So, any new version coming out in the not too distant future?

[Numberz]

Well, I just purchased the Studio Pro with one year service.

I'm already having fun

Thanks Everyone...
Numberz

[GerryWaz]

Great! I don't think you'll regret.

The other thing that you might get with Platinum Membership is getting invited to participate in betas: http://www.articulate.com/store/pmp.php

When Gabe can comment on it, we'll probably hear more about what's coming. This is a pretty competitive business, and we should all be able to appreciate Articulate's need to protect their plans and intellectual property.

Best.

- Gerry

[gabe]

Great! Glad to hear you purchased, Numberz! Having fun AND creating awesome content is what it's all about.

[Believer]

I read all of this with great interest. I'm a long-standing user of what is now Adobe Captivate. All the way back to when e-Help owned it as RoboDemo. The sale to Macromedia was a rebranding and then Adobe added some features to Captivate 2 and then the ability to duplicate a Quiz slide in Captivate 3 (a full version change with almost no changes).

I have some good and bad news about my findings here.

GOOD NEWS:
The mega-sized Adobe organization seems to not care about bugs and problems and there are dozens of problems with Adobe Captivate. If this was Adobe Acrobat, it would get fixed. In fact the bugs and problems are still there from Robo-Demo (two owners ago). They have a great community forum like this one. They have lots of nice people to answer the phones and Forum messages (all volunteer). But they have not provided the customer support needed in the form of patches. Bugs are left alone and then they add more new features. COMPLETE DENIAL that the file format is no good.

Adding sound to Adobe Captivate causes file bloat and items that get deleted seem to only delete the name of the background, sound file, Etc. The customer support is telling people to keep the projecvt files (pre-compiled) to under 50Megs or 50 slides. INSANE! Crashes, lockups, SWF files that stop responfding, all just lovely.

Without going on a tangent here, lets just say that I know all about software and software support since I'm in the software business. We're not perfect, things go wrong. It is impossible to account for every variation and thus patches are needed. We do them as needed and at least quarterly, even if the bug is just a typo, it gets fixed. But Adobe Captivate is full of bugs, yet free of patches. So here I am looking for for a replacement. This is not a minor thing to change products. I am looking for a great product and great support. And...


BAD NEWS:
This thread has dashed my hopes and confirmed my fears. I have beed looking for a shiny new, competent, complete and relaible replacement for Adobe Captivate. I am sick of file bloat, unfixed bugs and things that require patches to run correctly. I am sick of NO patches. I am sick of bugs that go on for multiple years AND multiple releases.

We issue patches at leas quarterly and that makes our users "Fanatics" about us because it shows that we care, that we are human and that there are things that words cannot fix.

So here I am checking out Articulate. It all seems so right and so well thought out. I would even say "slick" in some cases. But this forum shows that patches don't exist and that is not acceptable to me.

We have a "Production" version of our software and a "Next Release Version." When we find a bug we correct it in both places and get the hot-fix out to the users. We upgrade everyone quarterly with new features. I don't expect Articulate to upgrade everyone each quarter like we do, but I expect that level of bug support from my suppliers. I will repeat the truth "There are some things that words cannot fix."

RECOMMENDATIONS:
Re-evaluate your support and see if it is really complete:
- Help Files
- Popup messages on screens based on Forum, e-mail and voice support inquiries
- Forum
- e-mail
- phone
- articles
- on-line training (Flash or Webinars)
- How-To showcase
- Patches

That last item is a deal breaker for me. I have witnessed what is now Adobe-Captivate having NO patches since day 1 and I know how I run my company to create "fanatical users" and I see a BIG HOLE here for my expectations of support.

Want to see what I mean? Look at ComponentOne (maker of FlexGrid and other programmer controls). They even number the quarterly releases as Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 and they provide a download site for hot-fixes between releases for their users.

