Adobe Captivate – Page 7 – The Logical Blog

December 9, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Multi-SCORM Packager

by Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP

If you have created multiple Captivate projects and need to combine them into a single package for upload into a Learning Management System (LMS), the Adobe Multi SCORM Packager is pure gold. Using this little-known utility (it comes with Captivate 9), you can easily combine published projects into a single file. The resulting ZIP file will contain all the SCOs and a manifest file. You can then directly upload the generated ZIP file to an LMS.

To begin, ensure there is at least one object reporting a score in each of the projects (a quiz or an object that reports a score). Then enable the Captivate Quiz reporting feature via Quiz > Quiz Preferences.

Click the Configure button and set up the Manifest file for each project.

Then publish each project (ensure that Zip Files is selected).

In the image below, you can see that I created two packages from two projects.

Start the Packager by by choosing File > New Project > Multi-SCORM Packager.

You'll be presented with a template screen. I've included Adobe's description of each template below the image.

Multiple SCOs: Allows you to add SCOs as individual files. However, you cannot group the files into modules. You can add multiple assessments using this template. The final score reported to the LMS is the average user score across the assessments.

Simple Remediation: Allows you to add multiple modules. In each module, you can add content files and post-tests. Users can take the post-test only after viewing all the content files.

Pre-test Or Post-test Rollup: Allows you to add multiple modules, each containing pretests, content, and post-tests. For every module, users are allowed to take a pretest first; content and post-tests are disabled. If users pass the pretest, they are considered to have completed the module and the subsequent module is enabled.

For my example, I went with the first template, Multiple SCOs. I filled in the course details and clicked OK.

Adding my two zipped files was easy… all I had to do was click the plus sign to Add a file.

In the image below you can see that both of my zipped content packages have been added to the course.

I then clicked the Publish Course tool and, in the resulting Publish SCO Package dialog box, clicked the Publish button.

The net result is a new zip file that I was able to upload into my LMS. (Sample_Course.zip shown in the image below along with the two original zip files.)

Looking for Captivate training or consulting/mentoring? We've got you covered.

November 30, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Quiz Reporting and Advanced Interaction

by Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP

Here's an interesting scenario: You create a Captivate project that contains 12 slides: 10 question slides, each worth 10 points (that's 100 points total), and two non-question slides that contain some text, images, and simple image buttons used for navigation.

Soon after you roll out your course, learners report a big problem with the way the quiz is scoring. Several people answer every quiz question correctly but instead of receiving the expected perfect score of 100, they get a 96. Say what?

How about this one? You have a 5-question quiz in the project. As with the first example, the project also has a couple of non-quiz slides containing simple "go to the next slide" buttons… maybe even some click boxes. During the testing phase, the progress indicator is off… learners are told that they are on question 1 of 6 when there are only 5 questions

Both problems mentioned above are more common than you might think. The issues aren't with the question slides and they're not a problem with your learners. The problem is typically found with the interactive objects on the non-question slides.

If you were to select a click box or button and observe the Reporting area on the Properties Inspector, you'd see that any interactive object (click boxes, buttons, text entry boxes, etc.) can report interactivity. In essence, any interactive object can be treated like it's a question in a quiz.

In the example below, I've selected a regular button and, on the Properties Inspector, Actions tab, I've told Captivate to treat the button like a quiz question by simply selecting "Include in Quiz." I've also assigned a point value (in this instance, 100 points) and told Captivate to not only count the points as part of the quiz (Add to Total), but to Report Answers to my Learning Management System (Report Answers).

Adobe Captivate: Reporting area on the Properties Inspector.

The Include in Quiz, Add to Total, and Report Answers options are awesome if you want to create non-traditional quiz questions. However, the options can also cause the troubles I mentioned at the beginning of this article. When I'm working with interactive objects, I am always on my guard to ensure that none of the Reporting options are enabled (unless doing so is intentional). Between the three options, I find the Add to Total and Report Answers options to be the root cause of the miss-scoring issues.

