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Adobe Captivate 2019: Is a Non-Responsive Project Still Mobile-Friendly?

I received the following question from a former student who attended one of my vILT Adobe Captivate training courses.

During the class, you told us how to make a project responsive without creating a “responsive project.” I’ve tried to find that part of your recorded sessions, but I’m not having much luck. Can you remind me of how this is accomplished?

You cannot create a responsive Captivate project without creating a responsive project (File > New > Responsive project). If you work in standard Captivate (File > New > Project), as most people do, the output will not be responsive at all. However, being non-responsive does not mean that your published output will not work on mobile devices. Because you’re publishing as HTML5, mobile support is there by default. However, you need to remember to select “Scalable HTML Content” in the Publish dialog box prior to publishing.

Once you do that, not only will the project work on mobile devices, it will resize automatically to support all screen sizes.

Adobe Captivate: Understand Project Cache and Save Some Cash

When I teach my Adobe Captivate beginner vILT classes, we cover application Preferences fairly early. If you're on a PC, choose Edit > Preferences. If you're on a Mac, choose Adobe Captivate > Preferences. From the top of the Preferences, click General Settings.

You will see two options in the Default Locations area: Publish at and Project Cache.

The Publish At option allows you to specify where your projects are published. That makes sense. The less obvious feature is the role of Project Cache. According to Adobe, the Project Cache folder contains all of your projects' components until you click the Clear Cache button. The cached assets make the process of opening, saving, and working on a project faster.

Note: In the image above, I created a folder named Cache directly on my hard drive. You can create the Cache folder anywhere you like, provided the location is not a network resource. Do not delete your Cache folder (or click the Clear Cache button in the image above) unless you have a project backup. Without the contents of the Cache folder, the steps listed below to recover a corrupt project will not work.

Should your Captivate project become corrupt or get misplaced, and you have the backup file, change the name of the backup file to new_name.cptx and you're all set. If you don't have a project backup and the only version of your project refuses to open, the cached version of the project will come to your rescue. Assuming you know the location of your project cache folder, you should be able to resurrect a project by following the steps below (the xxx in the example below will be different on your system).

Special thanks to fellow Captivate developer Rod Ward, Director of Infosemantics, who had the misfortune (or fortune, depending on how you look at the world) of working with a Captivate project that refused to open. Rod used these steps and was able to get back in the game.

1. Find the project cached folder (for example, C:\Users\your name\Documents\Adobe Captivate Cached Projects\CPDxxxxx\db).
   
   This is the default location of the cached project, and you can change this via the Global Preferences, as mentioned above.
   
   The folder will contain the following:
   
   A folder called Compressed_data. (This folder will contain several cpd files.)
   
   A folder called Objects. There should be a file within the folder called objects.cpo. The size of this file should be greater than 0 kb.
   
   A folder called uncompressed_data.
   
   A file called audio.cpad.
   
   A file called info.cpi.
   
   A file called text.cptd.
   
   A file called thumbnails.cpth.
   
   
2. Select the files named above and use them to create a zip file.
   
   Note: There may be other folders and files in the db folder mentioned above. Be careful to not include any other files in the zip other than those listed above. According to Rod, "the other files that might be there seem to be files used in locking the project so that you cannot inadvertently edit two of them at the same time."
   
   
3. Change the extension of the zip file to cptx and the file should open in Captivate.
   
   "Captivate saves one of these db folders each and every time you save a project file," said Rod. "If you don't have success with the first one you try (possibly because it is too corrupted), you can always try another one further down the list by looking at the time the folder was added."
   
   Rod went on to say: "The naming structure of the folders provides no clue as to which CP project corresponds to which cached folder. If you happen to be working on several projects simultaneously, it can take a bit of digging to find the one that you want. You have to keep creating and opening these zips until you get lucky. This, of course, is not a problem if you know the exact time when you happened to be saving a particular project."

"Adobe Captivate 2019: The Essentials" 4th Edition!

It's coming...

Adobe Captivate 2019: New Text-to-Speech Voices

Last week I told you about an awesome (and free) update to Adobe Captivate 2019. In that post, I told you how Adobe removed most of the outdated (Flash) SWF features. But there's more to this update, and I'm loving it. Specifically, Adobe has enhanced the Text-to-Speech feature.

Choose Audio > Speech Management to open the Speech Management dialog box.

 

At the bottom of the dialog box, you'll see a note about ReadSpeaker. If you're a veteran Captivate developer, you'll notice that Captivate used to rely on NeoSpeech. ReadSpeaker voices replace NeoSpeech.

Click the Download new and enhanced voices link. (Note that the download is nearly 4 GB, so if your internet speed isn't fast, prepare for a long wait while the package downloads.)

Exit (quit) Captivate, extract the downloaded file, and run the installer. Once the voices are installed, restart Adobe Captivate.

