You can customize settings to get the kind of demonstration or testing experience you want.Īs said before, Captivate isn't just an application for capturing screen-shots or videos. In not much more effort than it took to create the VLC Encoding demo, we could create an assessment for the same: For a better experience you can add narration to your files, or eve use the text-to-speech function to generate it.
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The difference between assessment and training mode being that assessment is more of a test of how well you have learnt the procedure, and as such it shows no hints of how to proceed, while the training mode guides you through the interaction to be performed by providing hits as to where to click and what to type. While in assessment / training mode any clicks you make, and any text you enter will be recorded by Captivate and the end-user will have to perform the same actions in order to progress through the simulation. Captivate will manage the creation of the actual interaction! To generate a training / assessment simulation, you merely need to start the capture and use the application as you normally would. The "Assessment Simulation" and the "Training Simulation" modes instead capture your interactions with any application with the intent of training / testing the user, and each slide progresses only if the user enters the same sequence as the one you entered.Īll of this is of course done automatically. While in the demonstration mode, it captures your interactions with the application with the aim to display to the viewer.
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You can also add Flash widgets created in Flash CS4 (some are included by default), and export the final design to Flash CS4 for further advanced tuning.Ĭreating software demonstrations though, does not even begin to show the intricacies possible with this application. You can add captions, and roll-overs, highlighted areas, animated text, images, and even animation.
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Of course you can capture full motion video too if you want.Ī good collection of tools has been made available for this purpose. In the demonstration above, slides have been deleted, and the final captions have been edited to correct or clarify the text that comes automatically. Also, since the final result is in the form of slides for each interaction, you can simply delete any missteps for a cleaner and clearer demonstration. This not only saves considerable space compared to recording a video, but also makes the demonstration much smoother since it doesn't record any erratic mouse movements. You can set the application to only take snapshots of the application at moments of interaction, and it will automatically animate the mouse movements between the frames.
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Captivate automatically adds captions such as "Click - Button" or "Select - menu item" and even fills in the name of the action. After that, any interactions with the applications are automatically recorded. This entire demonstration took only about 15 minutes to create! Most of which we are sure was due to our unfamiliarity with the interface.Ĭreating something like this is a simple matter of creating a new "Software Simulation" project, selecting the application that needs to be recorded, and clicking the record button. Take a look at the following example where we explain how to encode video files with the VLC Media Player. One of the tasks which can be achieved with exceptional ease with Captivate is creating demonstrations of a software's functionality. (Get an overview of the logical structure and flow of your work) (Edit individual slide and work with the timeline)
![adobe captivate review adobe captivate review](https://xternull.com/files/2020/10/Adobe-Captivate-CC.jpg)
(Arrange and group your slides and get an overview of your work)
![adobe captivate review adobe captivate review](https://i1.wp.com/www.alphr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/it_photo_149452.png)
As such it forms an integral part of both the eLearning and Technical Communication suites. The application offers excellent solutions to create powerful eLearning experiences, and the screen capture functionality is geared towards creating tutorials of software interfaces with relative ease. While screen-capture might seem like too trivial a pursuit for an Adobe application, Captivate manages to power up this simple tool so much that it is somewhat unfair to call it just a screen capture software, it is much more than that. One such gem is Adobe Captivate, currently in its fourth version, it comes as a part of two of Adobe's lesser know application suites, Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2, and Adobe eLearning Suite.Īdobe Captivate is an application that will put any other screen capture program to shame.
![adobe captivate review adobe captivate review](https://learningsolutionsmag.com/assets/images/learningsolutions/2013/130627/figure1.jpg)
While Adobe's "Creative Suite" is definitely their most well known suite of applications, some of their most brilliant application are left out.