reinstalled Captivate 2017.  The styles are back.  And now instead of trying to globally change the styles, I'm doing what you recom mend, load the custom theme after the simulation is recorded, which means several extra steps, because I have to select a caption,   f o r   e x a m p l e ,       and apply the custom s  tyles.  It would be much easier if when you record a simulation from within a project the theme would load automatically and when the simulation is done, all the styles would be correct, I wouldn't have to change them manually.

If I would want to do a standalone simulation, I would start a new project, so does not make much sense to me. I think what is not being considered here it the perspective of the author.  I'm an IT instructor, and simulations are part of a larger content, just like you insert media into your course presentation, you also insert simulations to demonstrate what you are teaching. Inserting simulations into a course project is what is not easy  for  authors with  C a p t i v a t e  at this point. It should be as easy as inserting media or any other course element, in my opinion.

 Another thing that shouldn't happen is  c h a n g ing  the global styles crashing Captivate, that shouldn't happen.

[Lilybiri]

You misunderstand. Set the theme as default theme, and it will remain default for all future projects.

As I explained already mutliple times: Recording defaults (styles used during the recording of a software simulation) are included in the theme. Now you write that you change to the theme after recording, this has to be done  before recording! Did you read the article about themes? Using a default theme is doing a lot more than just change global styles what you are always referring to. You have to be sure in that theme to customize the default styles, I start to wonder if that was the case.

[hertan22944122]

I don't misunderstand, as I said, I'm an IT instructor with 10 years of experience with Adobe products. I know how software works.  I think the problem is that you are not seeing the errors I'm experiencing, this is why it is difficult to understand each other.  

When I just first started with Captivate, I tried to set my theme as the default, it is the first thing I did, but it just wouldn't stick.  So I didn't try that anymore.  With my newly installed OS, I tried that again, as you recommended, but again, it wouldn't stick, as soon as I closed Captivate, and reopen, the theme was back to the usual default, not my theme. And, on top of that this time, it crashed Captivate. I tried 3 times, and the third time, it did work, my theme is now the default.  I don't  know why I'm experiencing all the s e       errors, I have a fairly good machine.

But anyway, my theme is now set as default, and everything seems to be working as I want.

Again, thanks for your time trying to help me.