Adobe last week announced Adobe Captivate 8, a significant upgrade to one of the top eLearning development tools in the world.
Over the past few years I've repeatedly heard a couple of complaints about Captivate. First, it was perceived as difficult to use. There were so many panels, pods, and toolbars it didn't take too much effort for the Captivate workspace to get cluttered. Sure it was possible to create a custom workspace, but that didn't seem to matter. The fact that a panel could be accidentally moved from one part of the screen to another was causing all kinds of drama.
Another major complaint was Captivate's lack of support for mobile users. You could publish a Captivate lesson as HTML5, but the way a lesson looked when viewed on different screen sizes wasn't something a developer could control.
Captivate users will be happy to learn that both major pain points have been addressed with Captivate 8. Shown below is the Welcome screen you will see when you first start Captivate 8. There are two tabs, Recent and New. After selecting New, you'll find the usual suspects including Software Simulation, Video Demo, and From PowerPoint. You'll also see a brand new… and very awesome… option for creating Responsive Projects (something I'll cover in a future post).
If you're a veteran Captivate user, you'll notice right away that in addition to the Welcome screen getting a nice redesign, there is no longer a check box in the lower left to permanently hide the Welcome screen. This may not seem like a big deal, but I can't tell you how many times I've heard from people using Captivate 7 and older who tell me that the Welcome screen is missing. It turns out that they've accidentally hidden the Welcome screen. And while it's easy to bring it back, I'm delighted to see that since it cannot be hidden that issue is gone.
You'll be happy to learn that projects created in Captivate 6 and 7 will open in Captivate 8, and those projects willautomatically be upgraded to version 8. However, once upgraded, Captivate 8 projects will not open in older versions of Captivate. Prior to upgrading, I suggest that you make backups of your legacy projects just in case you need to open them in the older versions of the software.
After creating a new project or opening an old one, your next discovery will be the clean Captivate 8 interface.
At the left is the familiar Filmstrip; in the middle is the stage (or slide… call it what you like). There's no Timeline, no Properties Inspector, no Library. There's no clutter at all.
Of course, the missing panels are critical to your success in Captivate so you'll need to be able to open them. Take a look at the bottom of the Captivate window and you'll see the wordTimeline. One quick click on the word and the Timeline opens at the bottom of the Captivate window.
Look in the upper right of the Captivate window and you'll find buttons that will show or hide both the Library and Properties Inspector.
You'll notice that you can open the Library… you can open the Properties Inspector… but you can't open them both at the same time. And you cannot drag panels around your screen like you could in legacy versions of the software. If you're a workspaces junkie, you're also not going to like the fact that you cannot create workspaces. No kidding. Visit the Window menu and you'll find Workspace > Reset Classic, but that's it. There's no menu item for creating a new workspace. Okay, so losing the Workspace feature is a bummer. But if you're really missing this feature, I've got good news. Visit Captivate's Preferences (Edit menu for Windows users; Adobe Captivate menu for Mac users) and you'll find an option to Enable custom workspaces/panel undocking.
Turn that option on, restart Captivate 8, and you'll be able to both drag panels around your screen and create custom workspaces.
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Hi,
Will you be updating the skills and drills workbooks to C8?
Hi,
Will you be updating the skills and drills workbooks to C8?
Hi,
Will you be updating the skills and drills workbooks to C8?
Hi Vince,
We expect to have both the beginner and advanced Captivate 8 workbooks finished by the end of June.
Hi Vince,
We expect to have both the beginner and advanced Captivate 8 workbooks finished by the end of June.
Hi Vince,
We expect to have both the beginner and advanced Captivate 8 workbooks finished by the end of June.