I do want to thank Articulate for having a public Forum page that "shows the warts." I appreciate that openness. There is just one deal breaker here for me, and it is not the price of the product, it is the price of work-arounds, hassles, exceptions that cannot be resolved and most importantly the resolution of those issues where words are not enough. Furthermore, the proce of making the switch will need to be "earned" and it is not measured in dollars alone.

Respectfully,

Believer

[guru2be]

how you use captivate since articulate not capture software

[Believer]

Captivate is very good at recording software sessions to use as demos, simulations, screen captures for export to a Word DOC and other screen recording sessions. It also has the ability to do something like PowerPoint and it has a Quiz engine. It exports to Scorm, AIIC and others.

I have traditionally used it for screen recording for software training and presentations such as demos or a demo of a new feature set. But for more enhanced learning, you can do simulations, branching, sound and quizzes. But reliability for the On-Line-Learning stuff is not what it should be. I am working on an on line learning project with more than 60 sections and it will be about 40-50 hours of course time for students. I need something that is more reliable, and supported.

My search has turned up dozens of products, but I am looking for a great on-line learning authoring tool set and the support that makes the gremlins go away. This thread illustrates that product updates happen with care, but that patches are not normal and that is a problem for me.

Believer

[awkeogh]

Isn't the answer to all this simply try out for free all of the offerings and see whether what is available meets you needs or not? Sure, you can find things with articulate products that are slightly annoying and you would think could be fixed quickly (print results snag if quiz review not selected is my No1 pet hate), but I am struggling to think of any piece of perfect software. As one annoying feature goes another one seems to pop up. What you see on this forum is a relatively small number of issues raised by a small number of people (indeed many seemingly raised by the same people!), mainly silent however are the thousands of users who go quietly about their business creating e-learning with Articulate.

[gabe]

Many thanks, awkeogh -- you took the words right out of my mouth. Our products are used by more than 12,000 customer organizations (with many more end-user licenses in daily use) in 115+ countries around the world, so the vast majority of Articulate customers have not a single complaint about our products. It's the outspoken minority who raise complaints about personal pet peeves that help us shape future product development.

So Believer- I'd echo Andrew's suggestion and encourage you to download our free, 15-day trials to see if our products meet your requirements. If you run into any issues, I think you'll find the community support here in the forums excellent, as is our award-winning customer support team (you can submit a support case 24x7).

And feel free to private message me or email me directly if there's a particular issue you're facing with our software.

[Believer]

When the time is right, I may try a 15 day trial.

But the lack of a patch program bothers me to no end. I use approximately 80 software products in total and approximately 20 products all of the time. They all have a patch program except for the MEGA-SIZED Adobe. My 15 day evaluation would show me 90% of what I need to know, until I hit the problems that I always hit.

The little "snag" noted above is a good case in point. Should be easy to fix. So why are yo making people wait? That is what I am talking about. "There are some things that words cannot fix." We have 750,000 lines of code in two products, I think that I understand customer support and how expensive it is for users to deal with problems. I tell my programmers over and over that it is all about the customer being productive and understanding complex features by making them look simple. It is all about the users needs. I often use Adobe's lack of a patch program as a shining example of why we need to care NOW and not later. I'm not getting that vibe here.

Believer.

[Justin]

We do provide patches for our software. For example, in Presenter 5 we released the following point releases to address bug fixes or other issues:

5.002
5.003
5.004
5.05
5.1
5.2
5.3

There has been a bit of time between a point release and a new version and that's because we want to release software that works out of the gate. I know that our development's team goal is to have the first release be as bug free as possible which means that we won't release something until it's been tested and ready to go.

Some of this thread is actually talking about feature enhancements so those typically would be addressed in a version release, not a point release.

I also don't see how the number of patches is relevant? Granted we haven't had a new release in a little while but that's simply because we don't want to release something that is broken and then keep releasing point releases of slightly less broken software.

Hopefully you will find the next releases well worth waiting for!