Quiz/Score slides in Quick Start Projects - part 1: Non-responsive projects

Intro

I already published blogs to help you using and editing content slides from the Quick Start projects which you find under the Assets. Those individual slides are also indicated as ‘Ready-to-go Slides’.  The first blog was about the static objects, second one treated the interactions:

Editing Ready-to-go slides (Quick Start Projects) - part 1: Text and Images

Editing Ready-to-go slides (Quick Start Projects) - part 2: interactions

In the forum a question was posted about customizing Quiz and Score slides in Quick Start Projects.  You can consider this post as a third part, because those particular slides are tricky compared with normal content slides. If you know the ins and outs of quiz slides, you can skip the next part and go immediately to the Practical tips. Since the Quick Start Projects are coming in two flavors: responsive (fluid boxes) and non-responsive, this blog will focus on the non-responsive ones, the next blog on the responsive projects.

Quiz Refresher – Overview table

Quiz and Score slides are always based on dedicated Master slides, which are compulsory in each Theme: 4 master slides for questions and one for the Results slide. Those master slides have a lot of embedded object with inbuilt functionality. An embedded object has no individual timeline, and should not be deleted if there is no way to uncheck its presence on the slide.

Those master slides are also used for Knowledge Check slides and for Pretest slides. You cannot convert a slide created as one of the three types to another type. That is the reason you’ll find in the QSPs both Knowledge Check and normal Quiz slides.

The Results or Score slide will appear automatically when you insert a question slide, but you may also choose to create a score slide when you have only scored objects using the Quiz Preferences. It is impossible to delete a score slide, it can only be hidden. Reason: it is still providing functionality even when it is hidden. This blog post can clarify what I mean.

Tables

You can download this table identifying the Score, Quiz and Knowledge Check slides in the QSPs available at this moment (May 2021).  In the table you’ll see the slide number of the slides, type of question and whether they have a dedicated master slide (which should be the case in a custom theme). The score slide and its possible master slide is mentioned separately (see first Tip).

QuizQSPNonResp  is the table for non-responsive Quick Start Projects. Red-colored items can cause problems.

Tips

Score slide

It is NOT possible to insert a results (score) slide from any QSP in a custom project at all.  This may come as a disappointment. They are dimmed in the Assets panel. If you want them as standalone slide in your project this is the only possible workflow:
  • Open the QSP as a project.
  • Delete all slides you don’t want to use; even if you delete all quiz slides in the QSP, the results slide will still remain. Of course the inserted fields (system variables) will only get a value if you have at least one scored object or question slide.
  • Add your slides to the project. If you have quiz slides or slides with scored objects which are set to include in the total score, the results slide will get the values of the uses quizzing system variables on runtime.

You don’t like this (neither do I)? If the QSP of your choice has a complete custom theme you are lucky: the results slide has been edited and will be used once you add the first quiz slide from this QSP. On adding a quiz slide, the results slide will be added automatically and will use the results master slide of that theme. Bad news: only a limites group QSPs are in that situation, Safety and Wellbeing. The QSPs League and Earth have a master slide which is partially customizedand you can easily make it look like the one in the Assets panel. But the other themes fail for score slide design.

There may be another issue with a custom score slide, if you want to add more system variables. I will explain that more in detail in the second part (responsive projects), because it is even more important for Fluid Boxes projects.

Quiz slides

Inserting a quiz slide as ready-to-go slide is possible, if the type you want is available. All the QSPs in the table have slides for Multiple Choice questions. Sometimes you’ll find both MCQ with one correct answer, and MCQ with multiple correct answers but changing from one to multiple correct answers can be done easily.  Some projects also have a True/False question. Three QSPs (Safety/Wellbeing/Alliance) also have a Matching slide.

Why is this important to know?  Reason is the same as for the Score slide: if the theme has master slides used to create the example slides this is not important. Once you have the master slides of the QSPs you can add quiz slides from the quiz menu, they will get the look which you expect, similar to the downloaded quiz slide. That is even true for other types of questions. The two excellent QSPs for that feature: ‘Safety’ and ‘Wellbeing’ are in that situation. They have designed three out of the 4 quizzing master slides: “MCQ:T/F,…  “, “Matching” and “Hotspot”. Only the Likert type (getting deprecated since unusable in responsive projects) is missing.

