Update
Thanks to all who attended the webinar, mentioned below. As usual I created a presentation with Captivate (2017) for this webinar. This allowed me to convert it to an interactive movie, which I want to offer to all readers of my blog. I hope you'll enjoy it and learn something about Shared Actions, which are so ignored by most Captivate users.
As for a normal training I like to use the subject of the training in the presentation. As you can see in this screenshot of the Library many shared actions were used in the presentation:
Their usage can be found in the Advanced Interaction panel, with the exception of the shared action which was used on the Drag&Drop slide:
I plan to explain some of those shared actions in future blog posts. Another plan is to write a more elaborate workbook for Shared Actions, which can be used for exploring in-depth, but also as a 'cookbook' because it will have recipes. A typical use case for Shared actions are Custom question slides, which are not treated in this short presentation. If you think a workbook would be help you please send me a note or post a comment.
Invitation
If you are interested in a live session about using Shared Actions, you can register for the webinar on March 15, at 4pm CET (8am PT). You'll find the link to the registration form for webinar 'Dare to Share: Power of Advanced Actions in Captivate'. at the end of this invitation.
The majority of my blog posts are dedicated to advanced and shared actions. Advanced actions is a feature of Captivate since version 4. It allows to extend Captivate's functionaltiy in many ways, without having to learn a programming language. With the point-and-click interface of the new enhanced Advanced Actions dialog box in CP2017, you can realize scripts that will be converted to JS on runtime for HTML output (if you still use SWF output, will be converted to AS3).
Shared actions were new in Captivate version 7. They are a more flexible alternative to Advanced actions, with focus on reuslability. Due to the presence of parameters, to be filled in on assigning a new instance of the shared action to an event, you can adapt the action to each new situation. In Captivate 8 variables and literals became possible parameters as well, thus increasing that usability. Shared actions have some other important advantages over Advanced actions: they will appear in the Library like any other asset. Using the External Libraries feature this makes exchanging shared actions between projects very easy. The Usage button is available for Shared actions.
Variables that are not defined as parameters will be automatically created in a new project when you import the shared action using it. That is a real timesaver. Some parameters can have only one type (variables, literals, states, audio clips) but most of them can have different types: they can be a group, an image, a video, whatever you need in that project.
Less known is the ability of using a shared action as a template for the creation of an advanced action. That can be a great time saver. Learn about this feature as well in the webinar
You're welcome to particapte in this webinar, Here is the registration link:
Be sure: you’ll walk away with many creative ideas! As a plus: you’ll be working in the brand new Advanced Actions dialog box of Captivate 2017.