This posting should not be misunderstood as bad mouthing Captivate 4. For the most part, I really appreciate Adobe products and have invested a significant amount of personal money into many Adobe products over the years. My current role involves designing a course curriculum using Adobe Captivate 4 and Adobe Connect Pro. Unfortunately, I am becoming increasingly concerned that I may be using the wrong tool, at least, in regards to developing all parts of a lesson. Perhaps my workflow will improve if I develop the front facing portion of my lessons with Lectora, and use Captivate solely for creating software simulations? Because I have already spent a lot of time building my first lessons, and I have a subscription to Adobe Connect Pro, I would rather solve the issues I listed, rather than start over. My question is... are my issues based on my lack of knowledge with Captivate 4, or am I experiencing real issues with this product? If it is my lack of knowledge, please tell me how to solve my issues. At this point, I would like to give kudos to Rick Stone (known as Captiv8r) for all his help as a hired consultant. I highly recommend his services. Without him, I probably would not have gone as far as I have with Captivate. Please correct or comment on the followin… Minor annoyances - Too easy to accidentally move objects. Double clicking on a small graphic or a text caption can easily cause it to move or change size slightly. No way to lock their position only (e.g. lock text position but still allow editing). - Text caption boxes mysterious maximize (vertically) from time to time. - Grouping of objects is not possible. - Previewing “From this slide – F8” does not take into account (or initialize) persistent graphics (or otherwise) on the first slide or template; this results in missing objects when doing a quick preview. - Item names/variables are unwieldy. I have a number of graphics which I re-use throughout a lesson. I want to give each of them common names, such as ico_jobaid, img_core_splash, etc. Unfortunately, I cannot use identical names throughout a lesson. Each page requires a unique name for every object. This results in an item name like ico_interactive.png (as it is named in the library), appearing as TImageItem681 and TImageItem680 (copied twice) on a slide. This is common for every object and makes it difficult to control objects. Major issues - Occasionally I insert a graphics that can’t be made visible. - .cp file size seems to continuously increase in size, despite removing unused resources. - Text bullet issues (ending bullets occasional show up as a larger size) - Roll-over slidlets do not work as intended in AS3 mode. I must preview or publish in AS2. - Recording Software Simulations! Captivate 4 allows recording of simulations in up to four modes (Demonstration, Training, Assessment, and Custom). Unfortunately, it appears to record these simulations are separate and distinct recordings. This is a problem because call-outs and other edits must be repeated for each simulation. Other simulation tools record once and can be edited once for passive and/or interactive viewing. - Buttons! Multiple buttons/text captions on a slide. If I want to place multiple buttons on a slide, I must follow these steps to make these buttons/captions work properly. This is an unreasonable amount of work in order to use buttons on a single slide. Step 1 - Determine the frame value. Note: It seems that if the frame value is not included, the lesson will move to the next slide, after clicking one button. Another caveat is that adding or removing slides may change the correct frame value. 1. Click Insert from the top menu, 2. Select Standard Objects, 3. Select Text Caption, 4. Click the Insert Variable button, 5. Select System from the Variable Type pull-down menu, 6. Select rdinfoCurrentFrame from the Variables pull-down menu. 7. Position the text caption appropriately on the screen. You may need an appropriate pause inserted in order to see the value. 8. Click Preview and select Project from the pull-down menu (or Click F4), 9. Step through slide show to the slide where rdinfoCurrentFrame text variable was inserted and record the displayed value. Step 2 – Insert Button control 1. Click Insert from the top menu, 2. Select Standard Objects, 3. Select Button, 4. Choose appropriate button and button options (skipping steps), 5. Click Ok, 6. Position button appropriately. Step 3 – Setting up advanced actions. 1. Click Project from top menu, 2. Select Actions, 3. Click the Advanced Actions tab, 4. Click the Edit / Create Action Pull down menu and select Create a New Action…, 5. In the new action name: text box, type action name (i.e. but_core_console), 6. Double click twice on Add Statement (sometimes it doesn’t behave as it should), – this feature seems error prone. 7. Double click twice on Statement (in red), 8. Select Standard Action from pull-down list, 9. Select Show from pull-down list, 10. Select object name (text caption) you wish to show, 11. Repeat (if necessary), 12. Select hide and the element name you wish to hide and repeat as necessary, 13. Double click twice on Add Statement (sometimes it doesn’t behave as it should) – this feature seems error prone. 14. Double click twice on Statement (in red), 15. As the last step, select Assignment from pull down list, 16. Select rdcmndGotoFrame from pull down list, 17. Select Value from pull-down list, 18. Enter the frame value (as determined Step 1), 19. Click Save. For the next buttons, 1. Click the Duplicate button, 2. Edit the New action name: name appropriately, 3. Edit the information in the Advanced actions for the this action. (skipping steps) 4. Click Save. Repeat as necessary! Configuring buttons 1. Double click on first button, 2. In the section, “If the user clicks on the button”, click on “On success” pull-down menu and select, “Execute advanced action”. 3. Click the Action pull-down menu and select the appropriate named action. Repeat as necessary. - Building buttons for several slides will create a large number of advance actions. Even though these advanced actions are only applicable to a single slide, they are viewable from any slide in a lesson. The number of actions (or advanced actions) quickly adds up in a complex lesson. - Cannot find a way to edit the default look (object positioning/object sizes) of a quiz. The only attribute that seems changeable is the font size. Lock ups and crashes - Double clicking on a .cp file will often result in Captivate freezing at the start up screen. - Captivate crashes and sometimes predictably, especially where animations are inserted. I am using both a Windows 7 64 bit and a Windows Vista 32 bit OS. I have tried the following options with seemingly no difference: RUN AS Admin, XP Compatibility mode Examples from Windows Applications log: The program AdobeCaptivate.exe version 4.0.1.1658 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel. Process ID: 16f0 Start Time: 01ca623e805d8f30 Termination Time: 81 The program AdobeCaptivate.exe version 4.0.1.1658 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel. Process ID: 1654 Start Time: 01ca622b67764380 Termination Time: 70
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