For those two QSPs, once you have the theme (which is the case when you have one imported slide) you can safely add Quiz slides of all types. They will get the expected look, same as the score slide.

However that is not the case for the other QSPs. The QSPs “Earth” and “League” has some editing to the quizzing master slide, but the top image (normally visible in the Ready-to-go quiz slides) is not there, can easily be edited.  For the other QSPs you can only use the quiz types offered in the project, but not add any other question types because the master slides are not available. It is possible to duplicate quiz slides, but you will not be able to add a (True/False for some), Matching, Sequence nor a Hotspot quiz slide having the same look. Look at this last screenshot, showing the master slides from the QSP “Wired” which normally has dark blue backgrounds. Not only the backgrounds are missing, but even the object styles are different from  those shown on the example quiz slides:

You will be able to edit some features after insertion of a Ready-to-go question slide: feedback messages, score, penalty, shuffling, switching from one to multiple correct answers for a MCQ, actions and when available Advanced answer feature.

Summary – conclusion

What are the possibilities if you want to use a quiz, Knowledge Check, Score slide from one of the Quick Start projects? Look at the table I provided above and you’ll see that there are two groups of Quick Start projects, based on the availability of master slides reflecting the ready-to-go slides:

Group 1: ‘Safety’, ‘Wellbeing’ and – with some restrictions - ‘League’ and ‘Alliance’

I would first recommend for ‘League’ to add the images (which you can easily find in the Library using the right-click menu) to the quizzing master slides.

  • You want an available question slide: no problem, you can even insert them directly from the Quiz menu, because the master slide has all the design of the question slides.
  • You want question slide which is not available: with the exception of ‘Likert’ use the Quiz menu to insert the question slide, it will have the look of the available question types in the QSP.
  • You want a score slide: you cannot insert the available score slide as an individual slide. However if you have at least one question slide, the automatically inserted Score slide will have the design of its dedicated master slide.

Group 2

All the other QSPs are in this group.  Repeating the same choices:

  • You want an available question slide: insert them as individual slides from the QSP. You can duplicate the question slide (for a scored slide check the Interaction ID, but normally it will be changed) to have more slides of that type.
  • You want question slide which is not available: that is a problem since you don’t have edited master slides. Some workarounds are possible: you can use a MCQ slide to mimick a T/F slide. However that is not possible with Sequence, Fill-in-the-Blank, Matching (if it is not available).
  • You want a score slide: impossible unless you use the full project workaround described before. You will get a score slide, but it will use the master slide of the project itself, which will for sure not have the look you expect.


Embed responsive QSP slides (Ready-to-go slides)

Intro

My two previous posts about QSP slides, the focus was on non-responsive projects:

All QSP projects have also a responsive version, created with the Fluid Boxes workflow. To embed such a slide, you'll  an extra difficulty: how will the fluid boxes – both on master slides and slides – behave?  In this blog that extra problem is discussed, including tips to avoid problems. Supposed is that you have read the two previous articles – for the basic knowledge. First recommendation ‘NEVER’ use the switch to Destination theme for a Fluid Boxes project when inserting a QSP slide in a custom responsive project.

Master slides – Tips

All responsive QSP projects have a bunch of master slides. Those master slides have fluid boxes setup.  Setup can be totally different from the non-responsive projects with the same name. Look at the 'Wired' projects: lot of master slides in the responsive version, no master slides except the necessary 6 in the non-responsive version. As you may have deducted from my previous posts,  the NAME of the master slide used for an embedded QSP slide is very important. If the same name has been used in the receiving (destination) project, extra care is needed. For your use I have created a table comparing Master slide names used in the 5 available QSPs (at this moment: September 2019).  You can download the pdf (was quite a lot of work to create it, please show respect for the protection built in).

QSP MasterSlides

In the table some cells are identified in a special way:

  • If the same master slide name is used twice in the QSP, both numbers  are in the same cell, red font on  a grey background. This is a very worrying situation, not sure why the developers did use dual names.

  • Some master slide names appear in several QSPs. If they are identical they are bolded and red for the projects where it is the case. Italic names point to master slides similar to others, but with a slightly different name.

I didn’t include the quizzing master slides. They rarely have been edited a lot (except for the Results slide) and follow the rules I explained in this older post ‘Quiz Slides and Fluid Boxes‘. You could extend the table with the master slide names in your project if you try to embed QSP slides in a company project with an existing theme.

