In Captivate 5 workspaces are introduced, to make its interface line up with other Adobe applications. In a workspace panels are arranged normally in groups and have a fixed place in one of the three available docking stations or docks: the left, the right (both vertical docks) and the bottom (horizontal) dock. There is no docking station at the top, where you have the menu and a couple of toolbars. It is always possible to make a panel floating, and to put it elsewhere outside of the docking stations.
Which workspaces are provided with Captivate out of the box, and what is their arrangement and goal? I'll try to give some indications, since this is apparently missing in the Help.
Classic Workspace
This is the default workspace that appears when you start Captivate for the first time, or when you have not changed any workspace arrangement. Probably you will be working a lot in this workspace because it has the most common used panels on board for working with a Cp-file.
- in the left dock you have the Object toolbar (call it the Toolbox myself) and the Filmstrip. If you turn the Filmstrip into a floating panel, you can adjust its dimensions and it doubles as the former Edit view.
- in the right dock you have the Properties panel, grouped together with the Library
- in the bottom dock resides the Timeline
Note: do I use this workspace? Yes, a lot, but I customized it by adding the Master slide, Slide notes and the Effects panels to the bottom dock. When working with effects I will turn the Timeline in a floating panel and put it at the top of the stage.
Applying Skin Workspace
This is the same arrangement as the Classic workspace, but the Skin editor panel is added as a floating panel. It is meant to be used when you are editing the skin, TOC and borders included.
Note: do I use this workspace? No, for this goal I just open the Skin editor (SHIFT-F11) on top of my customized classic workspace. Perhaps because this Skin editor is not used that many times during the editing of a project.
Navigation Workspace
This is also the arrangement of the Classic workspace, this time with the Branching view on top as a floating panel. This is clearly meant for navigation in more complex projects, where the linear Filmstrip is not sufficient. I think that the Branching view is really underestimated and am using it a lot.
Note: do I use this workspace? Yes, for more complex projects it allows me more quickly to pop up the Branching view than having to use the Window menu or trying to use the complicated shortcut key SHIFT-CTRL-ALT-B (cannot do this blindly, my hand doesn't like a combination of more than 3 keys).
Quizzing Workspace
This workspace is the most different one (and I like it). It has these panels:
- in the left dock you still have the Toolbox, but the Filmstrip has been replaced by the Quizzing Properties panel
- in the right dock only the Properties panel is left
- in the bottom dock you will have 3 panels: Timeline, Question Pool and the Filmstrip (banned from the left dock) with the Filmstip in focus
This workspace is recommended while working with Question slides. When editing a Question slide you need both the Quizzing Properties (configuration of the Question itself) and the Properties (for formatting, layout of the Question slide) a lot. That is the reason that they have been separated between the left and the right dock. Question pool is right available in the bottom dock too.
Note: do I use this workspace? Yes, and I customized it a little bit: added the Master slide panel to the bottom dock and the Library to the right dock. When checking the scores I will often open the Advanced Interaction view as a floating panel on top of this workspace, but that is easy using shortcut F9. You see my customized workspace for Quizzing in this screenshot.
Review Workspace
This is again a Classic workspace with one modification: the Comments panel is added to the right dock, not in the same group as Properties and Library but in the bottom part.
Note: do I use this workspace? No, certainly because until now I did not have any reviewers. But I think that I would prefer to have the Comments panel in the left dock and put the Filmstrip in the bottom dock in that case because the properties panel needs all the 'real estate' it can get.
Widget Workspace
Similarly to the Review Workspace the bottom part of the right dock is here filled by the Widget panel. It is meant to be used when inserting Widgets.
Note: do I use this workspace? I have tried to use it, but changed it quickly and docked the Widgets panel in the left dock grouped with the Filmstrip. The bottom part of the right dock is too small.