I've been a fan of Captivate all the way back to the days when it was called Flashcam and later RoboDemo. However, I have found that I am using it less now that I have StoryLine. More often the not, the record features of StoryLine meet my screen recording needs for both "show me" and "try me" scenarios.
Hi Amanda, as Michael said Lynda.com has various tutorial videos including training on Captivate 6. When I was first deciding what elearning software to purchase it was between Captivate and Articulate, even though I am familiar with other Adobe products, Articulate's multitude of resources as well as community were what got me hooked! Good luck!
I took a course on Captivate from IconLogic. It was a good course. Now that I've used all of the Articulate products and several versions of Captivate. I prefer Storyline, the learning curve is easier. I'm producing professional product much faster than I ever was able to with Captivate.
Yeah, @Cary, you just said it: the learning curve...
I bought a SL license when I started being a freelance. The 30 free trial days were more than enough to finish my first projects, and I've only grown in the professional use of Storyline thanks to this community and to the great tutorials posted.
Now I work for a big company. At work I'm trying hard to learn Adobe Captivate 7: I don't see the intuitive part anywhere. I find the environment really arid, I call it the Captivate dessert, it is really dry and unpleasant. Illustrated characters are... better not to mention.
So I really appreciate that @Michael offered several links to learn more. At first, Captivate tutorials really don't explain how to do something, only they mention you can do it.
As for their community... @Richard made the point: what community?
I warned my manager: I won't reach the professional level I used to have so easily. She offered to consider buying the SL license so the battle is not lost.
The only thing: I really wanted to give a chance to Captivate, as some IDs are happy with it. Any idea on how to get motivated by a tool you don't like?
Adobe took the same UI design it did as with all it's products. If you were ever comfortable using Illustrator or photoshop, you would feel comfortable using Captivate. That being said, it still isn't very intuitive. I consider myself very comfortable with illustratot and photoshop, but I still found it hard to get into captivate. When I first opened Storyline, I was able to immediately "get it". With captivate I struggled a little bit, but managed to make myself an expert. Captivate has it's strenght and weaknesses as does Storyline.
I mentioned this on another post. Don't try to tackle every option Captivate has at once. Learn how to do drag and drops first. When you feel you have the hang of it, move on to variables. After that try to combine them. If you try to master the whole software it can be overwhelming. If you have any specific question that you can't seem to find, I might be able to help you, just PM me.
I'm a very advanced Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop user, and I still found myself struggling with the Adobe Captivate 7 interface. It is simply not as intuitive as Storyline, by any means.
A few of the main things that bothered me when I worked in Captivate 7 for a recent project:
In Storyline, to create a button with a hover state, I simply add a state. In Captivate, I have to create the buttons as image files in a seperate appplication, name them appropriately (for example, button1_down.png, button1_over.png, button1_down.png...) and then add those buttons in as images... and if I need to edit the buttons after I have to edit them outside the application, rename them all, and bring them all back in. Wow.
Also, quiz slides are MUCH easier to work with in Storyline. You get your feedback on seperate feedback layers. Since Captivate 7 has no layers, the feedback appears all stacked on top of each other on one slide, which means to edit things, you have to move objects around, and then place them all back in the right spot again. Just another workflow thing that is much easier in Storyline. I also like being able to have more than 1 results slide per project (in Captivate I discovered I can only use 1 result slide per project, so I can't have a result for my pre-assessment and my post-assessment in the same project file). Another minor thing that bothered me is that I was unable to find any way to edit the "Radio buttons" for my multiple choice quiz responses in Captivate 7. By default they were tiny and did not work well with my design, but couldn't find any way to change them...
I also love the visited state, and how it lets me simply add a checkmark to let users know they have seen the content. In Captivate 7 I have to create variables and advanced actions just to do something that I can do with a simple visited state in Storyline.
One more thing I love about Storyline is how it allows you to customize your navigation buttons on a slide level (the Next and Prev button that is. As far as I can tell, you can't control the playbar nav buttons in Cap7 on a slide by slide basis...)
Last but not least... the Articulate website, tutorials, blogs and community have been SO helpful to me. When I Google a problem in Storyline, I always get a lot of different links to quality sites. When I Google a problem in Captivate 7, I can never find a solution easily. There are solutions for Captivate 5, 5.5, 6... it;s hard to find what I need for Captivate 7. I just love the Articulate community as well....
I believe both tools are good and can be used to create great e-learning but as you can see I am leaning much in favor of Storyline!!!
11 Replies
You can learn the basics about Captivate here. Beyond that, there are courses on Lynda.com, books, blogs, etc.
I've been a fan of Captivate all the way back to the days when it was called Flashcam and later RoboDemo. However, I have found that I am using it less now that I have StoryLine. More often the not, the record features of StoryLine meet my screen recording needs for both "show me" and "try me" scenarios.
