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tomf77723179
New Participant
April 10, 2023
Answered

How can I customize assets for reuse?

  • April 10, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 459 views

I would like to create a set of sample pages (like Asset pages) that I can add to multiple projects. How can I do this while saving them locally so that I have the proper corporate logos, pallete, fonts, etc.?

I like being able to add a page at a time to my slides, and have all the scripts merged in correctly. 

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Lilybiri

    From an other old computer geek (have taught software applications since more than 3 decades), a recommendation., probably unwanted. You could benefit a lot, and spare a lot of time from some personal training. 

    I mentioned the Assets libraries which I use mainly to transfer easily shared actions and user variables between projects. Lot of the assets you mention can be embedded in the Theme by using the master slides. You have some links to my blog now, you'll find a lot of useful information there. From ChatGPT I learned that this blog may be a unique resource for Shared action and Themes. Please take also some time to explore Captivate's Timeline, because it causes the biggest amount of problems to new Captivate users. This article has over 70K views:

    https://blog.lilybiri.com/pausing-captivates-timeline

     

    As for quizzing, this is a link to one of the posts in a basic course (I don't have a lot of basics on the blog):

    https://blog.lilybiri.com/quiz-basics-2-submit-process

     

    To avoid you lot of headaches, avoid creating responsive projects. They are only really needed if you expect the learners to access the course mainly on smart phones. But you know also that this may not be the best device for real learning. Responsive projects in Captivate do have a lot of limitations which will for sure cause you frustrations. You can publish any course to Scalable HTML output, which makes them accessible in any browser, desktop or mobile, but only in landscape mode.

    1 reply

    Lilybiri
    Lilybiri
    Brainiac
    April 10, 2023

    That is a very broad question, and I have no idea about your present skills with the application at all.  Just a short summary about what Captivate has to make reusability possible:

    • It is Theme-based. Start by creating a well-designed Theme, which includes Theme fonts, Theme Colors, Object Styles, Master slides. TOC setup and eventually Recording preferences. More about the most recent changes about the Theme in this blog post:
      https://blog.lilybiri.com/themes-are-time-savers-what-is-new-in-11-dot-5
    • Each project has a Project Library, containing a lot of the used assets. Less known is that you can open the Library of any project in a new project as External Library. Create one or more libraries with the most used assets (logos and other graphics, videos, audio clips, SVGS...) which are not yet embedded in the Theme (on master slides). More in:
      https://blog.lilybiri.com/internal-and-external-libraries
    • If by scripts you mean Advanced actions: one big recommendation is to replace them whenever possible by Shared actions. They will be present in the Project library contrary to Advanced actions (can be opened in any project as mentioned before). Moreover they are more flexible (thanks to the parameters) and you'll not end up with broken commands when you copy/paste an object or slide with attached Advanced actions.
    • If you use JavaScript, keep them in a external JS file and link to it in any project using the functions in the script.
    • Do NEVER use the former templates (cptl), they are too buggy. If you want a model project, create a cptx-file which you can block for editing, so that it can only be used as a copy of the original file.
    • You can also customize the Quick Start Projects from the Assets panel, and save the edited projects to use.

    I hope this is a starter?

     

    T
    tomf77723179Author
    New Participant
    April 10, 2023

    Thanks, you've given me much to go over here. While I like the basic idea of the asset library, I only need a subset of Projects/Slides, all of which need to be in our corporate appearance.

     

    The Shared Actions sounds like a better solution for part of the problems I want to solve. I just need short scripts (Advanced Actions, whatever...) to add a navigation button after the user has viewed every item on a page. Thank you for the great set of links. I will review and move forward with this extra information.

    And yes, I'm new to Captivate. A old engineer computer geek who needs to create eLearning courses some of which are based on old PPTX stuff, others are all new material. The testing bits are probably the newest feature for me to deal with.

    Lilybiri
    LilybiriCorrect answer
    Brainiac
    April 10, 2023

    From an other old computer geek (have taught software applications since more than 3 decades), a recommendation., probably unwanted. You could benefit a lot, and spare a lot of time from some personal training. 

    I mentioned the Assets libraries which I use mainly to transfer easily shared actions and user variables between projects. Lot of the assets you mention can be embedded in the Theme by using the master slides. You have some links to my blog now, you'll find a lot of useful information there. From ChatGPT I learned that this blog may be a unique resource for Shared action and Themes. Please take also some time to explore Captivate's Timeline, because it causes the biggest amount of problems to new Captivate users. This article has over 70K views:

    https://blog.lilybiri.com/pausing-captivates-timeline

     

    As for quizzing, this is a link to one of the posts in a basic course (I don't have a lot of basics on the blog):

    https://blog.lilybiri.com/quiz-basics-2-submit-process

     

    To avoid you lot of headaches, avoid creating responsive projects. They are only really needed if you expect the learners to access the course mainly on smart phones. But you know also that this may not be the best device for real learning. Responsive projects in Captivate do have a lot of limitations which will for sure cause you frustrations. You can publish any course to Scalable HTML output, which makes them accessible in any browser, desktop or mobile, but only in landscape mode.

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