Captivate 3.0 - What Should You Consider?

I use Captivate for a good amount of my business and my clients are very pleased with its output. It kept me from having to become a complete Flash guru in order to create simple Flash-based software demos.

Reconciling this with my penchant for using MadCap’s Flare software it must be understood that I back the best product for the best price. Right now I am a fan of Captivate, however there are some issues to consider, including the longevity of the product’s output.

Captivate’s History - RoboDemo and eHelp

I love Captivate. I worked with the RoboDemo design team, Captivate’s eHelp precursor, back in 2002 and it’s my humble opinion that RoboDemo provided a very compelling case for eHelp’s purchase by Macromedia.

Review: Does Adobe’s Captivate eLearning Tool Get A Passing Grade? - Software - IT Channel News by CRN and VARBusiness

Since CRN Test Center recently took a look at TechSmith’s Camtasia Studio 4, the inevitable question arises: how does Captivate measure up against Camtasia? The answer is maddening: it depends on the user. Video editors would find recording and editing straight video files much easier with Camtasia. However, Captivate would appeal to users skilled in Director or Flash. In terms of power, Captivate has a solid edge. While quickly creating a software demo or a PowerPoint presentation to post online is easier with Camtasia, Captivate wins hands down when creating interactive demos, training software with quizzes, and complex software demonstrations. Captivate has much more flexibility in editing, in creating recordings in multiple formats off a single recording, and in handling different input sources.

If you need to do simple software demos, Mimic may do the job well for you. If you’re looking for a professional eLearning tool with plenty of extra features, Captivate may be what you’re looking for. For those who may already use or follow Captivate, checking out this list of learning resources might help you. Additionally, there’s a great Camtasia use article on mtech.

With an educational price of $199, Captivate provides a great classroom teaching aide and becomes very compelling for private schools K-12 when planning their learning department’s goals.

Captivate’s Competitors

Camtasia has always been a compelling product and I won’t try to detail their offering here since the CRN article does a great job.There are plenty of other software simulation tools out there, but I currently use only one along with Captivate.

Let’s talk about a new product put out by San Diego based MadCap Software, MadCap’s Mimic. Mimic does software simulations only. This is a product I term ‘good enough to get the job done’ for about 85% of most Tech Writers, helping MadCap’s sales since they bundle several very good tools including Mimic with their flagship Help Authoring Tool (HAT) Flare in the MadPak.

Flare works well with the Mimic product - designed to tie well together from conception - however the full feature set of Captivate makes for a compelling product if you’re specializing in developing eLearning content.

Since MadCap has already tied into Microsoft with their Flare offering, it only seems natural that they would eventually enhance their Mimic output with Silverlight. Silverlight is a very compelling standard with better resolution which will become integrated within the Windows Vista interface. Building in an ability to import older Captivate and RoboDemo files might help them compete in future versions also.

Future Proofing Challenges For Captivate

There have been several hard hits to using Flash on the open web; you must keep updating the content because of browser changes (Microsoft) therefore if you’re serious about your demos you have to stay current and buy at least every other release of your software in order to modify the content.

Web 2.0 integration will be a challenge for Adobe primarily because of the Flash and Silverlight technology war between Microsoft and Adobe. Adding the browser difficulties that Microsoft could once again place on Flash (such as with the IE7 security settings) this could get ugly. Flash-based content could very well be fighting for survival since 97% of most corporations use Internet Explorer.

Future-proofing Captivate is Adobe’s challenge going into the next three years. I’ve known the team that helped build RoboDemo into Captivate and the current software development team is just as dedicated, however they are not based in North America. Being based in India has many disadvantages along with the obvious economic advantages.

Additionally, the last few RoboHelp/RoboDemo technical support resources were recently let go in a layoff in mid-Q2 2007. This concerns me when you look at the growth of features within the product and how it will proceed over time.

My assessment is that it will be 50/50 on whether the India-based design team will have the resources allotted by Adobe to remain cutting edge, or whether the Captivate product line will cease to be innovative. I’ve met with some of the design team members and they are all very enthusiastic, however I did not have the same sense about how well they understand the eLearning market.

RoboHelp and FrameMaker are both examples of market leading software acquisitions by Adobe which now languish in innovation. MonkeyPi, a Technical Communication blog I follow, has written several articles about the latest RoboHelp version, none of which are truly positive. Without a strong amount of product dedication and focus, I sadly anticipate that Captivate will follow a similar course into legacy.

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