[Web4lib] Macromedia Captivate (formerly RoboDemo)

[Conkas, Michelle]

I have used both Macromedia/Adobe Captivate in my current position and
Qarbon ViewletBuilder in the past.

I think Captivate has an advantage in the slickness/prettiness of the
visuals, but ViewletBuilder had some advantages, particularly in the
ability to change timing for captions globally (the default text reading
time for Captivate is a little fast, so you have to change each timing
bubble individually). ViewletBuilder was cheaper when we were
investigating, though Macromedia/Adobe usually have good education
pricing, which you may be eligible for. 

They both can automatically take screen shots on a mouse click, and you
can press a key on the keyboard for extra shots. Captivate puts extra
text bubbles in for you that labels links that you click on and
introduces new pages as they load eg. "the library home page appears".
ViewletBuilder seems to be a lot better at allowing you to customise
your mouse cursors in a natural way (eg turning from the pointing hand
to the text entry cursor in the appropriate spot) - I've had some
trouble getting mouse cursors to look natural in Captivate. Captivate
has a simulation mode that is good for getting the user to type in or
click in the right area as if they were using the software themselves
(though it looks like ViewletBuilder has this now in the most recent
version). ViewletBuilder was better at allowing you to customise the
HTML page settings that encase the resulting flash movie. Captivate is
still on version 1, and has been for a while, so I expect there will be
a version 2 out soon.

I would recommend watching lots of the movies that are on the
Macromedia/Adobe and Qarbon websites, to see how well the movies are
made by their company staff. Also, because movies made with
ViewletBuilder are called Viewlets, they are also easy to search for to
see how other libraries use them:
http://www.google.com/search?q=viewlets+library. It's a bit harder to
find good library Captivate examples because of the name.

They really are both very good products for doing things like
database/software demos. If I had to choose between them I would
probably suggest ViewletBuilder as it is cheaper and a little more
intuitive (but I haven't used Captivate to the same depth yet, so I
might not know all the tricks yet). 

They both offer full 30 day trials, so I would suggest you trial them
both out with a couple of mini projects and see which suits you best. 

Cheers,

Michelle



-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Tawnya Plumb
Sent: Wednesday, 19 April 2006 3:25 AM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Web4lib] Macromedia Captivate (formerly RoboDemo)

Hi all,

 

Does anyone have experience using Macromedia Captivate (or RoboDemo) to
create online database tutorials?   What is your impression of the
software?   What other software would you consider for creating
tutorials?

 

Thanks for your input,

 

Tawnya Plumb

Electronic Services Librarian

George W. Hopper Law Library

College of Law, University of Wyoming

tplumb at uwyo.edu

307.766.5733

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