Even master slides with same name, can have a totally different Fluid Boxes setup. The Master slide 'Objectives' is present in 3 QSPs. Have a look at the fluid boxes setup for this Master slides in the projects Aspire, League and Wired.

Aspire's master slide, as you can see, has a rather simple Fluid Boxes setup. The slide ‘Course Objectives’ which is based on this master slide didn’t add supplementary fluid boxes.  That is the case for most slides in the QSPs, only using the Fluid Boxes defined on the master slide. The slide provides 4 topics (Objectives) all in one Fluid Box to the left.

In this master slide of the 'League' project, a lot more Fluid Boxes have been defined. In the screenshot the boxes FB_956 and FB_957 have been collapsed. Their setup is similar to the one shown under FB_955. This master slide provides 3 topics, each in its Fluid Box. As with the Aspire project, the Slide ‘Objectives’, based on this master slide, doesn’t have extra Fluid boxes.

The 'Wired' master slide has the most complicated setup. It is impossible to show the full setup for this master slides. The collapsed FB’s at the bottom each have 5 vertical fluid boxes. No extra FB’s wer added n the slide ‘Objective’. Aspire had 4 topcis (in 1 FB), League had 3 in an individual FB, but Wired has 5 topics. .

You can imagine what happens when you switch from source to destination theme for an inserted slide where both themes use a master slide with an identical name. Have a look at the mess in this example. After inserting the described master slide from the Aspire project, I applied the Wired theme to it. Result, without any warning:

Not only are the objectives not getting into the appropriate FB, the green topics text is not in a Fluid box at all. You will have to move them manually into fluid boxes, and probably delete a lot of (empty) fluid boxes. That is cumbersome work, especially since the FBs are defined on the master slide. That means they cannot be deleted on the slide itself..

Conclusion

For responsive project to brand embedded QSP slide, please follow the step-by-step plan to add a fitting Master slide to the project theme, as described in ‘Embed QSP slides‘. Double-check the name of the Master slide, if it is an existent name in your project, first edit that name in the  QSP theme. That way you will avoid a disaster like I showed above with master slides using the same name.

Feel free to use the pdf I provided with an overview of master slide names for the present responsive QSPs. Beware: there may still be typos, please report them.

How to embed QSP-slides (Ready-to-go slides) in your course?

Intro

Recently I posted this article about ‘Destination/Source Theme’  I warned for using the switch button to the Destination theme after insertion of a QSP slide.  Logically you expect now an alternative workflow?  A general scheme for both responsive and non-responsive projects is however not possible. Reason: the present QSPs have a beautiful design but the technical setup is very different, no rules. 

I will try to offer some tips here to make it possible to blend the inserted QSP-slides into your project design which is probably based on a custom theme. Due to the big variation in technical setup, this first post will be limited to:

  • non-responsive projects
  • Quick Start projects which use master slides in a consistent way

The second condition excludes the project Wired which only uses the Blank master slide.

In a future post I will try to offer similar tips for responsive (Fluid Boxes) QSP-projects

Start situation

The workflow with its screenshots is based on insertion of one QSP slide from the project Aspire.  The receiving project is the DemoProject I mentioned in the previous blog post. Both projects have rather different color palettes:

The DemoProject uses three fonts: Termina, Filson Soft and Trebuchet (rarely), whereas the Aspire project only uses Tahoma.

The inserted slide was the Exit slide of the Aspire project was inserted in the DemoProject as you can see in the screenshot. It really needs branding. If you want to follow along, you can add that Exit slide to one of your projects.

Branding workflow step-by-step

Step 1: Master slide

Open the Master slide panel with the inserted Aspire slide ‘Exit Layout’ selected. You will see all the master slides of the Aspire project, but the used master slide is automatically selected. You see that it is labeled ‘Welcome w/o Sub + CONTENT’. Have a close look at that master slide and its components on the Timeline:

You see from bottom to top: an image placeholder,  a Title (shape) placeholder, a caption placeholder and another shape placeholder meant for a shape button.  Sorry, but the styles used in the master slide are mostly overridden styles, and replaced by other styles on the slide itself. Just for your information, don’t bother about it.