Disabling the Reporting options is a simple matter of clearing a few check boxes. But what if you have a large project (perhaps 100 slides or more)? While some of the slides are question slides that you might want to score… and perhaps there are buttons or click boxes that you also want to include in the quiz… the majority of the slide objects aren't supposed to report a score. It's going to be a real pain to open each of the slides, show the Properties of each object and ensure the Reporting options are disabled. What's a developer to do? Read on…

Choose Project > Advanced Interaction to open the Advanced Interaction window. In the image below, you can see that I have objects in my project that are reporting scores (12 points in fact). I wouldn't have known that if not for the Advanced Interaction window. And if I was expecting to have objects report a total value of 100 points, I can see now that I've got a problem.

Advanced Interaction screen showing object scoring

Perhaps I don't want anything to score at all. All that I would need to do is select the objects in the Advanced Interaction window and then, on the Properties Inspector, deselect Add to Total.

Over the years I have found the Advanced Interaction window to be a huge time- and frustration-saver. If you've found a particular area in Captivate that saves you time, please feel free to share.

Looking for instructor-led Adobe Captivate training? Check out these live, online classes.

November 17, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Breakpoints and Viewports

by Lori Smith, Captivate Developer, COTP

Have you ever been frustrated when your beautifully designed layout in a Captivate responsive project looks nothing like what you created when viewing the content a mobile device (such as a tablet)? The problem isn't with your layout… it's likely due to the Breakpoint you set up in the first place.

Breakpoints

A Breakpoint is the layout area in a Captivate responsive project that essentially defines the size of a learner's mobile device. In the image below you can see the default Breakpoints available in Captivate 9. (Captivate initially has three Breakpoints and you can add two more.)

As you move from the Desktop Breakpoint down to the TabletBreakpoint and then Mobile, the layout for the slide automatically gets more and more narrow (from an initial default width of 1024 pixels all the way down to 414 pixels for a smart phone).

I wanted to create a reponsive layout in Captivate for my iPad. I assumed that the default Tablet Breakpoint size of 768 pixels would work just fine. However, after finishing the layout and then viewing it on my iPad, the layout looked nothing like I had intended. It turns out that the size of my iPad is very different than the default 768 pixels in Captivate. To make the layout in Captivate look correct when viewed on my iPad, I needed to set up a Breakpoint in Captivate that was the exact same size as my iPad. The problem was that I had no idea what that size was.

Viewports

A Viewport is the size of the viewing screen on a device, and there are as many Viewport sizes as there are devices. Fortunately, there are free resources available on the Web that will tell you the size of just about any device. One site that I use all of the time is viewportsizes. Besides offering an extensive list containing just about any device you can think of, the site offers a page that will tell you the size of the device you're currently using on the fly.

I opened Safari on my iPad and browsed to http://viewportsizes.com/mine. Once on the site, I was surprised to learn that the Viewport for my iPad was actually 1024×644 in Landscape mode, 768×900 in Portrait mode.

Now that I had the size of my iPad, it was simple enough to return to Captivate and modify the width and the height of my Breakpoint.

To adjust the width, all I need to do is drag the Size slider shown in the image below to 768. (If dragging the slider isn't precise enough for you, you can always type the value into the field to the right of the Slider.)

Specifying a specific height for a Breakpoint is also a snap via the Device Height field on the Properties Inspector.

From that point forward, I was able to rest easy with the knowledge that the layout I created in Captivate for my iPad would look the exactly the way I expected when opened with the same version/size iPad.

Looking for Captivate training? Check out these live, online classes.

November 10, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Fun and Games

by Kevin Siege, COTP, CTT+

One huge challenge eLearning developers face when creating course content is engaging the learner, even if the subject matter is a bit dry.

One technique we preach in our classes is creating PowerPoint slides that employ iconography over standard bullets and text. Of course, visuals can only get you so far which is why I love the ability to quickly add interactive objects, even games, via Captivate's Learning Interactions.

