Bill Creitz, Stoneridge Technical Services, sent me this email a few days ago. I thought it would be interesting for anyone just starting out as a Captivate developer. Specifically, Bill has chronicled his adventures recording some Captivate projects.
"I’ve been ramping up to help a client develop CBTs. Someone in that company was looking for a way to simulate a software application before the application actually existed. I thought Captivate might be an easy way to do this, so I volunteered to give it a try. I also thought this would provide an easier goal than a full-blown CBT for my first real Captivate project.
I created several screen shots as mockups for the application. Since the application is expected to consume lots of screen real estate, I made the screen shots 1024 x 768. After importing the screen shots into a 1024 x 768 Captivate project, I added Click Boxes to simulate interactivity. When the user clicks a button in one of the screen shots, the Click Box at that location takes them to a different slide with a different screen shot. In relatively short order, I had an interactive "application" suitable for the client to demo. I published it using Captivate’s Standalone option and proudly sent it off for the client to look over.
That’s when newbie problem number one hit me squarely in the face. The client opened the Captivate executable on a 1024 x 768 monitor, and everything along the bottom of the simulation (where most of the interactivity resides) was pushed off the bottom of the screen. The Captivate executable runs in a standard window, and I hadn’t taken the size of the window’s title bar and borders into account when I created the screen shots. (I’m using a 1600 x 1200 monitor, so I didn’t encounter the problem.)
My simulation didn’t have a playbar. However, if a CBT had a playbar along the bottom, the playbar wouldn’t be visible when viewed on a monitor having the same dimensions as the nominal Captivate project size. So the "gotcha" is that if you specify a standard monitor size when you start a new Captivate project, someone viewing the project on a monitor of that size won’t see everything they should see.
All this prompted me to investigate the dimensions limiting content size in a Captivate project. Briefly, three factors are involved: window borders, the playbar and borders applied in Captivate. I’m a technical writer, so naturally I had to document everything I found (click here to read the document). Please use this material in any way you see fit. It might help someone else trying to squeeze a project into a specific monitor size.
There may be better ways to simulate a software application, but Captivate worked out well, and the project came together quickly."
Note: I ran Bill’s text pretty much as he wrote it. I thought you would appreciate how he approached his project. Bill made good use of Click Boxes to add interactivity to otherwise static screen captures.
Concerning capture size: When I teach Captivate, the two sizes I recommend for recording areas are 800 x 600 or, even better, 640 x 480. If you record using those capture sizes, and publish as SWF, users with even small monitors or low screen resolutions will be able to see your simulation and the playbar through a Web browser with little or no scrolling. Standalone output displays in a window that can’t be resized, and doesn’t include scroll bars.
I am experiencing a “gottcha” of a different sort I hope someone can help me with it. I read that projects/movies should not be any longer than 50-60 slides. Any thing larger than 60 slides should be broken in to smaller projects and linked with the buttons that programmed to go to another project. Well I tried that and when I play the project, I get an error message for the next button that is supposed to link me to the next project. It tells me that the file I’m trying to link to cannot be found. Gottcha. If anyone out there knows the answer please share the information.
I am experiencing a “gottcha” of a different sort I hope someone can help me with it. I read that projects/movies should not be any longer than 50-60 slides. Any thing larger than 60 slides should be broken in to smaller projects and linked with the buttons that programmed to go to another project. Well I tried that and when I play the project, I get an error message for the next button that is supposed to link me to the next project. It tells me that the file I’m trying to link to cannot be found. Gottcha. If anyone out there knows the answer please share the information.
I am experiencing a “gottcha” of a different sort I hope someone can help me with it. I read that projects/movies should not be any longer than 50-60 slides. Any thing larger than 60 slides should be broken in to smaller projects and linked with the buttons that programmed to go to another project. Well I tried that and when I play the project, I get an error message for the next button that is supposed to link me to the next project. It tells me that the file I’m trying to link to cannot be found. Gottcha. If anyone out there knows the answer please share the information.
Actually, a 60 slide project isn’t a problem. I start to worry about project size when you get over 100 slides, and even then, only projects in excess of 150 slides or so would really get my attention.
We recently produced a lesson for a client that ended up containing more than 200 slides–which is HUGE. While the project contained more than 200 slides, Captivate performed perfectly. The only thing we noticed, performance-wise, was that it took more time than usual to open, save and publish the project.
If a project is large, it will take you longer to produce. We ended up spending more than 20 hours to produce the 200-slide lesson I mentioned earlier instead of the typical 10 hours. In addition to a longer production cycle, it’s going to take longer for the published lesson to download off of the Web. And it will likely take too long for a user to complete. I recommend that you create lessons (projects) that can be completed by your users in 5 minutes or less. You can have several lessons, each part of a bigger course.
Keep in mind that larger projects throw your production cycle out of whack since it is very hard to budget for a massive project. Instead, it’s easier to budget if you keep the size of your project reasonable (under 100 slides). In the article about Captivate production time in this very newsletter, you will see that I recommend you budget 10 hours to produce a five-minute lesson (which should be under said 100 slides).
