Adobe Captivate 5: Sneak Peek!

by Kevin Siegel

I'm attending Adobe's Learning Summit in San Jose right now. RJ Jacquez, Senior Product Evangelist just wowed the crowd with a sneak preview of the upcoming Adobe Captivate 5 for the Macintosh.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Captivate is being recreated from the ground-up. The new software is being written in C++ instead of Delphi (which was the programming language used for the other versions of Captivate). As a result, the Macintosh and PC versions will be the same.
  
  
• Captivate 5 works natively on a Macintosh. If you are a Mac fan (like me), this is a huge, huge deal! Sweet!!!!
  
  
• Captivate 5 features the same common user interface as the other Adobe applications. For instance, can dock panels anywhere on your screen. Once you set up your screen the way you like, you can save the environment as a Workspace. From that point forward, you can quickly switch between one Workspace and another.
  
  
• There won't be any dialog boxes in Captivate 5. For the first time, you will use pods (available in your workspace) to change the properties of selected objects.
  
  
• While recording, you will now see a countdown (3-2-1) just before the recording begins. Nice improvement since in the older versions of Captivate you weren't always sure when the recording process actually began.
  
  
• For the first time, you can work in one Captivate project, open another or create a new Captivate project and move content between the open projects.
  
  
• Improved Photoshop support. While you could import Photoshop files and include the layers in Captivate 4, the process has been sped up so much that if you blink you'll miss it. This is a nice improvement over Captivate 4.
  
  
• Insert multiple Question slides at the same time. The improved Question Types dialog box got the biggest applause during RJ's presentation. You can now elect to add 3 Multiple Choice questions, 2 True/False slides, etc. Anyone who has had to add question slides, one at a time, knows how cool this new feature is.

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Worried about your class canceling? You'll be happy to hear that we never, ever cancel our classes (even if there's just one student registered).

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Comments

[Bob Cunningham]

Hey Kevin. Thanks for the tantalizing update. But what are "pods"?

[david b]

Kevin,

In regards to the countdown...hasn't that always been a feature at least since captivate 2?

Do you mean it works better?

[Kevin Siegel]

The countdown only appears in CP4 if you include narration. In CP5, the countdown begins even if you elect not to record narration.

[paper writers]

I kinda new here. Please allow me to learn in this thing.

[ldumitre]

Any info about a release date?

[Steve]

Any word on .f4v support and improved integration with flash?

[Alicia]

Will it be compatible with 64 bit operating systems. CS4 doesn't run properly on my new computer and I actually might need to go buy an old computer just to run Captivate. Do you know if this problem is fixed and also when the new version will be released?

[Rajat]

Kevin,

Do we have better scripting support in Captivate 5. Captivate 4's scripting while helpful is very cumbersome. Also, are there any improvements with Powerpoint integration.

[Darkone]

Kevin, you've mentioned it has been re-written in a different programming language. Have you noticed if that has influenced file size? As you may recall, there has been concern about the relatively bloated SWFs Captivate creates

[Captivate 5 is annoying]

The countdown is not a feature... it is a huge annoyance - imagine this: you have a project with hundreds of slides and you are going thru trying to record audio for each... you find a quiet place, eliminate all background noise and are ready to tear thru your audio recordings... except, for each and every single slide, you have to wait 4 seconds (3...2...1...0 = being recording).

Oops, you make a mistake in your recording... wait 4 more seconds... didnt like that take? 4 more seconds. I'm thinking of switching back to CP3 just to get rid of this "feature".

That there isnt an option to disable this is absurd!

[Kevin Siegel]

I think the counter is a good thing and gives the novice the chance to get really ready (it's something you'll find in Camtasia and has always been missing in CP). However, the ability to disable the counter would be nice and is something I will add to the wish list for the next release of CP.

[peter]

Hello
Thank you for the information in your article. It is very informative.
Michael Peters/