Is Captivate going to be end of life?

[Torrey22941977vq3g]

Hello,

Since Flash is an end of life product and Captivate seems to be very closely tied to it, is Captivate at risk of becoming an EOL product as well?  I'm finding references to Flash all over Captivate and I am having a hard time believing that it will be around for much longer.

[Lilybiri]

Since more than 5 years I have not published to SWF anymore, only to HTML5. Only SWF output needed the Flash Player which is now dead. The Flash Builder application has been renamed to Animate and allows also to create HTML animations (OAM). Are you still using a very old Captivate version, because lot of recent features work only for HTML5 output: responsive projects with Fluid Boxes, SVGs, images as buttons etc...

[Torrey22941977vq3g]

Thank you for the info.  I'm using the 2019 version of Captivate.  I thought I could avoid Flash by outputting to HTML5 (like you've described), but then I noticed that when I drag an .mp4 into my slide that it converts it to Flash - which leads me to believe Flash is more deeply engrained into Captivate than I thought.  Seeing Flash still pop up in Captivate, along with 2019 being the latest release that I could find, I'm concerned about the future of Captivate and am hesitant to convert content into it.

[Lilybiri]

HTML output will use mp4 files. Even the FMR slides in a software simulation, which used to be FLV video files are converted to mp4 when published. Where do you see SWF conversion, I wonder. Look at the project library to find the mp4 files. If you import other video formats they will be converted to mp4 using the included Adobe Media Encoder.

CP2019 is the confusing genearl name for three main releases and multiple smaller ones: 11.0, 11.5 and 11.8. But HTML output is the preferred output since version 7.

[Torrey22941977vq3g]

Slight correction:  I was importing an .avi file.  My understanding is both FLV and F4V are Flash - which is a bit of what concerns me.  It appears that Captivate wants to convert to Flash and then possibly back out of Flash if I publish to HTML.  It's this kind of artifact that has me worried about Captivate's future and if I should be using some other kind of software instead.  I appreciate your info, I know predicting Captivate's future is a tough question to answer.

[Lilybiri · Accepted solution]

Indeed, for an avi file it will need Adobe Media Encoder to be converted to mp4. It will not be converted to FLV/F4V at all. Look in the project library please!

You may have missed the September 2021 eLearning conference, where a sneak peek of a completely redesigned Captivate version 12 was shown. That version will for sure not have any output to SWF, only to HTML5. But as I mentioned HTML5 output is possible with Captivate since many versions.

[Torrey22941977vq3g]

Thank you for your information!  I'm new to Captivate, so I missed the conference, but I appreciate all the info.