Adobe Captivate 5: The Mother of All Upgrades!

by Kevin Siegel

I've been using, writing about and teaching Captivate since, well... before the program was known as Captivate. I've seen all of the upgrades. I've been underwhelmed (Captivate 1 to 2 didn't do much for me) and amazed (Captivate 3 to 4 was a major step forward for the program). With the upgrade from Captivate 4 to 5, I'm awestruck. Adobe didn't just upgrade the program, they tore it down and rebuilt it.

If you're on Twitter or follow the eLearning BLOGS, then you probably already know that the new version of Captivate is expected to be released in June of this year (as in next month). The new version will run on a Macintosh, which would be reason enough to do a jig except that that is not even the coolest of all the enhancements. Over the coming weeks, I'll touch on some of the hottest features that will surely bring a smile to your face (and have you reaching for your credit card in a rush to buy the upgrade).

Goodbye windowshades, hello panels!

The new Captivate has a shiny new interface that more closely matches the other popular Adobe programs. Gone are the dreaded windowshade buttons that were made popular by the late, great Macromedia. (Those of you who don't know the history might be surprised to learn that Captivate was once owned by Macromedia before Macromedia got swallowed up by Adobe.)

I can't tell you how many new developers (and even some vets) clicked the windowshade button for the Timeline to collapse the panel, only to find themselves in a fight with Captivate trying to get the pesky panel to come back. In Captivate 5, so long windowshades, hello panels.

You won't find very many dialog boxes in Captivate 5. The new version relies on panels for just about everything. For instance, in the current version of Captivate, if you right-click an object and choose Properties, you are met with the Properties dialog box. Make your changes there and then click OK. In the new Captivate, you double-click an object to display the Properties panel. Once on the panel, you make your changes and... and... there's no OK button to click. Simply continue working because your settings took. Not having to click an OK button after every change is going to take some getting used to, but just think of all the clicks you are going to save over the coming years!



Workspaces

So there's all these new panels and you are going to love them. I mean hate them. I mean love them. To be honest, you're going to have to get used to the new panels. You'll probably hate them at first but grow to love them. Believe me, the panels are worlds better than the clunky old dialog boxes.

To help you get used to the new panels, Captivate 5 sports a Workspaces feature. Here's how it works... drag your panels anywhere you want within the Captivate window. Group your favorite panels together, collapse them, resize them or close them.

When you've got Captivate window looking the way you want, why take the chance that some rogue colleague of yours is going to start Captivate after you've left for the day and move everything around? Instead, go to the Workspace menu and choose New Workspace.

Name your new workspace and click the OK button (yes, I said click OK... most of the dialog boxes are gone, but not all of them).

Once saved, you can access your new workspace via the Workspace menu where you will find a half dozen default Workspaces including Classic, Widget and Skin Editor. It is worth noting that you can delete or rename a workspace by choosing Manage Workspace via the Workspace menu.

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Looking to learn Captivate? We have a couple of options... we offer two online classes (Beginner and Advanced). Click here for details on the Beginner class. Click here for details on the Advanced class. We also have a 3-hour class devoted to Advanced Actions. Click here to learn more about that class.

Comments

[Maisy]

Great blog, however you have just confused me more :)

My corporation is setting up an elearning division. I have selected my LMS (Moodle), a provider to do the hosting, a team of SME's and developers; but the one thing I can not decide on is the authoring tool.

I am really torn between Articulate and Captivate. Do I buy one, do I buy both? Watching Joe Deegan's presentation (http://screenr.com/MNA) on integrating the two packages certainly makes me wonder. I work for a software company so simulations will play a large part. We will also be focusing on internal career development programs so a good assessment question functionality is required. Would it make sense to use both?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Kevin Siegel]

Articulate is really used to make PowerPoint presenations SCORM compliant and allow you to include quizzes. I would compare it to Presenter, not Captivate. Captivate allows you to create eLearning without the need for PowerPoint and also allows you to create killer interactive software simulations. If it were me, I would bypass Articulate and stick with Presenter and Captivate. This video might prove very useful: http://blogs.adobe.com/rjacquez/2010/04/adobe_captivate_and_adobe_pres.html

[Julie]

I can not resize my panels. The manual says: To resize a panel, move the mouse over the edges of the panel. When double-sided arrow appears, drag the panel to the required size." But no arrows appear. How can I fix this? Thanks.

[Kevin Siegel]

Try making your CP window larger... it may help.

[Joanne]

I captured a software training session using a right mouse click on a screen using Captivate 5.
Saved, produced and got a warning that there is a right mouse click that can only be used in my browser. What does this mean? When the htm file runs, the right mouse click won't work? Do you have any suggestions?

[Linda]

I am having the same issue as Julie resizing panels. However, I have isolated the problem to just the Properties Panel. Doesn't seem to matter what size the window is.

[Kevin Siegel]

Try posting the published video to your Web server and see if it's okay there. I typically see right-click trouble when developers test the videos on local disks. Also, test the right-clicks in IE. I believe FireFox is okay, but Chrome and Safari may prove problematic.