Maintiaining file name congruity on published output files

[sigur_rosser]

Scenario: Capt 2017, publishing as HTML5 (damn), trying to set a default file name when publishing to computer.

I have inherited about 70 Captivate files which I hand off to the client, who does all the LMS/Scorm stuff.  This issue is upstream, before I hand off the files.

(I've been building and revising these course for almost a decade.  I'm a gov't contractor and frankly I'm not even sure my courses are even being used, as I have gotten no feedback from client or end users in all this time - aggravating and a waste of tax dollars.)

So these courses were originally developed by some other company.  They used file names for the courses replete with bad karma, complete with periods, parenthesis, numbers, spaces, and more in filenames approaching 50 characters, etc.  I decided to rename each course with only lower case letters and underscores, limiting the length to no more than about a dozen characters tops.  

I am of course able to save the courses with the new filenames.  Note I rename the courses using Save As opposed to renaming the course from the desktop while it's closed.  However, when I go to "Publish to Computer" from the row of icons at the top of Captivate the filename defaults to the original "bad" file name.  I've tried to use the drop down "Preferences > Project Information > Project Name" and am able to change the default filename there, but when I Publish to Computer, the "Project Title" reverts back to the bad version.  I have to type the new filename in every time I publish a course in order to maintain consistency. I've looked everywhere for a field to change.  Any ideas?

Thanks!!!

[RodWard]

This has been a known bug in Captivate for many years.  I don't know exactly which version introduced it, but it does seem to go back several years.

Whenever I come across it I find the only way I can fix it is to:

1. Open the project in Captivate, do a Save As and rename the file, but save it to a totally different folder location. 
2. Then close down the file and reopen it again from that other folder location.
3. Save as again back to the original folder location where you want it.  You can even replace the original CPTX this time.
4. Open the Publish dialog and change the publish name (which also determines the Title) and publish out to HTML5.  From this point on the Publish name should be more controllable.

I have no idea why this works.  But the essential ingredient seems to be that you MUST save to a totally different folder with a totally different name.  Doing all of this from within the same folder location doesn't seem to change anything.  It's like something is being cached in Captivate to remember the details in that folder. 

It's definitely a bug but I don't tend to see it in projects created with the latest versions of Captivate.  It seems to only be present in projects that have been upgraded over years from way back.

[sigur_rosser]

Thanks Rod.  I always appreciate your quick and thorough explanations!

[sigur_rosser]

Hi Rod. I'm having issues getting this to work.  In your Step 4 above you state:

1. Open the Publish dialog and change the publish name (which also determines the Title) and publish out to HTML5.  From this point on the Publish name should be more controllable.

Do you mean open the Publish icon on the top row of icons, or - any of the options under the "File" menu?  What I'm trying to do is prepopulate the Project Title field when publishing with the Publish icon on the top row of icons.

Thanks again!

[RodWard]

Yes you are opening the Publish dialog using the Publish icon on the big button bar.  Not options under the File menu.

The process I mentioned above was to try and resolve an issue where the text prepopulating the Project Title field in the Publish dialog does not remain set to whatever was entered in that field at the time you last saved and closed the project.

When you first open a project and give it a name, the Project Title field in the Publish dialog will automatically be pre-populated with the filename.  But if you change that Project Title text in the Publish dialog and click Publish, then from that time on the Project Title text should be whatever you last set it to at the time the project is closed. 

In some older projects, sometimes the Project Title keeps reverting to something it was set to historically and does not retain what you last set it to.  This is the issue that I was able to resolve using the process I mentioned.  But if that's not working for you, I don't really have anything else to suggest as a solution except the very radical step of creating e new blank project file and copying all of your older slides into that.  But I am sure you do NOT want to have to do that.