OK, isn't Adobe supposed to be an Awesome design company???!!!

[macdavid777]

Can someone PLEASE tell me why Adobe Captivate (MAC) SUCKS so bad. This is a horrible program. Come on!!! You guys are some of the best at design and creative... Why, Please, WHY, does the Captivate experience have to be so ... AAAAHhhh!!!!!

I'm open to feedback on this!!!

[Chaaaaaaaalie]

Just out of curiosity, what is the purpose of the playhead?  I can "scrub" back and forth, but it doesn't actually do anything on the screen.

[Lilybiri]

You can synchronise the start of an existing object timeline with the

location of the playhead using CTRL-E or insert a new object at that

location. To see what is displayed at a certain time, use Play slide

control, or space bar. Advantage of seeing all objects on stage is for

align, size etc.

[ratill3]

Even if the audience didn't come from a technical background, the timeline still isn't user friendly.  They made the wrong choice.  Being able to scrub through the timeline and see how your animation plays is very basic as far as UX/UI is concerned.  The fact that you can see the layers on your timeline, but they do not respond to the playhead position, is counter intuitive. Everyone has seen a video online.  There's a timeline, if you move the playhead, things happen on the screen. When it stops, that's where the view stops. It's not a 'technical' thing that people wouldn't comprehend if they didn't have video or flash experience.

[Chaaaaaaaalie]

Thank you!  I'm not crazy

[Lilybiri]

Play slide is doing what you want to do with scrubbing the playbar. In Captivate 9 the Effects will play at the scheduled time as well. Personally I never had issues with this design, the slide timeline (instead of a video timeline) is upsetting some users with video background as well. The main difference is that in Captivate you have interactions, pausing built into the project. Scrubbing will not honor those pauses.

[Chaaaaaaaalie]

Does anyone else have issues with frame-rate while using Captivate?  I'm not talking about playback, but just using the product itself.   If I drag a rectangular highlight box, it seems to move so slowly and unresponsively, it's like my computer is from the 1980's.  I can use other Adobe products just fine.  Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Premiere, etc... I have never encountered such an unresponsive software.  I can play pretty advanced video games, all the settings on high, with very smooth frame-rates.  However, my system cannot seem to handle the "Captivate rectangle."

I guess a better comparison would be Camtasia, which runs very smoothly as well.  I can tweak Camtasia rectangles all day and night with no problem ... they're like butter.  Is Captivate using some new type of rectangle I'm not aware of?   Anyone else have this problem?

[RodWard]

I have heard reports that some people on MACs may experience performance issues of this type.  I haven't seen a confirmed solution.

[Mr Fossy]

It's a bit the same for me with my Mac, although I've sort of gotten used to it. I tend to use the software at a slower, more languid pace—not flinging the mouse around and tapping keyboard shortcuts in a frenzy the way I do with InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.

In Captivate, I might click on a rectangle, wait for a hair's breadth for the click to register, then resize it slowly. Same goes for scrolling the mouse wheel, or dragging around the application window. It's rather annoying, but I've been able to adapt.

[bgrevel]

*Puts video onto slide*

- Client brief stipulates the ability to replay the video when it finishes or continue to the next slide. No worries I'll just create a button to replay the slide.. not possible. Okay I'll just jump to the first frame of the current slide with a basic action. I can go to the previous slide, I can go to the next slide but I can't replay the current slide. No worries, 'jump to slide' must be the one I want? Nope, doesn't allow you to choose the current slide. Time for an advanced action to do something so seemingly fundamental, hack hack hack and finally I have something that works, yippee! 10 minutes to do something that should've taken 10 seconds. But wait, now the rollover effects on my smart-shape buttons which appear at the end of the video are all messed up? *Changes the smart-shape button on the time so it appears at: 0* and now it works.. so obviously my hacky workaround for replaying the current slide is causing issues *tries 3 other advanced action methods to replay slide* all cause the same rollover issue. I figure it must have something to do with the execution or setup of the scripted buttons when the slide opens. Okay, add a slide before the slide the video's on and set it for 0.1 second.. now set the "replay video" button to go to that previous slide and continue to the slide with the video, nobody will notice 0.1 second, I get a small flash, that's good enough right. Wrong. I'm hacking together workarounds because of the inability of the software to deliver what it should on a basic, fundamental level.

Having succeeded to add a replay button to my video slide (an hour later) I move on to add a quiz... oh hell no, don't get me started! I absolutely gave up at this point.

Long story short. This is supposed to be "rapid development software" yet at every step of the process (and I mean that very literally) I'm having to find ways to make things work because of poor functionality, inherent program limitations and/or bugs. In turn, there is nothing rapid about it. Not to mention the code it spits out is pretty ugly.

What Adobe needs to do is focus on making the application as it is, with what it offers... actually work. Stop adding new features and address all the issues this poor application is suffering. If it actually worked and you didn't feel like you had to fight it every step of the way, it'd be pretty darn good. As it stands I've spent vastly more time beating into submission than actually focusing on building a course.

