Several bugs around Shape Editing Tools in Property Panel

[martinh12820196]

Hi All,

in the Adobe 2019 release I am experiencing several bugs in the property panel.

- sometimes the 'character' option does not show up for existing shapes with text. Here, the workaround that works for me is to add a new shape, write text into it, and then the option will re-occur.

- now also the 'color' option for shapes disappeared. I did not find a solution for this one.

It seems that there are some bugs or conflicts in the property panel. It's quite bothersome to produce content while spending time on trying to find solutions for software issues. Does anybody know a fix for this, or is this being addressed by Adobe?

Best

Martin

[Lilybiri]

Complaining twice is only frustrating for those who want to offer help.

You didn't mention that you are on a Mac, nor which exact version you use. Lucky for me you mentioned the OS in the other complaint.

Sorry, but as a Win user, I feel incompetent to help. Crossing my fingers that a helpful Mac user will pop in.

[martinh12820196]

Thank you for your replay and  I understand what you mean, and it isn't my intention to have people look at the same issue twice.

But please consider that the other thread I posted in is initially from 2014. From the content there it appears as if this is an error that keeps many people from working with the software efficiently and that persisted along several versions of the software and also across different OS systems.

- My intention in the old post was to clarify why this is not an inidividual issue.

- In this post, my intention is to show that there is a pattern of related errors, hopefully helping people find a full solution instead of having to work on finding workarounds as it seems to have been the case since 2014.

Thanks for the hint with the OS, I will edit the post to clarify.

[Lilybiri]

Never post in such an old post.

As a Win user I don't have those issues... sorry. Reason why I wrote that mentioning the OS and the EXACT version number is important.

[RodWard]

This is more of an intermittent rather than a common issue.  If it happened every time someone accessed the property panel then the deluge of complaints would have seen it addressed.

In many cases similar issues like this one turn out to be something a simple as the user not having cleaned out the Project Cache file on a regular basis, or that they have neglected to keep up to date with the latest released patches.

So in your case, how long is it since you cleaned the cache?

Is your Cp version completely up to date?

Have you tried resetting your Preferences?

[martinh12820196]

Thank you for your comment and the advice!

I did an update to the most recent Cp version, then the error disappeared for some time, but shortly thereafter, the 'character' option disappeared again. I am not sure so far if the 'color' options will disappear as well, but given how the errors occured I am not optimistic.

Regarding cleaning the cache, it didn't help. Also it appears across several projects so my guess would be that this one can't be a caching issue.

I will try to reset the preferences, but since this is not an open source software but a paid product it can't be a permanent solution that users have to reset their preferences regularly to make the software work, at least that's not what Adobe should be offering us. 

[RodWard]

Resetting Preferences has nothing to do with whether the software is paid or open-source.  It usually becomes necessary to fix an issue where the preferences have become corrupted by the end user's operating environment.  There are so many different nuances to what people have as their environment that it would be impossible for Adobe to anticipate every possibility.  Being able to reset the Preferences gets you back to a clean starting environment again.  It's been VERY useful.  And it's recommended practice to do this every time you update or reinstall Captivate.  So since you just did an update, you DO need to reset your Preferences just in case that update has changed something about how the Preferences architecture works.

[Lilybiri]

Resetting Preferences is not only required often in Captivate, but in many Adobe applications. Reason is clearly explained by Rod. 

Some customisation can be lost after that workflow, like custom workspaces and switch to Expert UI instead of Newbie UI. Some of those settings can be recovered as explained in this older blog post, which is still valid for the present version:

http://blog.lilybiri.com/cativate-8-dot-0-1-install-keep-your-customisation

[martinh12820196]

Thanks for clarifying both of you Rod and Lilybiri, that's very helpful!

Unfortunately resetting the Preferences did not resolve the problem either.

So far an update has helped in the short term only (may not necessarily because of the update but because of re-installation), the other solutions had no impact. A computer restart didn't change anything as well, nor trying to create new projects or objects.

I have experienced some other software slowing down since my last Mac OS update, may be there is a connection, but at this stage I can only guess.

Adobe support is a disaster to say the least. Early afternoon European time / morning US time, after asking for my problem the chatbot tells me they are closed. When I answer "Are you kidding me?" in the chat box, then suddenly someone is available, who then transfers me to someone who then is not available and so on. They basically outsource their job to you who help here in the community, which is a shame.

[martinh12820196]

I now found a solution workaround.

- If the "Character" options for shapes disappears in the "Properties" panel: create a new shape and type into it.

- If the "Fill" options for shapes disappears in the "Properties" panel: start Captivate fresh and create a new project first before opening the existing project.

I will have to see whether this is a permanent solution or whether the error will occur again.

[martinh12820196]

addition: it seems that the problem is performance related. I realized that the whole panel was very slow to load. While the error also persistet when I restarted the computer and closed all other programmes, it seems that it first occured when several programmes were running.