How to add individual audio seek bar for each slide in the Captivate output

[Altrin5C74]

Hi there,

I’m creating an online course with Adobe Captivate that consists of many slides. 

I would like to add a progress bar in my playbar which makes winding forward or backward possible, but only within the current slide. By default, it add a progress bar which works for the entire project. 

Is there a way to get a progress bar for each slide? Right now the people can jump back and forward via the TOC or by hitting the buttons forward or backward in the play bar, but it is not possible to jump to a specific moment within one slide.

Thanks for your help.

[RodWard]

This question gets asked quite a lot because Captivate's main competitor, Articulate Storyline, has a playbar that works that way.  (While over on the Storyline user forum people are asking whether they can get Storyline to work like Captivate.)  A lot of this just comes down to personal preference.

The answer is that Captivate does not provide any built-in way to change the functionality of the playbar from it's default of showing progress of the entire module.  A solution might be possible using other methods, but this would be a customised solution.

Could you please explain WHY you believe your end users require the ability to jump to a specific moment within a single slide?  Perhaps if we understand your reasons the solution will become clearer.

[Altrin5C74]

Thanks for your response. In my course, there is audio elements in every slides and I want the seek (scrubbing) bar to be included in the player to control the audio. But I don't want the user to skip any of the slides (i.e. jumping from slide 1 to slide 10) using seek (scrubbing) bar. For this reason, how do I customize the Captivate player to have the seek (scrubbing) bar controlling only the particular slide as like Articulate Storyline? 

Regards,

Altrin

[RodWard]

Thank for your explanation.  Unfortunately, it does not change what Captivate can do.  There is no option in Captivate's playbar to make the seek bar only apply to a single slide rather than the entire project. 

If the main issue here is that you do not want the learner to be able to use the seek bar to jump over slides then there are ways to either remove the seek bar altogether from the playbar, and ways (using JavaScript) to disable scrubbing using the seek bar.  But there are no built in ways to make it work exactly as you desire.   To achieve something like that you would probably need to get someone to do custom JavaScript development for you.

To be fair, Articulate Storyline has no options to make their playbar work the way Captivate's does either.  So, what you see in Articulate is simply a design preference that is built into the software by the vendor.  Adobe decided to go a different route.

If this whole issue of the playbar seek functionality now working the way you prefer is a real showstopper for you, then I recommend you use Storyline for your project.  That would seem to be the quickest way to resolve the issue.

[Lilybiri]

I am puzzled by the topic title 'audio seekbar'? Are you talking about an eLearning course or a podcast?

[RodWard]

@lieve: I believe the poster is referring to the Seek (scrubbing) bar in the Captivate playbar.

In Captivate this applies to the entire project, but the poster wants one that works more like Storyline where each individual slide has its own scrubbing bar.

[Lilybiri]

@RodWard I understood the question but why did OP specify 'audio'? It is at the least confusing. 

That recurring question is partially due to Storyline (relies too much on the PPT interface) but also often to the fact that new CP users create slides with long durations instead of using multiple slides, which are much easier to manage and to deploy quicker. 

[Altrin5C74]

Thanks for your response. In my course, there are audio elements in every slides and I want the seek (scrubbing) bar to be included in the player to control the it. But I don't want the user to skip any of the slides (i.e. jumping from slide 1 to slide 10) using seek (scrubbing) bar. For this reason, how do I customize the Captivate player to have the seek (scrubbing) bar controlling only the particular slide as like Articulate Storyline? 

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

I usually record my Adobe Captivate tutorials a month or so in advance to always maintain a new video on my YouTube channel each week. By coincidence, this video, which was recorded in May, is scheduled for this Wednesday. Keep in mind that if you add all your audio to each slide using this method, your audio will be asynchronous with your eLearning course. Also remember that if you wish to create an accessible course this method would not be compatible with closed captioning, again because the audio would not be sync with anything in your course. 

https://youtu.be/m-z_qe_ezfQ