Note to the community. I'm not going to argue my experience with Captivate, so please don't waste your time posting "if you want to create a replay button do this", or "I don't experience that bug maybe it's your setup" etc.

For now, I'll use Lectora or Storyline and keep a very close eye on Adapt Builder. I really hope that by Captivate 12 we're looking at a sharp, streamlined, ultra efficient version of what the software currently offers today, as opposed to a gazillion new features that kinda work and all the current features that, well.. kinda don't.

Ciao for now Captivate.

[RodWard]

I just love watching people that don't know how to do something complain about how it doesn't make sense.

[Lilybiri]

@bgrevel Ciao, hope you have more luck (and take learning time) with other tools.

For the other  users

Inserting a Replay button takes me about 30 secs. I use a script (two scenarios) from my Scripts Library, which I open as an external Library, drag the shared action to my present Library. Scripts for Replay are described in: Replay (slide) Button - Captivate blog

[bgrevel]

Lilybiri thanks for the constructive response. I mean no disrespect to you, or anyone else in the Captivate community, but you have to admit this is a less than ideal scenario to replay a slide?

The simple fact you've written a dedicated blog post to describe a method which involves creating and assigning an advanced action, just to replay a slide, in itself suggests there should be an easier way.

Captivate at it's most fundamental level is timeline based, therefore the ability to navigate the timeline should be a primary consideration. What's the first thing that happens when a youtube video finishes? the play/pause button turns into a replay button. In fact, I can't think of a single media player that doesn't offer the ability to replay... oh hang, I can. Captivate!

Lilybiri, you're an asset to the Captivate community, no doubt. For the record, your script was the one I ended up using before I was forced to run with the "0.1 sec slide method" because, as mentioned, the rollover states on my smart-shape buttons were going haywire if they were set to appear any time after '0'.

Defend the application as much as you like, but I'm pretty sure anyone that demands more than simple "powerpoint" type interactions, is going to run into functionality issues and very likely some bugs.

In case my original rant wasn't clear. I think Captivate is a really promising piece of software, but I feel that too much attention is being paid to developing an entire ecosystem and flooding it full of "value add" features (maybe because it's more enticing from a marketing standpoint?) and little to nothing is being done about fixing core issues that make it feel like you're constantly having to work around the software instead of it working with you.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not just venting for the sake of it. I'm simply trying to add weight to this discussion in the hope that Adobe reads and considers their clients experiences. As a business owner myself, I value feedback very highly and I always take heed to trends in my customers responses. I hope Adobe do to.

B.

[Lilybiri]

A button to rewind the movie is in the default playbars. A slide is not the same as a movie. My blog post was that long because I tried to explain what happens when you need the On Enter action to be executed when rewinding the slide. That is already a situation that is not for newbies at all. The script to rewind simply a slide that has not such a setup with On Enter action, is very easy, it is a oneliner.

   Expression cpCmndGotoSlide = cpInfoCurrentSlide - 1

It is a breeze to put that script in a Library, even have a button with the script attached, with a style (including states). Everyone can use the shared action, the button, even without understanding what is written in that script. I agree that scripts like this should better be included with Captivate, like you have small scripts in Edge Animate (now EOL as well) that can be used when necessary.

I totally agree with some of your points: personally I would appreciate improving the usability of the work flows a lot more than adding new features, and I have been very clear and critical about that as the engineers know. Every tool has it advantages and disadvantages. I have been using Lectora, appreciated it a lot in some aspects, but found it too limited in other aspects. Doing something what is possible with advanced actions in Captivate, is a lot more complicated in Lectora. I will not judge StoryLine, don't know it but am aware that it doesn't have a Library. Reusability is very important in my way of using a tool, and I dislike using copy/paste for everything. 

[randyl16718790]

I think Adobe is terrible at design because they don't have to be good. They are the biggest design company around and they have almost no competition. This being the case, what do they care if the design sucks. Look at Acrobat DC...that is a complete eye sore. I just visited behance.net and noticed that they change the setting page for projects. It used to be a single page that was easy to use and rather well done. Now it's three tabs that are clunky, needlessly separated and opens constant dialog boxes. It takes 3 times as long to do something that used to be easy and quick. You also have to flip between tabs to see what used to be displayed on a single page.

The people at Adobe have lost touch with good design because they just don't have to care. This is why you are having such a bad experience with Adobe Captivate.

[karlm86030498]

What I find incomprehensible about Captivate 9 is that its text box function still does not have the option to recognize a null response without resorting to java script. This is important if you want text entry boxes to have mandatory entries, versus users just hitting the return key every time and not entering anything. I've seen this same issue in other discussion from as far back as over a year ago. And its validate response option is useless for this since it has no way to store a null response. Yet, even when I got Captivate 9 to recognize a null value with  its Advanced Actions, it still  failed once in its HTML5 simulator. Moreover, while you can set maximum input length for a  new variable, so why not the minimum? At least then that might provide a simpler workaround. Articulate is looking more and more attractive at times like these.

[RodWard]

Feel free to log an enhancement request with Adobe.  Feedback like this is one of the ways they get to see what the market really wants.

[lukem69413151]

Yes it's the worst program I use in my job and if I could boot it I would.