Step 2 Copy master slide

You will copy and paste that master slide to the original course theme (DemoProject) using these steps:

  • Use right-click menu (or Edit menu) to copy the selected Aspire master slide described above.
  • Return to the Filmstrip
  • Select any slide from the original project
  • Open the master slide panel again, it will refresh and show the master slides of your project (here the DemoProject).
  • Paste the copied master slide from the Aspire master slide panel.

The result in this case is visible on this part of the master slide panel. The new master slide is still selected, and kept its original name. This was possible because that name didn’t exist in the DemoProject theme (more about importance of master slide names in next blog . If the same name exists in the receiving (Destination) project, you need to rename the master slide before the copy/paste

Of course the object styles are not what you want. In the screenshot above, the Title shape placeholder is selected, and you see that the style was overridden (+ sign). If that had not been the case, the Default Title Smart Shape style of the DemoProject would have been applied automatically. Another example of the lack of rules for the QSPs

Step 3: Replace styles

Still on the master slides, apply styles for the original project DemoProject theme to the objects. In this case:

  • There is  a Default Title Smartshape Style in the DemoProject theme, needed only to use ‘Reset Style’ for the title. Because the style was centered, changed it to left-aligned but the font (Termina) and the color were applied automatically.
    You see a + sign, because after resetting the style I added the alignment change, didn’t create a new style for this alignment change. It will only be used on the inserted slide, all other titles in the original project are centered.
  • Same workflow is used for the caption, since a Default Caption style exists (Filson Pro and light color)
  • For the shape button placeholder, another shape button style was chosen from the DemoProject theme.

Step 4: Apply Master slide

Open the Filmstrip, and select the inserted Aspire slide. In the Properties panel choose the theme DemoProject and the list with master slides will appear. Choose the ‘Welcome w:o sub…..’ master slide and you should get this result:

You see some remaining problems: the placeholder for the shape button was not used in the QSP, probably deleted and replaced by another button. Either you edit that original button or you keep the placeholder button.

The background has of course not changed. You may need a last step:

Step 5: Final touch

Two more tasks need to be done to have a fully branded slide fitting in your project design:

  1. Replace the image. Changing the Hue with the Edit Image features could work in some situations, but not for an image with a blue sky. Of course, editing in Photoshop while masking the sky is possible.

  2. Replace the blueish gradient at the bottom. It is not a gradient created in Captivate but another image. However it could be possible to use Edit Image, and move the Hue slider for this gradient.

Conclusion?

This workflow may seem cumbersome, but it is safe contrary to the switch to Destination theme.  It is only one example slide, of course. Just hoping you would try this out. It may even lead to improving practice for your custom themes.

Tips for using Quick Start Projects (11.5)

Intro

The most recent version, 11.5.0.476 includes the new Assets Panel which I presented in this post.

You are able to use Quick Start projects, or slides taken from those projects to avoid having to design and to work out interactions for your project from scratch. Those projects/slides are available in a responsive (Fluid Boxes) and non-responsive version. I tested it out for a tutorial which you can watch using this link (it is a responsive fluid boxes project):

Button Types

If this topic, also related with 11.5, seems interesting, I will post a more detailed description in the near future. But today you'll get some tips from what I learned creating this tutorial.

QSP tips

You can use a Quick Start Project in two ways:
  1. Open the project, and delete or hide the slides you don’t want to use in your course.
  2. Open a non-responsive or a Fluid boxes project, and insert slides from the Assets panel.

I used the second approach for the tutorial, for a logical reason: I didn’t use even half of the provided slides in the Aspire project. Project has only 17 slides, including a lot of duplicate instances of slides. I used these slides from Aspire:

  • Welcome layout
  • Timeline Interaction 02
  • Main Menu layout 02
  • Subtopic Header layout (used 6 instances)
  • Tab Interaction 01 (used 3 instances)
  • Related Content Interaction (used 3 instances)
  • 3 Column layout
  • Exit Layout

Tip 1 Duplicate slides

If you need the same slide multiple times do NOT insert it multiple times in your project, because that will corrupt the Advanced actions (most slides use them). To avoid this you need to follow this workflow:
  • Insert one instance of the needed slide
  • Go into the Filmstrip, slide will be active (surrounded by a blue rectangle)
  • Duplicate that slide, either with the right-click menu or with the universal shortcut for duplicate: CTRL-D.
  • Move the slide by dragging in the filmstrip to the wanted location.