You should ask this question on the Captivate forums.....oh wait...
There's a few good videos on Youtube - I think the Adobe account has a few playlists that are relevant - just don't expect Articulate-level support!
Good luck.
One more resource worth checking out: http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate for lots of recorded WebEx sessions on various Captivate topics.
Hi Amanda, as Michael said Lynda.com has various tutorial videos including training on Captivate 6. When I was first deciding what elearning software to purchase it was between Captivate and Articulate, even though I am familiar with other Adobe products, Articulate's multitude of resources as well as community were what got me hooked! Good luck!
I took a course on Captivate from IconLogic. It was a good course. Now that I've used all of the Articulate products and several versions of Captivate. I prefer Storyline, the learning curve is easier. I'm producing professional product much faster than I ever was able to with Captivate.
Yeah, @Cary, you just said it: the learning curve...
I bought a SL license when I started being a freelance. The 30 free trial days were more than enough to finish my first projects, and I've only grown in the professional use of Storyline thanks to this community and to the great tutorials posted.
Now I work for a big company. At work I'm trying hard to learn Adobe Captivate 7: I don't see the intuitive part anywhere. I find the environment really arid, I call it the Captivate dessert, it is really dry and unpleasant. Illustrated characters are... better not to mention.
So I really appreciate that @Michael offered several links to learn more. At first, Captivate tutorials really don't explain how to do something, only they mention you can do it.
As for their community... @Richard made the point: what community?
I warned my manager: I won't reach the professional level I used to have so easily. She offered to consider buying the SL license so the battle is not lost.
The only thing: I really wanted to give a chance to Captivate, as some IDs are happy with it. Any idea on how to get motivated by a tool you don't like?
Thanks,
Belen Casado
Focus on the positive points and reinforce what you can do with the tool.
This community is still open to you Belen.
''She offered to consider buying the SL license so the battle is not lost. ''
Sounds positive to me.
Nicholas
Adobe took the same UI design it did as with all it's products. If you were ever comfortable using Illustrator or photoshop, you would feel comfortable using Captivate. That being said, it still isn't very intuitive. I consider myself very comfortable with illustratot and photoshop, but I still found it hard to get into captivate. When I first opened Storyline, I was able to immediately "get it". With captivate I struggled a little bit, but managed to make myself an expert. Captivate has it's strenght and weaknesses as does Storyline.
I mentioned this on another post. Don't try to tackle every option Captivate has at once. Learn how to do drag and drops first. When you feel you have the hang of it, move on to variables. After that try to combine them. If you try to master the whole software it can be overwhelming. If you have any specific question that you can't seem to find, I might be able to help you, just PM me.
I'm a very advanced Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop user, and I still found myself struggling with the Adobe Captivate 7 interface. It is simply not as intuitive as Storyline, by any means.
A few of the main things that bothered me when I worked in Captivate 7 for a recent project:
In Storyline, to create a button with a hover state, I simply add a state. In Captivate, I have to create the buttons as image files in a seperate appplication, name them appropriately (for example, button1_down.png, button1_over.png, button1_down.png...) and then add those buttons in as images... and if I need to edit the buttons after I have to edit them outside the application, rename them all, and bring them all back in. Wow.
Also, quiz slides are MUCH easier to work with in Storyline. You get your feedback on seperate feedback layers. Since Captivate 7 has no layers, the feedback appears all stacked on top of each other on one slide, which means to edit things, you have to move objects around, and then place them all back in the right spot again. Just another workflow thing that is much easier in Storyline. I also like being able to have more than 1 results slide per project (in Captivate I discovered I can only use 1 result slide per project, so I can't have a result for my pre-assessment and my post-assessment in the same project file). Another minor thing that bothered me is that I was unable to find any way to edit the "Radio buttons" for my multiple choice quiz responses in Captivate 7. By default they were tiny and did not work well with my design, but couldn't find any way to change them...
I also love the visited state, and how it lets me simply add a checkmark to let users know they have seen the content. In Captivate 7 I have to create variables and advanced actions just to do something that I can do with a simple visited state in Storyline.
One more thing I love about Storyline is how it allows you to customize your navigation buttons on a slide level (the Next and Prev button that is. As far as I can tell, you can't control the playbar nav buttons in Cap7 on a slide by slide basis...)
Last but not least... the Articulate website, tutorials, blogs and community have been SO helpful to me. When I Google a problem in Storyline, I always get a lot of different links to quality sites. When I Google a problem in Captivate 7, I can never find a solution easily. There are solutions for Captivate 5, 5.5, 6... it;s hard to find what I need for Captivate 7. I just love the Articulate community as well....
I believe both tools are good and can be used to create great e-learning but as you can see I am leaning much in favor of Storyline!!!
@Danika - that's all good to hear
Just think about how good SL is going to be by the time we get to v7!
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