Choose Window > Slide Notes, create a new note, and then write some text into the note area.

From the upper right of the Slide Note, click the uppermost check mark and then click the Text-to-Speech icon.

The Speech Management dialog box reopens.

From the left of the slide note, click the voices drop-down menu.

The original NeoSpeech voices are still available, such as Paul and Kate. However, you'll see plenty of new voices like Adam, Ashley, and Mark. 

Select the voice you'd like and click Generate Audio.

You can preview the audio by clicking the Play icon.

If you'd like to learn more about Captivate, check out these training opportunities. If you need development support or one-on-one mentoring, I'm an email away.

Adobe Captivate Mac: Fix the Missing Themes Error

I was mentoring a client on Adobe Captivate for the Mac. She received the following theme files error message when starting Captivate 2019.

According to Adobe support, here is the fix:

1. Close Captivate and all other Adobe applications.
2. Choose Go > Applications.
3. Open the Adobe Captivate 2019 folder.
4. Open Gallery > Layouts > 11_8 > En_US.
5. Copy the available Themes under the En_Us folder.
6. Choose Go > Documents.
7. Open Adobe Captivate Project folders > Layouts > 11_8 > En_US.
8. Paste the copied themes in the En_US folder.
9. Start Adobe Captivate again and the error message should be resolved.

Note that if you are using more recent versions of the Mac OS, you'll need to ensure that your version of Captivate is up to date. Here's a link to the most recent build on my Dropbox.

Adobe Captivate 2019: Error Message "Update required - Your browser or operating system is no longer supported"

I was mentoring someone on Adobe Captivate 2019 today and when attempting to start Captivate she received the alert message: "Update required - Your browser or operating system is no longer supported."

Here's what her IT team did to resolve the issue:

1. Close all Adobe applications
2. Use this link to download a file named AASIapp.exe
3. Once downloaded, copy AASIapp.exe and paste/replace at this location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\OOBE\PDApp\P7
4. Restart Captivate

Taking Legacy Flash eLearning to HTML5

Adobe threatened to sunset Flash for years but each year, the death sentence was commuted.

Just when we thought that Flash would go on, along came December 2020. Adobe followed through and ended support for Flash on December 31, 2020. Many eLearning developers didn't panic because the end of Flash simply meant that, while the Flash output would continue to work, it would likely be blocked on more and more systems.

Like the lyrics from that song by the Rolling Stones, "Well, time is on my side, yes it is... time is on my side, yes it is..."

Ummm, no it wasn't.

In early 2021, Adobe started blocking Flash content from playing through most browsers, computers, and devices. Given that development, Captivate developers began scrambling to ensure their legacy projects continued to work.

One way to know if your Captivate project has Flash content is to run the HTML5 Tracker (Project > HTML5 Tracker). If anything shows up in the HTML5 Tracker, it needs to be remediated (deleted or replaced with something non-Flash). That sounds easy but, in reality, remediation might be impossible or take a bunch of time.

Adobe's Allen Partridge wrote an awesome article back in April 2020 titled "Migrating Legacy Flash eLearning Content to HTML5." Partridge's article is as relevant today as the day he wrote it.

Some of the big takeaways from Allen's article:

Factors to consider when updating:

• Is the content still relevant?
• Is the content appearance dated? Does it look old?
• Does the content contain a lot of audio, video, animation, or custom complex interactions?
• How important is updating this content to your overall learning strategy?
• How much budget (in time and resources) do you have to handle the update?
• Would conversion of older content to video suffice?
• Should you leverage the conversion as an opportunity to unify the content with your newest brand standards and learning design strategy?
• Should you take advantage of the update to add support for mobile devices?

Should you remove some of the content?

According to Partridge. "If your content is more than 24 months old, it is highly likely that you should consider seriously either replacing the content with more recently created content, or should revise the content to ensure that it is timely and addresses the actual needs of learners in your organization today. Content grows stale very rapidly. Laws and regulations change frequently, and more than ever before, technologies related to the workplace are substantially altered at an alarming rate."

Steps to Conversion Success

The article includes step-by-step instructions for migrating legacy SWF content to HTML5 including using a stepped approach to upgrading legacy projects, using SVG icons available in the Assets area instead of dated images, and a clever suggestion to make a video out of the project and make it an interactive video in Captivate 2019.

Here's a link to the full article,

And if you've got a project loaded with Flash content that needs to be replaced, send me an email ([email protected]). I've got experienced developers who can help!

 

Adobe Captivate: Free 2019 Update For Mac OS Big Sur

I love keeping my Mac up-to-date, but I rarely install major software updates when they are first released. And when OS 11, otherwise known as Big Sur, became available, I waited. After several months, my Mac began pestering me to get the update. When 11.1 became available, I finally upgraded.   Did I mention that I always caution people against upgrading their operating systems until ensuring that existing software continues to work? Yeah, about that... after upgrading my Mac, this is what I saw when choosing Apple > About This Mac.

