Captain Captivate

Captivate 5 New Features Webinar

Posted on 26. May, 2010 by captivatehero.

Join me for a free 2 hour webinar on all the new features of Captivate 5. Will two hours be enough time? The Captain is going to do his best to knock it out!

Date: June 11

Time: 12-2PM EST

Space is limited to the first 100 registrations - so sign up now!

Click to register and get all the details.

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Adobe Captivate 5 and eLearning Suite 2 Announced!

Posted on 04. May, 2010 by captivatehero.

Today Adobe announced the update to Adobe Captivate 5 and eLearning Suite 2. This is a detailed list of all the new features and my own commentary.  This release is defiantly a game changer for rapid eLearning development, and will really spice up my Captivate 5 training classes.

Captivate 5 New Features :

Optimized User Interface

• If you have been using any of the CS4/CS5 products then this new interface is going to feeling like home. You will be able to fully customize the layout of panels in Captivate 5 and save it out as your own custom Workspace. This is really going to help Captivate users who are working with multiple monitors. Also, the new Property Inspector will seem foreign to those of you who just use Captivate, but over time will become indispensable as you build your content. Finally, there is paste board/scratch area so you can have content off the screen, or partially on the screen. This is going to come in handy for introducing content with the new Animation Effects (see below).

Collaborate via Acrobat.com

• The integration of Captivate 5 and Acrobat.com will be a nice added benefit for anyone who can use the Acrobat.com service. Send Captivate review files to Acrobat.com for a Shared Review, and notify your team members with an e-mail blast right from Captivate 5. All of your files will be accessible to team members across the internet, and you will be able to track changes remotely.  You can post Captivate development files to Acrobat.com for backup or share them with a team member. With 5 gigabytes of storage for free - there is a lot of space to work with.

Rich Animation Effects

• Captivate 5 now has the ability to animate your objects using the new Effects panel. There are over 130 of pre-built animations that you can take advantage of by just choosing the effect from a menu and setting the timings. Multiple effects can played in sequence and some can even be played concurrently. One of my favorite effects is the motion path. You click on a small icon that appears in the lower right corner of your object and a motion path editor become enabled. This is a feature really should be put in Flash for aspiring animators. Now for you advanced Flash jockeys out there - you will be able to export your Motion XML files and use them as a Custom Effect. This is going to allow for the easy expansion of animation capabilities in Captivate 5.

Open Multiple Projects and New File Format

• You can now have multiple projects and Captivate Libraries open at the same time. Gone are the days of having multiple versions of Captivate open at the same time! Copy and paste assets between files with ease and drag and drop Library elements from different files. You will notice that there is a new file extension: .CPTX.

Object Styles

• Design Templates in Captivate are no more. They have been replaced with new Object Styles feature. You will now be able to select an object in Captivate 5 and format it visually with a default style or something that you whip up. Some formatting options of objects include Character, Text  Format, Fill & Stoke, and Transition.  Here is a big one: Quiz question elements can now set up with styles including the progress indicator.  Once you make a change to a Captivate Style it will easily propagate those changes throughout your entire Captivate development document. The Object Styles Manager panel will be intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it will prove to be one of the most powerful new features in this product.

Track & Report via Acrobat.com

• Attention all small and medium businesses… you now have a way to track your courses without a learning management system! This is all done by using the new Adobe Captivate Quiz Results Analyzer, or what I would like term ACQuRA - pronounced just like the car. All you need is an account to Acrobat.com and you are in business. When you set up reporting for your Captivate 5 files just pick Acrobat.com for eLearning reporting, and your student results are then written to the Acrobat.com cloud. The “ACQuRA” desktop application then kicks in an analyzes the files and will generate a report for you. Also, it has the ability to download to a file, export to .CSV, customize reports and hook up to external servers. This feature alone would sell me on an upgrade to Captivate 5. I can only imagine how many users are going to be praising Adobe for this functionality.

Multi-Video format Support

• With Captive 5 you will now be able to use FLV, F4V, AVI, MP4, MOV and 3GP for all your video needs.

Master Slides

• This feature is for all of you who have been saying to yourself, “I wish that Captivate had Master slides like PowerPoint.” Master slides in Captivate 5 allow you to add elements and set up a layout. You can have multiple Master slides in a project, and create new slides based upon a Master slide. Changes to a Master slide will update all slides based upon that Master. Using Master slides with Captivate Templates is going to be an amazing one-two punch for eLearning development.

Span & Synch Video

• This includes placing one video on a slide, or having your video span across multiple slides. The new Video Timing panel will give you precise control over when your video plays and the timing of other Captivate events. Another new feature is the ability to place video on the Table of Contents using the Video Timing Panel. Your TOC will slide down to reveal a video for the slide and then slide back up when the video is done playing.

Expanded Asset Library

• Get a larger set of prebuilt widgets, playbars, skins, stock animations, images, text captions, and buttons with superior aesthetics and usability.

Adobe Captivate Twitter Widget

• I have yet to use this widget so I really can’t say too much other than it’s going to be nice to have a hook into a social media site like Twitter. I would imagine that this will close feedback loops when students have comments on a course.

Enhanced Rich Media Support

• Better support for Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 animations.

Community Help

• There is a new Adobe AIR application that will search the Adobe help files and specific related sites that have a wealth of information. You can think of this as a hyper focused Google search with a nice interface. It’s nice to have an organized way tap into the user community for knowledge.

Enhanced Custom Widgets

• There’s a large amount of  new widgets that will expand the functionality of your courses. Some of them include: webcam access, volume control, external video link, timer, text area tied to a variable, custom caption, data table, slide numbering, quote of the day, print, podcast link, new playbar designs, help link, hangman game, send email, open web browser and ask the expert/send an email.

Macintosh Version

• Captivate 5 is now available for the Macintosh OS. Welcome Mac enthusiasts to the world of Captivate!

Screen Recording Workflow

• Brand new countdown and interface to start a recording. The quality of panning has increased, and there are other tweaks under the hood that are going to give you cleaner recordings.

Audio Recording/Editing Workflow

• There ’s a new audio recording window and edit window for you to take in. You have just about the same functionality as the previous version of Captivate, but this new interface will speed up your audio production. It’s going to be a breeze for those of you who add closed captioning.

eLearning Suite 2 New Features:

1. Round-tripping between Adobe Captivate 5 and Adobe Soundbooth CS5
2. Round-tripping between Adobe Captivate 5 and Adobe Flash Professional CS5
3. Round-tripping between Adobe Captivate 5 and Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended
4. Multi-video support and Synchronization leveraging Adobe Media Encoder
5. Application capture in Adobe Flash Professional CS5
6. Domain-specific HTML templates
7. No LMS Required: Tracking and reporting of Learning outcomes
8. Optimized user interface of Adobe Captivate 5
9. Easy/ Enhanced Multi-Module SCORM / AICC LMS Integration

I’m really looking forward to these new products and all the options for creating amazing eLearning content.

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