I suspect that the reason your links to other projects are not working is because each of the published files are in their own folders. Put all of the published files in one large folder on your server and the links should work (assuming you have published all of the linked projects).
Actually, a 60 slide project isn’t a problem. I start to worry about project size when you get over 100 slides, and even then, only projects in excess of 150 slides or so would really get my attention.
We recently produced a lesson for a client that ended up containing more than 200 slides–which is HUGE. While the project contained more than 200 slides, Captivate performed perfectly. The only thing we noticed, performance-wise, was that it took more time than usual to open, save and publish the project.
If a project is large, it will take you longer to produce. We ended up spending more than 20 hours to produce the 200-slide lesson I mentioned earlier instead of the typical 10 hours. In addition to a longer production cycle, it’s going to take longer for the published lesson to download off of the Web. And it will likely take too long for a user to complete. I recommend that you create lessons (projects) that can be completed by your users in 5 minutes or less. You can have several lessons, each part of a bigger course.
Keep in mind that larger projects throw your production cycle out of whack since it is very hard to budget for a massive project. Instead, it’s easier to budget if you keep the size of your project reasonable (under 100 slides). In the article about Captivate production time in this very newsletter, you will see that I recommend you budget 10 hours to produce a five-minute lesson (which should be under said 100 slides).
I suspect that the reason your links to other projects are not working is because each of the published files are in their own folders. Put all of the published files in one large folder on your server and the links should work (assuming you have published all of the linked projects).
Actually, a 60 slide project isn’t a problem. I start to worry about project size when you get over 100 slides, and even then, only projects in excess of 150 slides or so would really get my attention.
We recently produced a lesson for a client that ended up containing more than 200 slides–which is HUGE. While the project contained more than 200 slides, Captivate performed perfectly. The only thing we noticed, performance-wise, was that it took more time than usual to open, save and publish the project.
If a project is large, it will take you longer to produce. We ended up spending more than 20 hours to produce the 200-slide lesson I mentioned earlier instead of the typical 10 hours. In addition to a longer production cycle, it’s going to take longer for the published lesson to download off of the Web. And it will likely take too long for a user to complete. I recommend that you create lessons (projects) that can be completed by your users in 5 minutes or less. You can have several lessons, each part of a bigger course.
Keep in mind that larger projects throw your production cycle out of whack since it is very hard to budget for a massive project. Instead, it’s easier to budget if you keep the size of your project reasonable (under 100 slides). In the article about Captivate production time in this very newsletter, you will see that I recommend you budget 10 hours to produce a five-minute lesson (which should be under said 100 slides).
I suspect that the reason your links to other projects are not working is because each of the published files are in their own folders. Put all of the published files in one large folder on your server and the links should work (assuming you have published all of the linked projects).
Our training team is considering switching from using STT to Captivate for creating our training lessons. The majority of our training is built on capturing Oracle and requiring the user to simulate the user using the tool. I have very basic knowledge of Captivate. I have captured training using an Internet page and Captivate did a beautiful job of recognizing what was selected and the steps were automatically typed out. Using the same setting to capture Oracle had results that were not as nice. It did not capture any of the steps. I created the hot spots, but did not create instructions the specific step by step instructions. It would recognize the enter key, but not any of the text held within Oracle. Is there a Java bridge or something similar that would fix this? This is key to our decision to switch systems. The other issue I found was that when I captured the Training, Assessment, and Demo modes at the same time the popups were only captured in the demo and not in the Training or Assessment modes. Do you have any thoughts on this?
Our training team is considering switching from using STT to Captivate for creating our training lessons. The majority of our training is built on capturing Oracle and requiring the user to simulate the user using the tool. I have very basic knowledge of Captivate. I have captured training using an Internet page and Captivate did a beautiful job of recognizing what was selected and the steps were automatically typed out. Using the same setting to capture Oracle had results that were not as nice. It did not capture any of the steps. I created the hot spots, but did not create instructions the specific step by step instructions. It would recognize the enter key, but not any of the text held within Oracle. Is there a Java bridge or something similar that would fix this? This is key to our decision to switch systems. The other issue I found was that when I captured the Training, Assessment, and Demo modes at the same time the popups were only captured in the demo and not in the Training or Assessment modes. Do you have any thoughts on this?
Our training team is considering switching from using STT to Captivate for creating our training lessons. The majority of our training is built on capturing Oracle and requiring the user to simulate the user using the tool. I have very basic knowledge of Captivate. I have captured training using an Internet page and Captivate did a beautiful job of recognizing what was selected and the steps were automatically typed out. Using the same setting to capture Oracle had results that were not as nice. It did not capture any of the steps. I created the hot spots, but did not create instructions the specific step by step instructions. It would recognize the enter key, but not any of the text held within Oracle. Is there a Java bridge or something similar that would fix this? This is key to our decision to switch systems. The other issue I found was that when I captured the Training, Assessment, and Demo modes at the same time the popups were only captured in the demo and not in the Training or Assessment modes. Do you have any thoughts on this?