Navigate in a 360° image on a touch screen

[Pixelworker Bori]

When I publish a course with a 360 image, I am able to navigate in the image with the mouse or touchpad, but not with the finger on a touchscreen device like iPad or Surface. Are there special settings I have to observe? It would be very frustrating, if this would not work poroperly. 
Thanks for any advice, regards

[kdmemory]

Hi Pixelworker Bori

What kind of 360 image are you talking about? Is it within a (a) regular project (Blank or responsive project) an inserted 360 slide or is it (b) a fully blown Virtual Reality project?

For the case of (a) the 360 image doesn't scale down in a responsive manner, hence a 4K 360 image (4096 by 2048 pixels) remains large on a smaller viewport and that can be confusing to know where you are within the virtual dimensions. But nevertheless one should be able to use a finger to move around.

In case of (b): On smaller viewports the 360 image shrinks somewhat proportionally so that one can find an easier orientation in the virtual space (like here on my mobile phone). I can perfectly move around with my finger.

This is before I tap ENTER VR for the use of virtual viewing devices like VR goggles and the like. In that case, but without Google Cardboard Box or Daydream (I still don't own any of this),  when I press ENTER VR anyway, my viewport shows this:

(Sorry, the view should be horizontal but when I try to make a screenshot in Chrome in a horizontal orientation, Chrome crashed in all attempts.) However - being in this mode you can't navigate anymore with your finger. You need to move the device or with virtual goggles on your head and body axis to navigate the virtual space.
In which mode and kind of project do you experience your problem?

Klaus

[Pixelworker Bori]

Hi Klaus,

thank you for your reply. When I open the project on an iPhone, I can confirm your observed behaviour. But when I open it on an iPad or surface, then it is not possible to navigate with the finger. (Hotspots are working with finger tap)

And this is true for a responsive project with a 360° slide, a normal project with 360 slide and a virtual reality project. And this would be absolut nonsence, if a Captivate project would  be usable on a iPhone device only with a external device like a mouse or touchpad.

Andreas

[Lilybiri]

That is exactly what I confirmed in my answer. Please log (also) a feature request.

[Lilybiri]

I just tested q VR project on ;y Surfqce Prom didn't test with a touch screen since a while. I have logged feature requests to make them compatible with a touch screen, but the result is mixed: it is not possible to use the touch screen (finger or stylus) to move on the image, it is possible to click the hotspots however. Not very encouraging, since only the interactive objects (hotspots and eventually buttons on quiz slides) can be clicked by touch. 

Similar request which I have entered couple of times is to take advantage of the possibilities of the touch screen for manipulations during develoment. Apparently not popular because still no answer.  I love the touch workspade of Illustrator.

[Pixelworker Bori]

Hi Lilybiri,

I´m waiting for a response call from the Captivate tech team about this issue. But do you have a link where I can log a feature request?

[kdmemory]

Hi Andreas

I just step in with the link to the feature request (I hope Lilibiri doesn't mind):

Feature Request/Bug Report Form

Thanks for your reply about iPad and Surface not working. I didn't know that - but why am I not surprised?

Klaus

[Lilybiri]

Thanks for posting the link, was in a meeting.

It is the touch functionality of the screen which is not working for the navigation in a 360 image/video. It is also not supported for editing in Captivate, which is a big frustration since other  Adobe applications do support touch screens and touch sensitivity (for stylus).  I have logged several feature requests for both.

[Pixelworker Bori]

Thank you both for the link. I just logged it as a bug. 

In my opinion it is ridiculous, that this is not supported. I would assume a majority of eLearning content is reviewed on iPads. And Adobe promote the possibility to export projects for all devices, including 360° slides.

And how should I expect my customer to provide external devices like a mouse to the students, just to be able to navigate within the 360° slide and to reach the hotspots...

[RodWard]

Just a question:  Why do you assume a "majority of elearning content is reviewed on iPads"?  I have never seen any evidence for this.  All evidence I have seen is that desktop and laptop computers still account for the vast majority of learning being delivered.

[Pixelworker Bori]

My customers are mainly in the airline buisiness. And for a concret project for a cabin layout guide, I have to provide a solution for 1500 cabin staff, all equipped with iPad. And this is the device they should also use to review the training content. And I´m pretty sure, that is even more true in the US.

[RodWard]

Well as long as the majority of people in the world consuming e-learning are airline cabin staff or have been supplied with free iPads, I guess your logic would hold.

[Pixelworker Bori]

But you would agree, that is not a straight forward approach not to support this feature on touchscreen devices like iPad and surface, regardless of the total percentage of users. And that it is not o.K. that this is not reported as an missing feature in any documentation!?

[Lilybiri]

VR projects are meant in the first place to be used with goggles. Captivate added the possibility to navigate those projects using a mouse or a trackpad on laptop/desktop.  That is what I remember when the feature was introduced years ago. Not sure if this is clearly mentioned in the documentation, there you could be correct. However I always logged as features requests the possibility to use functionality of touch screens, because that is something completely different.

BTW: don't forget that iPad is not so dominant in Europe as it is in the USA. Developing features both for Android tablets, Surface Pro and iPad may me a lot more complicated that we can imagine. Especially Apple is not very friendly for application developers as you may know.

[RodWard]

I don't know why the feature is not supported on touch screen devices.  I was just questioning your assumptions about the majority of people consuming e-learning were doing it on iPads.

I have worked in software companies and I know very well that sometimes a feature that everyone assumes should be fairly simple to implement can easily turn into something much more challenging.  Getting things to work on an iPad on the Safari mobile browser is not as "straightforward" as you might assume.  I have had responsive courses where features worked on every browser EXCEPT the Safari mobile.  And Apple has an annoying habit of changing the rules without warning.

If you think that any software company (let alone Adobe) is going to give you a list of "Missing Features" for one of their apps and put themselves in the position of having to defend their reasons, then you do not understand how software companies operate.  They would be crazy to do that.

[Pixelworker Bori]

A short update, I had an email conversation with one guy from the Adobe support team.

It looks loke, that they were not aware of this fact. He confirmed, that he was able to reproduce the behavior with Safari, but stated that it should work with other browser versions. So I tried again, is it not working with Safari and Firefox on iPad, but with the Edge browser. And not working on a Surface device at all.

So I´m wondering if they try to work on this issue...