You can repeat this workflow as many times as needed. Due to Captivate’s smart labeling, the advanced actions will not corrupt in most situations. Why not always? See next tip.

Tip 2: Check Navigation commands

In a slide like the Main Menu Layout, the topic buttons point to another slides in the total project. On insertion of that slide only, without the target slides, all commands will revert to the default navigation command ‘Go to Next Slide’. You have to replace it by ‘Jump to….’ while indicating the correct target slide (in the project the slides of the Subheader Topic layout). This will prove easier if you use the next tip:

Tip 3: Rename slides

Labeling is always a good practice, but for sure in this type of project. Multiple instances of the same layout slide will have the same name (and are very long as well). Taking the time to give them a custom name will save time when you need to find a slide. Moreover, if you want to use the Table of Content, the names will be meaningful.

Tip 4: Replace image

Switching to another image is mostly very easy:
  1. Select the image.
  2. Click on its name in the Properties panel
  3. Choose another image from the Library dropdown list, or use the Import button to find it on your system.


However, on many slides an image is used as Fill for a Fluid Box. Look at the Subtopic Header slides (there are 6 in the example): having the image as fill allows to add an image on top of the fluid box. Normally you cannot stack two images, this is a useful solution for that limitations.

If you want to replace the fill for a Fluid box, you need to select that fluid box, you cannot just click the image. After selecting the FB you see that the fill is set to Image, click the second Fill button, use the Browse icon to find an image to replace the image. Be careful to check the Position properties if the new image doesn’t have exactly the same size as the original one.

Tip 5 Multistate objects

The layout slides use a lot of multistate objects.  That is the case for all the Click to Reveal slides (labeled ‘Tab Interaction’ and ‘Related Content Interaction) and probably for many other interactions. You really will need to learn how to use them. Click the State view button in the Properties panel, to open the Object State panel.

More questions?

You may have seen that I have edited some slides quite a lot. This post has only simple tips, not the full explanation of all changes. If you want to know more, post a comment to this blog.

4 Tips - Assets Panel

Intro

Do not expect a complete overview of the Assets Panel in this article, may be later. The user interface is rather simple, intuitive. Opening  the panel is possible  with the big button Assets in the right part of the Big Button Bar. For he expert UI this will be the only button in the right part, fo the newbie UI the Assets button will be with the Properties and Library button. Opening is also possible using the Slides button,  option ‘Asset Library…’ on the left side of the bar.

At this moment the stored  assets are restricted to those available with Captivate (under Assets tab  or to downloaded assets (under Downloads tab). You cannot add custom assets fto the panel. For those custom assets remember that you can use external libraries.

The center tab – Discover – has two choices,  ‘Templates’ (confusing term, not the cptl template files) with a submenu or ‘Characters’. Both link to the site of the eLearning Brothers. Once downloaded, they will appear in the Downloads tab.

Tip 1: Projects/Slides

This is the first option under the Assets tab, opening by default with Slides selected. It allows you to choose individual slides for insertion in an existing project after the active slide. Under Projects you will see 6 Quick Start Projects (QSP), first of them is the Branching file. That file is meant for developers disliking variables and actions. It is based on the last QSP, labeled ‘Aspire’. 

All projects and slides are available in two formats:
  1. Non-responsive project (Blank project in Welcome screen)
  2. Responsive project with Fluid Boxes (none available for Breakpoints)

If you insert a slide in an existing project created in one of those types, the inserted slide will automatically be of the same type. A master slide may be added, and object styles but I’ll leave more details for another blog post about using QSP's

However, some users asked me "how do you open a full QSP in the wanted type"? There is no choice available after selecting a project.

Workaround which works for me: open first a project in the wanted type, either a blank project or a responsive project. Anyway you need an open project to launch the Assets panel. Selecting a QSP to open as new project, will open it in the same type as the already opened project. You can then delete the first project..

Tip 2: Characters

Contrary to previous versions, the characters packaged with Captivate are only installed on your system as thumbnails. You can find them in the Content folder under the eLearning assets. Each character has a folder bearing a number as name, and a subfolder Children, where you find all the thumbnails. When you insert a character in a project, the image is downloaded and stored in another subfolder with the name of the character (in this screenshot David), either in the High or the Low subsubfolder, depending on the chosen quality (Normal or High resolution):

Screenshot is taken on a Windows system. If you download a extra character from the eLB site, it will be stored under Characters_11_5, not in the Content folder.

