Creating Interactive Software Simulations

[Guest]

Good day,

What I wish to do is this: I want to have a user enter information on a simulated software screen, as though they were in the software. I have been searching in Google, YouTube & this forum but haven't been able to find an example or mention of such a thing, but I am sure I saw that in a Captivate class I attended. Can anyone confirm that this is possible, and hopefully point me to a source of information on how to create such a simulation?

I am using Captivate 3 on IE 7 currently but could possibly upgrade Captivate if I could justify the cost to my manager.

Many thanks,

Alden

[Guest]

You can absolutely do this with Captivate, but it is best with the latest version.

read this pdf from Adobe on Cp4

http://www.adobe.com/education/resources/hed/instructional/connect/collaborative_teaching/pdfs/record_pub_captivate.pdf

[Guest]

JimmyDotMac,

I apologize for my tardiness in responding (was really slammed for a few weeks) but I do so much appreciate your response. I found the information at the link you sent very helpful. Had to put that project on the back burner but I'm glad it sounds like it will be possible for me to make it work.

Thanks again,

Alden

[Lilybiri]

Hello,

For your information: I almost never use Captivate to realize simple demonstrations but always for interactive software simulations or for assessments. My students appreciate those modules a lot better than simple demonstrations. Although CP is suitable for all kind of training, for me as a Software trainer one of its biggest advantages over other rapid elearning tools, is the possibility of interactivity for software training. If you want me to share some examples, send me your e-mail address (you can use a private message to prevent spam) and I think I do have some English training modules for MS Project somewhere, English is not my native tongue).

Lilybiri

[hero jig]

New here today, but two things: @ Lilibiri please send samples to herojig at gmail dotter commer, as you and i do the same things. I develop training for folks here in Nepal on MS Project and other softwares used by the development community. And 2) how does this tool compare to say Camtasia Studio on a PC or ScreenFlow on a mac? I often do video tutorials for Creative Cow.net (http://leaders.creativecow.net/leaders/gaton_jiggy/) and I am still searching for the perfect workflow there (screen capture + edit).

I have spent all of 15 minutes so far using Captivate 5 and a bit more time looking at the tuts and a bit excited. In regards to video tuts I think I could record them off the cuff, then later go back and edit  and add new scripted narration to the slides. My first concern is file size. Just a few seconds ran up some 40mb based on a quick screen grab test and publish.  I suppose this is all resolved when I convert the swf to compressed h.264 video later down the line?

Well, cheers and congrats to Adobe for putting out a tool of this nature!

jigs

[Lilybiri]

Hello,

Just shared three files on Acrobat.com with you; you should have gotten three e-mails: two zip files with an interactive tutorial for the creation of a Calendar in MS Project and an assessment for MS Project. While those two files are in English, the last one is a French portfolio (pdf) with a lot of presentations (created with Adobe Presenter), demonstrations and trainings created in Captivate. All are about MS Project 2007, I'm busy upgrading to MSP 2010 with CP5 (what I sent you was created with CP4), but first of all in my language (Dutch).

About difference with Camtasia studio: interactivity in the first place, Captivate is not just a demonstration creating tool, that is why I sent you both an interactive training simulation and an assessment. And watch the size of those: perhaps you have created everything in Full Motion Recording which is not the way to go with Captivate. Please use Automatic mode, you will get slides that are much easier to edit than video. As an example: I'm creating all CP-files with an English version of MS Project, but translating the instructions, captions is then a quick way to have those tutorials in multiple languages.

Lilybiri

[hero jig]

Thx so much for sharing lilybiri! I'll have a look soon. On Camtasia Studio, it's what I am used to, but I don't like using apps in Virtual mode as much as native OSX, so Captivate 5 seems to be a solution. Looking forward to giving it a go on my next project. Seems pretty straight forward, and thx for the tip on file size...that works!

jigs