A year ago, Adobe released Captivate Version 5.0 to largely very positive reviews. With it came a new interface, which allowed for faster development and a slew of new features as well. (See my June 28, 2010 review in Learning Solutions Magazine.)
So what’s new with Version 5.5? While not an earth-shattering overhaul, there are a few attractive new features that make this a very worthwhile update.
Eye candy: gradients, shadows and rotations
Gradients
We can now use gradients in drawing objects and on the stage background in Captivate using a new option in the Fill properties. See Figure 1.
Figure 1 – The new Gradient options
You can select the colors for gradients, choose to make gradients linear or radial, and even change the pattern used. You can also save up to 10 gradients for later use. The results look very good. See Figure 2.
Figure 2 – An example of gradient usage
Shadows
A second welcome addition is being able to apply a shadow to any object on the stage. You can make the shadow appear on the inside or the outside of the object, set the angle, blur, and distance. You can also choose from nine presets. While much of this could be done in Version 5.0 using the Effects feature, having a dedicated properties panel makes life simpler. See Figure 3 for an example.
Figure 3 – An example of applying a shadow
If you apply a shadow to a text in a caption, the shadow will attach itself to the caption box. However, if you use text with a transparent caption, you will see the the shadow is on the text itself. See Figure 4.
Figure 4 – Shadows on text
Rotations
Eye candy continues with the ability (finally!) to rotate objects on the screen. This opens a new world of possibilities. For instance, rollover areas for captions and images, while still forced to be rectangles, can now be angled any way you wish. Images, text, practically anything you like can now be rotated, even videos and interactive objects such as buttons, text entry and click boxes. Whereas this was possible with Effects in Version 5.0, the process now is much simpler. See Figure 5.
Figure 5 – Rotation of various objects. At top left is a rollover area. At the bottom from left to right are a text entry area, a video and a Flash animation.
Rotating of objects can be done by clicking the rotation symbol above an object or by directly entering or changing the rotation angle in the Properties Transform panel. (Figure 6)
Figure 6 – Rotation options
