Captivate 6 offers many new features that I have desired since I started developing over three years ago using version 3.
As the coordinator of the Oregon Captivate User group and after teaching captivate for a couple of years, the main complaint I hear is that in order to get a tailored product many products; such as, flash, Photoshop, PowerPoint, need to be used in addition to Captivate.
Building course content using Captivate 6 has just become amazingly faster and easier using new features such as, themes, actors, smart objects, smart learning interactions, hyperlinks, high definition video capture, object grouping and more....
These out of the box assets make developing effective and convenient for newer users but are also customizable and flexible for the advanced user.
Following is a description of some my favorite features:
Smart learning Interactions: I have drooled over Articulates Engage from the first time I saw it a couple of years ago. Now Captivate 6 has smart learning interactions without having to use Flash or codes. Use of such interactions as, Accordion, Tabs (previously, I created my own), Timeline, Pyramid Stack, Glossary and Process circle not only make developing faster but make eLearning more engaging.
Actors: I have gone online, bought, or created my own characters for my learning content. Captivate 6 comes with a variety of characters with different expressions and poses making it much faster to create content. You can even import your own characters. The first time you try to use these actors don’t be surprised that you have to download them, they are placed in: Library/Documents/Adobe/eLearning Assets/Characters/Character Classifications
Hyperlinks: I have spent a lot of time in the past changing the font color and importing a click box over text in order to create the Hyperlink look and feel. Captivate 6 has a hyperlink feature that not only changes to the color automatically, but you can change the text so that it doesn’t look like a long URL. And I am ecstatic that the default is to open in a new window, not current. Not only that, you can also put the hyperlink on a master slide, so you don’t have to keep re-creating it!
Object Grouping: Another fantastic feature in Captivate 6 is the Object Grouping. If you have many assets on one slide you can group these together to keep your timeline organized. In fact, you can also apply effects and use the entire group in Advanced Actions and Widgets - that is pretty cool and will definitely save some time.
High Definition Video Screen Capture: HD video capture is awesome for quick instructional videos. It actually captures real time video capture including complex motion. You can publish directly as MP4 or to You Tube or you can edit the video. When editing the video project becomes a .cpvc file, there are no thumbnails, instead you have a timeline. Editing using the timeline is much easier than using the thumbnails and can save a significant amount of time. Additionally, Captivate has added such things as transitions pan and zoom and you can even insert text captions and images into the video. HD video capture is very smooth and is easy to learn, edit, and publish.
Another thing I really like is the interface, it is more appealing to look at and work with. It is much easier to see because of the icons, bold colors, and higher contrast.
The Bottom line: Captivate 6 is, by far, the easiest, most sophisticated, and most affordable tool to plug and play!
To view a complete list of demonstration videos of these features and more go to: http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/adobe-captivate-tutorials
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