Remember the memory game from your youth? Believe it or not, a memory game comes with Captivate… and you can deploy it with zero programming skills. To begin, create a slide and then choose Interactions > Learning Interactions. Scroll down and select Memory Game.

Memory game

Click the Insert button to open the Configure interaction screen. From here, you can add your images.

Configure interaction

If you click Customize at the bottom of the screen, you'll find several areas of the interaction that you can easily control.

Customization

When you're finished, click the OK button and that's pretty much it. Preview the project and, believe it or not, the memory simply works… and it works great. (Did I mention there's not an ounce of programming skill necessary?)

Finished game

Looking for Captivate training? Check out these live, online classes.

November 1, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Submit All

by Kevin Siegel

When a learner takes a quiz created with Adobe Captivate, failure by the learner to click the Submit button on each and every question is a recurring problem. Many learners don't realize that a question is considered incorrect if it's skipped. And the answer is skipped if the Submit button isn't clicked. How can a learner miss clicking the Submit button? I've seen learners select a correct answer, and then click a slide's Next button to move to the next question. Only after seeing the Quiz Results slide will a learner understand that clicking the Submit button was mandatory. By clicking Next, the answer was never submitted for scoring and was counted as an incorrect answer. Ouch!

I've gotten plenty of emails from developers wishing there was a way to ensure that learners didn't forget to click the Submit button. Fortunately, there is a Quiz setting available in Captivate that will help.

Choose Quiz > Quiz Preferences. From the Settings group, select Submit All.

The Submit button on every question slide will be replaced with a Submit All button.

Of course, the same learner who didn't understand the importance of clicking the Submit button will likely have the same issue with the Submit All button. The wonderful thing about the Submit All button is what happens should a learner click a slide's Next button on the last question in the quiz, or the Submit All button on any slide.

Check out the alert dialog box shown below. Thanks to the Submit All option, there's simply no way a learner can avoid answering every question.

After clicking the OK button, the learner will be required to go back through the Quiz and answer any questions that had not been completed. Once the learner has answered every question, the Submit All Answers button can be clicked while the learner is on any slide. Once clicked, the learner will see the alert dialog box below.

In a future version of Captivate, I'd love to see more information about which questions haven't been answered by the learner (in the first Submit All dialog box). As it stands now, learners will need to go through every question slide looking for anything that hasn't been answered. Nevertheless, the Submit All option is a step in the right direction.

Looking for Captivate training? Check out these live, online classes.

October 24, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Learning Interactions with Self-Hiding Instructions

by Jennie Ruby

Scenario: Your SME wants to put a ton of text on a slide. "It's all important!" she insists.

"Okay," you say. "But let's give the learner some control over the experience. Let's use a Learning Interaction."

The Learning Interactions in Adobe Captivate are very useful for presenting a lot of text by topic or subheading. In this article, I'll show you how to address both the needs of the project and your SME's concerns. For this project, we'll choose the Tab interaction.

Go to the Interactions drop-down and choose Learning Interactions. Then choose the Tabs learning interaction. On the resulting dialog box, double-click Title, and type your title. (Don't worry if your first double-click does not enable editing. These placeholders are notoriously difficult to double-click. Just keep clicking until the word Title goes into editing mode. Then type your title.)

Enter all of your text by double-clicking a tab, giving it a tab name, and then double-clicking the Button Content placeholder for each tab to enter your text.

When all of your content is in, click the OK button to create your interaction. Now preview it. It should work great.

However, let's go back to our scenario:

The SME is now unhappy because when you first arrive at this slide, the Tab area is completely blank. The learning interaction does not display any of its tab contents until you click a tab.

"How does the viewer know to click a tab?" the SME asks.

"Good question," you reply. "We could give instructions in the voiceover narrative."

"I'd rather see printed instructions on the slide," your SME says.

Now we have this challenge: how to create instructions and something to fill the blank tab area when the viewer first arrives on this slide, but without covering up the tab's text when the interaction is in use.