It is still not possible to download more than one or all characters from a set at once (please log a feature request). However, if you like the Illustrated category, here is a tip. Characters in that category are based on one drawing file, which you can download as well. You have some choices for the format, I prefer AI (Illustrator). If you are comfortable with that vector image application, you can extract all characters from that file and export them not only as PNG, but also in other formats inclucing SVG (smaller file size and vector based, crisp look whatever the resolution - interesting for responsive projects). Those drawing files are always labeled ‘Name: Illustrated work files’. You can also use that file as reference file. After download it will be stored in the subfolder ‘Others’ under eLearning assets, (not in Content, nor Characters).

Tip 3: Icons

The files in this assets category are SVG’s. Once inserted you can convert them to a button. Editing the colors is very easy as I explained in a previous post.

Those icons are stored in a subfolder under the Contents folder in eLearning assets. When screening that folder you'll see that the 'icons' are in JPEG format. However when you insert an icon, the SVG is created in the same folder as the original JPEG image.

Tip 4: Buttons

I am finalizing another blog about the 6 button types available in Captivate 11.5, including advantages and disadvantages of each type. Which type of buttons do you insert from the Assets panel? That was bit of a mystery at first. When you insert a button from this asset category, it is a PNG image (bitmap) with the option ‘Use as button’ checked off. The three InBuilt states (Normal, Rollover, Down) which are normally included in a button object style, are identical. You have of course the possibility to edit the image for the other states once the button is inserted. However I was bit curious when watching the name of the image. Look at this screenshot of a button:

That name ‘Deep-download_up.png’ reminded me of the name convention needed for an (old) image button. For image buttons you need to create three images in the same size, with an identical name followed by _up (for normal state), _over for rollover state and _down  for the down state. Looking in the Buttons folder (under already mentioned Content folder) taught me that all the buttons had a similar name structure ending on _up.  The folder has is similar to the Characters and Icons subfolders: numbers as folder names. Each folder contains only one image file for the ‘up’ state.

Of course you can edit the states in the project, using the Object state panel and copy/paste the button if you need more instances.  But you will not be able to reuse that button with the edited states in a future project.  I tried out a workflow based on my CP-intuition:

  • I duplicated the _up file in the Content\Buttons fokler for the button 5751 ‘Bubbly_downloads_up'
  • renamed the duplicates to Bubbly_downloads_over and Bubbly_downloads_down,
  • edited the duplicates in Photoshop, watch the result in this screenshot:

Success! When inserting the 'Bubbly....' button in a project, it had three InBuilt states. Not only when inserting in the same project, but also in other projects. You cannot have an object style for Images used as buttons, as is possible for shape buttons, text buttons, image buttons and transparent buttons. However this workflow opens an alternative for re-usability  (one domain where Captivate excels over other authoring tools). One drawback: Assets are only edited on the used device, they are not in the cloud.

More about buttons in a future blog as promised.

Version 11.5 Released!

Intro

If you are a fan of my blog, you know that usually I will not talk about a new release on the day it is released (although I have explored it in a beta test group). This time however I am so excited about this intermediate release. It has 'Voor elk wat wils' (interesting features for each developer whatever her/his level) to use a Flemish proverb. Do not expect a full review here, want to talk only about some of my preferred features which do appeal to my level of expertise. My apologies if you don't like that 'egocentric' approach. Be sure I will write more in the future, need some time to explore in-depth. As in the past, I may overlook some little gems which I couldn't dig out yet, will continue the search. You'll find three small gems at the end.

SVG as Button

It has been possible to fill a shape with an image since version 6. Converting the shape to a button was a much easier way to create nice buttons than the older workflow with Image buttons where you needed a graphics application (and had to create several images) Shape buttons also can have custom states besides the InBuilt states which they share with the old button types (Normal, Rolllover, Down, Visitedà. I never use those legacy types anymore, except for Quiz/Score slides where they cannot be used as embedded buttons.