Everything worked on my Mac wonderfully after the upgrade... except Captivate 2019. The program would start and then immediately close. Upon checking the Adobe website that supports Captivate, I learned that Captivate would not work with Big Sur. Yikes.   Fortunately, Adobe now has a free update for Captivate 2019 that allows Big Sur users to continue using the software. You can download the update here: https://assets.adobe.com/public/ff298ded-060f-4ee3-48f8-6599d7b9cc11.   Before installing the update, Adobe recommends that you uninstall Captivate first. From the Applications folder, open the Adobe Captivate 2019 folder and open Uninstall Adobe Captivate 2019.

ADOBE CAPTIVATE 2019: The Fastest Way to Start a New Project with Content and ID

Adobe Captivate makes it possible to rapidly create new eLearning projects. The process is as simple as File > New Project > Blank Project.   If you go that route, you'll get a new project with a single slide that looks like this:

It's a simple thing to add text to the slide (double-click the placeholder and type the new text). And adding slides to the project is simple too (Insert > New Slide from). However, if you're not an instructional designer, it's likely that you're not clear on the structure of the course or that the project should include standard slides such as an overview slide and a lesson review slide. If you're not a graphic designer, adding some cool visuals to your project may be out of your comfort zone as well.   And that's where Captivate's Project Assets prove invaluable.   From the top right of the Captivate window, click Assets.

From the list at the left, click Projects. From here, you can add single slides to your existing project or create a whole project, complete with instructional design ideas.   In my example, I selected Projects. Then I selected the Earth project and clicked the Open as a New Project button.

The resulting project is as complete (45 slides containing images and placeholder objects) as it is visually stunning. There are instructional design suggestions, navigation slides, interactive slides... everything you need to get your new project out of the starting gate and moving at a full gallop.   In the image below I edited the text and replaced the placeholder image in about 10 seconds.

Give the free Captivate assets a try and I'm betting that you'll agree that there's no faster way to get new eLearning projects up and running.

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If you're looking to learn Adobe Captivate, we've got a nice collection of live, online Captivate classes (all of the classes are taught by certified trainers who are also experienced eLearning developers).

eLEARNING DEVELOPMENT: Dude, Watch Your Aspect... Ratio!

When creating eLearning in TechSmith Camtasia, Adobe Captivate, or Articulate Storyline, one critical consideration is the physical width and height of your project (also known as the canvas size).   The size of the project is measured in pixels and if you don't get this right from the start, changing your mind later could lead to some unintended consequences. (Objects being resized out of proportion is one of the biggest concerns.)   When I teach any of my eLearning courses, I encourage learners to consider their end-users when determining the size of the canvas. These days, most users access eLearning content on anything from a desktop computer to laptops to mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.   In my experience, most devices used to view eLearning are shaped more like rectangles than squares. For that reason, I think the eLearning canvas should be set up to use a 16:9 aspect ratio as opposed to 4:3.   The aspect ratio of an eLearning canvas designed to be viewed on its side, or in landscape mode, is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side. If you go with a 4:3 aspect ratio (4 pixels across for every 3 pixels in height), you're working with a shape that is tending toward a square. If you go with 16:9 (16 pixels across for every 9 high), the shape is very much a rectangle.   Once you decide on the shape of your canvas (again, 16:9 is a strong rectangle shape), the exact size you use depends on your design and/or the needs of your users. Both 1024x576 and 1280x720 are 16:9 ratios. (Here's a handy list of 16:9 aspect ratios.)   So how do you ensure your aspect ratio is a 16:9 aspect ratio as opposed to 4:3. Read on!   Because eLearning often begins in Microsoft PowerPoint, let's start there. Go to the Design tab on the Ribbon and, from the Customize group, change the Slide Size to Widescreen (16:9).

In TechSmith Camtasia, click the drop-down menu just above the Canvas and choose Project Settings. From the Canvas Dimensions drop-down menu, choose a size from the Widescreen group. All of the sizes in this group are set to an aspect ratio of 16:9.

In Articulate Storyline, the default aspect ratio for new projects is 4:3. Go to the Design tab on the Ribbon and, from the Setup group, click Story Size.   From the Story Size drop-down menu, choose 720:405 (16:9) and then change the Width and Height as needed. Select Lock aspect ratio to ensure you're maintaining a 16:9 aspect ratio as you change the size.

In Adobe Captivate, when creating new projects, select Blank Project and then, from the Canvas drop-down menu, choose an appropriate 16:9 aspect ratio. If you need to change the size of an existing project, choose Modify > Rescale Project and change the Width and Height as appropriate.

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Looking for training, consulting, mentoring, or development on all things eLearning? We've got you covered. Give us a call at 877.754.2662. You can learn more about our eLearning classes on the IconLogic website.