Captivate offers "actions" that can show and hide objects on the slide. We can create a text caption that will give the viewers some instructions. But how are we going to hide the text caption so the viewers can see the Tab text? We'll create a button along with the caption that will hide the text caption and also hide itself!

Start by creating a text caption containing the instructions: "Click each tab to read its contents." Format the caption and place it in the middle of the blank space on the Tab interaction.

Then from the Interactions drop-down, choose Button. In the Properties inspector, Style subtab, caption the button with the word Start.

After positioning the text caption and the button nicely on the slide, Select both the text caption and the Start button (shift-click should do it), and from the Edit menu, choose Group.

Select just the button, and on the Properties inspector, Actions subtab, set On Success to Hide, and in the Hide drop-down list, choose the group. While you are there, also deselect the checkbox for Continue Playing the Project. That way, once the button is hidden, the project will not proceed to the next slide before the viewer can click a tab! (Note: this assumes the project has a play bar that the viewer can use to advance the slide after viewing the Tab interaction.)

So far, you have a Start button that will hide the instructions and hide itself. But how can we make sure that these will always be visible on the slide to start with? After all, the viewer might visit the slide, hide the caption and start button, leave the slide, and then return. The solution is to add an On Entry action for the slide.

Click the slide in the Filmstrip, open the Properties inspector, Actions tab, and assign the On Enter action Show, and choose your group.

Preview your project, and each time you enter the slide containing your Tab interaction, you see the instructions, click the Start button, and then use the Tab learning interaction to view the text.

Result: The SME is happy, you are a success, and the viewers know exactly what to do when they reach this slide.

***

Looking for Adobe Captivate training? Check out these live, online Captivate classes.

September 28, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Video Demos and the Mouse

by Kevin Siegel

Captivate's Software Simulation and Responsive modes get all the glory. And why not? Interactive eLearning that works great on mobile devices is important. Nevertheless, there's room in world for a different mode that gets little respect among Captivate aficionados: Video Demo mode.

When you choose File > Record a New, you might see three choices: Software Demonstration Simulation (which results in a standard project), Video Demo (which results in a video project, a vastly scaled back interface when compared to a standard project), and Device Demo (which is only available on the Macintosh version of Captivate and allows you to capture a mobile device such as the iPad). When you choose File > New Project, you can also elect to create a Responsive Project (which takes you into Responsive mode… it is similar to the standard mode but includes features unique to a developer creating content for mobile learners).

As I mentioned above, simulations and responsive eLearning are both important. However, it takes a significant amount of time to create eLearning in either of those modes. In my experience, you can create Video Demos twice as fast as either simulations or responsive projects. Sure the resulting published lesson/course won't be interactive (no quizzes, no learner interactions, no variables, no buttons, not click boxes… none of that). However, if you're trying to quickly show concepts, video demos work great.

I'm not going to delve into how to create a Video Demo here (it's really easy… File > Record a New > Video Demo). Instead, I want to focus on some of the production nuances you'll encounter in this kind of project. Editing a video is very different than editing either a standard or responsive project. I'm not saying it's more difficult than those other modes, I'm just saying it's different.

For instance, there isn't a Filmstrip in a Video Demo. Instead, you're editing horizontally on a single Timeline. This is a very similar environment to TechSmith Camtasia so if you've used Camtasia before you'll feel right at home here.

I've written previously about some cool things you can do while editing a Video Demo such as Trimming videos, Panning & Zooming, and Publishing.

This time, let's delve into the mouse…

One of the things I'm happy to report is that even though you've recorded a video, you still have significant mouse controls (just like you'd see in a standard project). Of course, at first glance it does not appear you have any mouse controls at all. In the image below, notice the Timeline does not offer any clues as to where the mouse points might be.

A vast wasteland of nothingness on the Timeline

However, if you choose Edit > Edit Mouse Points, each occurrence of the recorded mouse appears on the Timeline.

At that point, if you select the mouse point you can then use the Properties Inspector to double the size of the mouse, hide it, and even smooth out its path.