No, not all rapid authoring programs are bad - Articulate Storyline is excellent.

Here are a few of the things which suck about Adobe Captivate.

1) the styling groupings.

The Properties block to the right of the UI is user-hostile. What the hell are all the styling groups? Why do different ones appear at different times? Sucks. Horrible. I've been using this programme for more than 3 years and still don't know what the hell is going on here.

2) the resize feature DOESN'T EVEN WORK. When you resize a project and change the proportions, it can trim the regular slides, but none of the videos. I thought Captivate was supposed to SPECIALISE in screen recordings for simulations? That feature doesn't work - don't include it!

3) Random background shit appears all the time. That's the best way to describe it. No rhyme or reason. It will cut bits out from backgrounds and overlay them,or just randomly change the background.

4) The entire UI sucks. You could go into detail but why? It's like it hasn't been designed, it's just a collection of menus which appear wherever the backend coder left them.

Every programme which I use in the Creative Suite is great, I'm highly proficient in After Effects, Illustrator and PS. But Captivate is embarrassingly bad. Horrible to use and very difficult to create attractive work with, unless you import everything from another programme.

[JuliePoolephoto]

My first reply to Adobe forums. I have used Photoshop since the early 90s. I have a trial of this to publish elearning for my remote thanks to covid classes. This is horrible. I have yet to make it through it producing an actual video. Expensive trash. I just need to record my screen and can't manage to do so with this. I am going to get some crap free program that might work. 

[rufusem]

I know this thread is old, but I've decided to visit you all from the future. I'm currently using version 2019 (in 2020) and it stills sucks. I am an avid Adobe user and I think its very fair to compare one product to another from the same family. If Ferrari decided to make a total lemon and sell it for the same price as one of their flagship automobiles, that would be shameful.

I am a UX Designer (5 years) and I'm running the latest Macbook Pro. I am consistently plagued with frustrating issues using Adobe Captivate: performance, library organization, interface design, information hierarchy, timeline feature, transitions, interactive features, etc. Even if you don't compare it to Photoshop(I read the replies below), Premiere, or Articulate360, it's a bad product. Use Nielsen/Norman's heuristic evaluation template, organize a focus group, whatever you need to realize that in today's world of well-designed, easy to use, useful, functional applications – Adobe Captivate falls miles behind what it could be.

Put me on the team, I'll fix it.

[paige5E2B]

Hi there!

Articulate Storyline/Figma/Long-time Adobe product user (all of 'em, whole suite) here to jump on this hilarious dogpile of a rant thread to update over 10 years later:

Captivate (2019) is still a bad program. I think it needs to be totally gutted and started over. Would be cool if it had collaborative capability like Figma, or if any of the hotkeys were the same as in adobe products. Also lots of the language used is unfamiliar (maybe it's outdated and I'm too young to know at the green green age of 30). Would love if the UI was just easier to use, and every single simple thing didn't require multi-steps....My clients constantly ask for page numbers, why does it take 10 steps to do that haha! Timeline anyone? Image cropping (no really, functional image cropping the way you can in PPT/Illustrator/Photoshop)? Instructional Design is HUGE especially with the pandemic in recent years..if this program was more efficient, I could work faster and take on more clients, or deliver things faster for happier clients. Feel like it's a total let down.

Speaks worlds that with no 3D experience, Blender was an easier program to learn and it's free. Apples to oranges, I know, but just consider how complicated 3D programs are while Captivate is essentially just Worse Powerpoint and they still managed to stub their toe and faceplant into some cowpie then charge over a grand. 

That is all ❤️ Sorry to join the dark side and give in to frustration in a public forum! I understand that Captivate is moving towards a subscription model and will be making some updates, but I am extremely skeptical that the updates will A) Be enough to justify a sub, and B) actually be as modern and fleshed out as other software already out there....

[Stagprime]

This 10+ year old thread made my day!

Literally laughed out loud at some points.

Thanks for bringing it to the top! I probably never would have found it otherwise.

My 2¢...

I love Captivate!

[peijipie]

Ha! Glad I could be of service Stagprime haha, I had a lot of fun reading through this too 

[tomaszg42093314]

Surprise, surprise! It's 2023 and Cp still sucks! I had the "pleasure" of doing some closed captions (CC) recently with audio in Cp due to the ability of exporting CC, so that the text can be later translated. I ran into a problem: I needed to edit the timing and text of the CC. If you need to change the text in the slide notes, which later will be CCs you're in for a ride. If you edit the slide notes and re-generate the audio then all the work that was done with the timing will end up mixed, especially if you shorten the audio clips, because the markers will be put one on top of the other. Oh, and if the playhead value exceeds 8 seconds than instead of 00:00:09 you'll see 00:00.. for 9 seconds and up. Good luck being precise with synchronizing the captions. This is clearly a development bug. I found a way, but it was tedious and a little complicated, but it took to long. To be fair though, I do like the Speech Management tool, even though that too has a few shortcomings. Too bad Captivate wasn't more like InDesign in precision or an add on to it. Sorry for the wishful thinking.