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Khusro Kidwai
Ph.D. candidate in Instructional Systems and Graduate Assistant for the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute
This page was most recently modified on 13 April 2005
Viewlets are Macromedia flash animations/movies that can serve many purposes. For example, they can be used for demonstrating software and for building interactive tutorials and dynamic presentations. An example of a viewlet is:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/library/libcon/viewlets/temp/ERIC_Thesaurus.htm
In March 2005, I was asked to review two products used in the creation of viewlets in order to determine which one would be more appropriate for our College faculty. We believe that EMS faculty, especially those involved with developing online courses, will find a viewlet building tool useful in their online instruction. In particular, courses that teach technical subjects, such as the online GIS programs offered by our College can benefit from the use of viewlets.
This review compares two popular tools for building viewlets: Qarbon ViewletBuilder Standard, Version 4.3.2 and Macromedia Captivate, Version 1.0.1188 (downloaded April 1, 2005 for trial). The review was completed on April 6, 2005.
I found the two software products to be identical as far as features (functionality) are concerned — I did not find a single feature that one software provides which the other one does not! I should note that, although ViewletBuilder Standard (this Standard edition is being phased out by Qarbon) does not have the "Interactive Zone" (Quiz, etc.), the more current edition of ViewletBuilder, ViewletBuilder Professional does have this feature.
I found a couple of reviews (that compare the two products) of the two software products on the Web:
The first one is by a person who calls himself "proficient" in ViewletBuilder. He tried out Captivate, "just for the sake of comparison." What is interesting about this review is the two sample viewlets that the author created for the same demonstration (Searching using ERIC) with the two software products. Take a look: http://distlib.blogs.com/distlib/2005/01/macromedia_capt.html
I did not find any difference between the two viewlets he produced.
I found the "Getting Started" movies (accessible from the splash screen that opens when you launch the software) in Captivate very effective. These movies helped me pick up basic skills in using the software very quickly. In comparison, ViewletBuilder tutorials (only available online, there is no offline help) took longer to go through. One design problem with these ViewletBuilder tutorials is that they mix instruction on simple procedural skills with more difficult ideas. For example they introduce the following idea in the "Getting Started" tutorials: "The rule of thumb while editing slides in a viewlet is to think like an animator. This means limiting one action per slide." Although this is an important idea, including it in a "Getting Started" tutorial could easily overwhelm a not-so-motivated learner.
It is worth noting that Macromedia maintains Developer Centers for each of its products. Although there are not many resources on the Captivate Developer Center as yet, I expect it to grow.
As far as design is concerned, I think Captivate clearly scores points over ViewletBuilder. The Captivate model has two "views": Storyboard and Edit. ViewletBuilder also works with two views — slide and thumbnail — but I think Captivate makes the two views more accessible.
I found the user-interface in Captivate slightly more user-friendly. Editing mouse movement seemed easier in Captivate. But the one feature of Captivate that I found most useful was the timeline. In Captivate each slide has its own timeline (this supports modular thinking). This makes editing of slides much more intuitive. I have used Macromedia Flash, which also uses timelines, so this may be one reason why timelines in Captivate are so attractive to me.
Captivate obviously supports integration with other Macromedia products like Flash. For example, one can insert Flash animations in Captivate and also export Captivate movies to Flash for finer editing.
Both software support quizzes and are SCORM 2004 compliant.
As mentioned earlier Qarbon has moved to a single edition of ViewletBuilder, the ViewletBuilder Professional. Version 4.4 costs $299. Captivate 1.0 comes for $499 (Macromedia Online Store price). The Penn State Computer Store carries the same software for much less. Captivate can be purchased for $181.45 (for personal use by Penn State students, faculty, and staff) and $64.06 (for departmental use) at the Penn State Computer Store.
Of course Qarbon is running the "Why pay for Captivate when the Original Leader is FREE" campaign. The "Classic Way" of using Qarbon is to purchase it. The "Evolution way" is to use it for free! as long as one publishes the viewlets on Qarbon Public ViewletCentral (without watermarks), or with watermarks anywhere else. The catch is that there is a monthly fee for an account on Qarbon Public ViewletCentral! (if you want more than 1MB of space/ 1000 viewlet views per month)
My vote would be for Captivate. The one crucial factor that would make me switch (I currently use Qarbon ViewletBuilder Standard 4.3) is the availability of timelines in Captivate. Of course the Penn State Computer Store price for Captivate is attractive too.