Adobe Captivate 6: HTML5 At Last!

by Kevin Siegel  

You've probably heard by now that Adobe released Adobe Captivate 6 late last week. Over the coming weeks, I'll be highlighting all of the new features. This week, HTML5.

Publishing in Captivate takes your source content and outputs it into a format that can be consumed (viewed) by the learner.

Currently the most common way to publish a Captivate project is as a Flash SWF, an excellent solution because SWF files can be used by the vast majority of the world's personal computers, browsers and operating systems. Your learners will not need Captivate installed on their computer to use a SWF, but they will need a modern web browser and the free Adobe Flash Player (www.adobe.com). According to Adobe, the Flash Player is installed on the vast majority of the word's computers.

Of course, SWFs have a problem. Learners using an Apple mobile device such as the iPad, iPod and iPhone (that's millions upon millions of potential learners) cannot use SWF content at all. Learners using an Apple mobile device who attempt to open a SWF are met with a warning that SWFs are not supported.

If you'd like to create content for the Apple mobile devices, hope is not lost. As an alternative to publishing a SWF, you can publish as HTML5. Lessons published as HTML5 will play on any computer or mobile device that supports HTML5, including the Apple mobile devices.

While most features you can add to a Captivate project will work when published as HTML5, not all features are supported (such as Rollover Captions and Rollover Images). Prior to publishing as HTML5, you should use the HTML5 Tracker that to flag features that are not supported. 

To use the HTML5 Tracker, choose Project > HTML5 Tracker. If the resulting window has anything in the list (as shown below), you'll need to make a copy of your project and remove the unsupported feature. If the HTML5 Tracker is clean, you're ready to Publish. 

 

To publish as HTML5, simply choose File > Publish. SelectSWF/HTML5 from the Publish formats at the left of the dialog box. 

 

From the Output Format Options area, select HTML5 and then click the Publish button.

 

While publishing SWF output typically results in just a few output files, HTML5 output yields several folders and files. All of the assets need to be kept together when posted to your web server. Any links you create to the HTML5 output should point to index.html, which will load all of the assets so it can be consumed by your learners.

 

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? We offer two live, online Captivate 5 classes. Adobe Captivate Essentials and Adobe Captivate Beyond the Essentials (Advanced). Our Captivate 6 classes will ramp up in August.

Comments

[Aimee]

I've been told that animations created in Flash and inserted into Captivate files also do not work when the CP file is published as HTML5. Can you confirm?

[Kevin Siegel]

You are correct. If it's SWF, it will not work as HTML5. I've also found that Question Pools don't work as HTML5. Question slides are fine, but Random Question Slides = no good.

[Bayan]

Hi, I'm trying to insert a link inside a smart shape. When the user clicks this link "Hide" the smart shape should disappear. After publishing it on HTML5, the link doesn't work. When I publish it with swf, it works. Any suggestions?
Thanks

[Kevin Siegel]

Bayan, have you tried posting the lesson to your web server and testing from there. (Several features will not work when tested locally.)