Another less than obvious feature is the ability to insert a mouse pointer where one wasn't recorded. Simply choose Insert > Mouse and a new Mouse Point appears on the Timeline.

Lastly, and perhaps the coolest, is the ability to alter that location of the recorded mouse pointer just like you can in a standard simulation. Simply drag the mouse pointer as shown in the image below.

Looking for Captivate training? Check out these live, online classes.

September 15, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Object Level Audio Management

by Kevin Siegel

When adding audio to a Captivate project, you can add audio in a couple of different ways. For instance, you can import audio directly to a project's background or onto a slide. In the image below, audio was added to a few slides. You can easily tell that audio has been added to a slide via the audio icon in the lower right of the slide.

Here's a quick challenge for you. The image below is a closer view of slide 2 (shown in the image above as a thumbnail). Notice that there are several objects on the slide. Some of the objects include audio. Can you quickly identify which objects have audio and which do not?

The answer to the challenge above is no. While it's easy to see the slides that have audio (via the Filmstrip), there's no obvious way to see object-level or background audio. Never fear… while not an obvious feature, with a few clicks of your mouse, you can view and manage slide-level, object-level, and background audio across an entire project.

Choose Audio > Audio Management to open the Advanced Audio Management dialog box. In the image below, you can quickly determine which slides have audio and if there's Background (or project-level audio). While useful information, you still cannot tell which (if any) slide objects have audio.

Another quick click and you'll have that issue resolved… click the Show object level audio check box (in the lower left of the dialog box).

And like magic, the Advanced Audio Management dialog box displays audio for everything! At this point, you can play the audio files, replace them, remove, and even export them.

Looking for eLearning training? Check out these live, online classes.

September 13, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Object Level Audio Management

by Kevin Siegel

Another quick click and you'll have that issue resolved… click the Show object level audio check box (in the lower left of the dialog box).

And like magic, the Advanced Audio Management dialog box displays audio for everything! At this point, you can play the audio files, replace them, remove, and even export them.

Looking for eLearning training? Check out these live, online classes.

September 7, 2016

Adobe Captivate: It Takes a Community

by Kevin Siegel

One of the biggest complaints I hear constantly about Adobe Captivate is the lack of free support for the tool. Sure there's a Captivate forum (where you can search for and post questions on Captivate), there's a Captivate Blog (hosted by Adobe… you can learn about Captivate updates, features, and attend free webinars), and free YouTube videos abound. However, none of the current resources were integrated with the Captivate tool itself… and nothing gave developers a sense of being part of a community with like-minded eLearning warriors.

Adobe has taken a step toward filling that gap by integrating the all-new eLearning Community with Adobe Captivate.

Check out the new Community tool on Captivate 9's toolbar:

Upon clicking the Community tool, the Community page open directly within Captivate (no need to leave Captivate and launch a browser). Notice that there's a Community tab grouped with the open projects. This nifty bit of integration allows you to find a solution to a problem via the Community site and quickly correct a problem in the project itself.

Once you're on the Community page, you can create an account (you'll need one to become an active member of the community) or sign in if you already have an account.

The largest part of the Community is a box where you can search for just about anything related to Captivate. In the example below, I typed themes and was greeted with several relevant topics.

My favorite area of the Community site is the navigation panel at the right. You'll find buttons that allow you to add your own questions, log bugs, and submit feature requests for the next Captivate release. Best of all is something I'm asked for all of the time… sample projects that can be easily downloaded.

When you first access the eLearning Community, you're assigned a rank of Newbie. By answering questions posted by other members of the community, writing articles, etc, you collect points and quickly move up the ranks (eventually achieving the rank of Legend held by such experts as Rod Ward).

For years Adobe has lagged behind its competitors when it comes to free, accessible, friendly, neighborly, helpful support. While the eLearning Community is new, its ease-of-use, even easier access from within Captivate, and awesome features is a huge step forward. Well done Adobe!

Looking for eLearning training? Check out these live, online classes.