August 10, 2017

Repairing/Editing Themes in CP2017

Lieve Weymeis Follow

(11)

Comments

(4)

August 10, 2017

Repairing/Editing Themes in CP2017

Lieve Weymeis Follow

(11)

(4)

Why this short post?

If you have read my article about the 3 most important stumbling blocks for Captivate (newbie) users, you’ll know that Themes are amongst them. The components of themes are described in What’s in a Theme/template. and in this post you’ll learn about he use of Theme colors. Almost daily I see questions, comments on the forums like “I don’t use a theme” which is – sorry for the word – nonsense because every project is based on a theme. The theme with the least intrusive design is the Blank theme, which has no color palette and only offers the minimum set of 6 master slides.

The themes packaged with Captivate 2017 have some issues with the feedback messages:

Hint shape is using the Success Shape Style, should use the existing Hint Shape Style
Failure shape is using the Success Shape style, should use the existing Failure Shape Style

Shapes are set as default for feedback messages, not captions

The feedback captions use an appropriate style in the themes Easiest way to solve the problem would be to change Preferences, Defaults and choose for captions if that is not messing up your design. Below you’ll read how to ecit the themes.

Where are default Themes stored?

The original themes can be found under the installation folder, in the GalleryLayouts for the language you used when installing. I am on Windows, installed the US version of Captivate and the path on my Win system is:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 2017 x64\Gallery\Layouts10_0\en_US.

You’ll also find the ThemeColors folder in that location. The included themes are: (Blank), Blue, Clear, Clean, OldPaper, Poise, Suave, White (which is the default theme). All themes are responsive, but can be used for normal, blank projects.

However, while working with Captivate, you will use the themes from a copied folder. In Windows that copied folder can be found under

Users\Public\Public Documents\AdobeeLearning assets\Layouts.

Reasons for this work flow are possibly:

you cannot mess up the original themes
the Public folder is accessible for developers which do not have administration rights.

If a theme seems corrupted or is too messed up, you can always restore it by copy/paste from the Gallery (need for administration rights). If you have both CP9 and CP2017 installed, you’ll see both Layouts in the copied folder. But the layouts folder for CP2017 has a subfolder ‘bpthemes’ containing all the CP9 themes on my system (not sure if that is the case when you only have a CP2017 install).

TIP: don’t put custom themes in the sames folder as the default themes (Public). If you have to restore all themes by deleting the Layouts folder you will not lose the custom themes. I store them mostly with the project(s) they are used for.

Editing default Themes

Restoring the correct object style for the Failure and Hint shapes is pretty easy: open the Object Style Manager (SHIFT-F7), and replace the Success style by the appropriate style (which does exist) as you can see in this screenshot

image

I suspect you will want to keep the correct object styles for the feedback messages for future projects as well. Use the menu Themes, option Save Theme. The result will be that the theme is edited in the copied folder, in the Public documents To change the original theme in the Gallery, you’ll need to do it outside of Captivate, using Explorer and needing administration rights. However a user yesterday reported that the option ‘Save Theme‘ was dimmed(?). Reason was that he was working in a blank, normal project. All default themes in CP2017 are responsive. To protect the responsiveness, you have to edit the theme from within a responsive project. The option ‘Save theme’ will be available in that case. You can always use a responsive theme in a normal project.

captivate 2017

captivate 217

elearning projects

Feedback

(11)

Comments

(4)

Lieve Weymeis Follow

Lieve is a civil engineer (ir) and a professional musician. After years of teaching and research (project management/eLearning/instability) she is now a freelancer specializing in advanced Adobe Captivate as trainer and consultant. Her blog is popular with Captivate users worldwide. As an Adobe Community Expert and Adobe Education Leader, she has presented both online and offline. Since 2015 she is moderator on the Adobe forums and was named as Forum Legend (special category) in the Wall of Fame. In 2017 Adobe Captivate users voted for Lieve as a Top Content Experience Strategist.

4 Comments

keythew7567735

2019-01-11 20:55:53

keythew7567735

2019-01-11 20:55:53

What about importing themes from another source outside of Adobe? For instance, branded themes from clients?

()

(1)

Lieve Weymeis

keythew7567735

's comment

2019-01-12 09:49:08

Lieve Weymeis

2019-01-12 09:49:08

keythew7567735

's comment

You don’t import a theme, you apply it to a Captivate cptx file, by using the Browse button in the Themes thumbnail box opening with the big button Themes. As I wrote, a theme can be saved in a file with extension cptm.

A theme can be used, when these requirements are fulfilled:

developed with the same version of Captivate
created for the same type of project: non-responsive, responsive with fluid boxes or responsive with Breakpoint views
developed by someone who understands all theme components, because I see a lot of themes around which are not in that situation

You can always use a theme with another Theme Colors palette, if the colors are used in a consistent way in the theme. Look at my third requirement above.

()

shelleyjohnson2635

2017-11-02 20:51:04

shelleyjohnson2635

2017-11-02 20:51:04

Great post, and your original article is super helpful, too!

()

JeffMattWalsh

2017-10-05 03:11:36

JeffMattWalsh

2017-10-05 03:11:36

Thanks for posting this!

()

Add Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.