However, those shape buttons have two lmitations:

  • You can only fill with Bitmap images, the much sleeker vector images like SVG were not possible.
  • The clickable area of the shape button is the bounding box, not the image itself.

WIth 11.5 it is possible to use SVG's directly as buttons without the need for a shape. And you can limit the clickable area to the image itself! This is a big step forward. File size of SVG's tends to be small compared with bitmap images, and moreover they are excellent for responsive project due to its vector nature.  The SVG has all the features of a shape button: can be used on master slides, can be timed for the rest of the project (not in Fluid Boxes), can be added to quiz and score slides as extra button. A setup with 3 buttons like this screenshot was not possible in previous versions, because the bounding boxes are overlapping: The screenshot may look blurry (has been converted to bitmap here) but the original SVG's in Captivate are really crisp. Size of the SVG: about 75Kb.

In the default setup, the clickable area is still the bounding box, you have to uncheck that option:

Bitmap images as Buttons

Similar to SVG's, they can now directly be used as button, no need to fill a shape button. Same for the clickable area: can be limited to the image. Depending on the type of images this extends the functionality which I explained in the first point. I dream of custom hotspot questions with partial scoring as described in this older post. Watch out for use cases in future blog posts. Not only are you now rid of the cumbersome workflow which I described here, but if you use a bitmap format which supports transparency (GIF, PNG24) you can uncheck the same feature to reduce the clickable area as for SVG'S.

Themes 

Themes have now a real Properties panel, which can access from the dialog box under the big button Themes. It is the only way, the panel is not to be found in the Windows menu, nor under the Themes menu (which still has to be used to save a customized theme). 
For sure will write more about this in the future, Themes is one of the underrated features, which I like to promote. I am really excited about the easy way to replace fonts (in ALL object stylesà. You can see in the screenshot that I replaced the original fonts in the Windswept theme by three different fonts (all Typekit). It is a smooth process: all object styles which have text related features will be updated for you. That can be a big time saver! I will have to edit this blog, where I complained about the cumbersome workflow to replace one font in a theme.
Of course, you need to avoid any overriding of object styles, and the danger that this will happen with the new copy/paste appearance feature is very real. I will talk about that new feature in another blog post, which will have some warning.
It is now possible to have slides with different themes in the same project, which will then lead to more than one Theme Colors palettes as well. I need some more exploration time to prepare a more complete overview of all the changes related to themes. Please, be patient.

Interactive video

One of the new features in the first release of CP2019 which I really like a lot. Not so much changes after this patch. It is interesting that you now are not only limited to videos on your system or from YouTube, but that you can also use Vimeo videos.

Another improvement is the possibility to insert a sequence of overlay slides (content or KC slides) on a frame of the video. 

VR project/360 slides

Several enhancements:

  • To the actions which can be triggered by hotspots the much asked for 'Play Video' was added.
  • The hotspots are now very customisable, black and white (minstrels?) are over and out: edit the colors as much as you want.
    Double click on the hotspot when inserted, select one of the paths and choose a color.
  • If you trigger Text, you will like the new formatting possibilities. Just a pity that Typekit fonts cannot be used....
  • No need to guess a duration for the popups anymore. Default setting is now a close button in the top right corner as you can see in the previous screenshot.

Small gems

Theme colors: in the screenshot of the new Themes panel inserted earlier, you see that the main theme colors are now named 'Color1.... Color10. This fits better the use of the colors, because in previous versions there was a Title color, which was not always used for titles, a Subtitle colors which was rarely used for subtitles etc...

Drag&Drop:  when selecting Infinite attempts in the Actions tab, the 'Failure action' will disappear, very logical since it will never happen in that situation. Regret however that the wording 'Failure' is still not replace by 'Last Attempt'. The action doesn't occur On Failure, but only at the last attempt, same as for quiz slides.

Preview menu: for non-responsive projects, the option 'Preview HTML5 in Browser (F11)' is now the first option which is great! The death of Flash player for all browsers will soon be a fact, every developer has to switch to HTML5 output. The other Preview methods are all still based on a temporary SWF output (except Play Slide, which is NOT a preview method). To check the future output only the mentioned Preview HTML5 in Browser should be used.

...sure will find more of those.

More...

This was not a complete overview at all. As I explained, need more time for features like the new Assets panel, use of Quick Start Projects, Branching setup, multiple themes, copy/paste appearance etc...