What's New in Lectora 18

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Lectora

The Best Way to Create Responsive Courses

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What's New in Lectora 18

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Set Time Action

Dynamically jump to any point in an audio or video file by triggering the Set Time action. Select the target media and enter the number of seconds in the Value field.

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Upgraded Media Player

A new media player will better support high quality streaming of media content in HTML5. A Closed Caption toggle button is also available on the player.

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Closed Captions for Text to Speech

Choose to automatically generate closed captions using Text to Speech that will be included with the resulting audio file. Select the Add Closed Captions checkbox from the Text to Speech dialog.

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Style Painter

Use the Style Painter to copy the style format of images, text blocks, buttons, characters, and shapes, and then quickly apply it to another object. Save serious time and mouse clicks by double-clicking the Style Painter and applying all style properties to multiple objects at once: fill color, outline, shadows, margins, and more.

Templates

New Course Templates Right from the Getting Started Screen

With built-in navigation, interactive samples, page layouts, and instructions for use, each focuses on different learning styles and common course types: basic or non-linear navigation, audio and video, pre-test/final exam, and accessibility.

Read more: Fastercourse Templates Tips and Tricks

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Text to Speech

Convert text to a human-like voice and add the .mp3 audio object to your title. Select from dozens of male and female voices that produce native sounds for languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Italian, and Spanish. Use plain text or format using Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) to add pauses, word emphasis, and pronunciation.

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New Configurable Stock Buttons

A new library of Stock Buttons is available in the Media Library. Stock buttons now have configurable backgrounds, shapes, and styles.

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Accessibility Enhancements

To accommodate learners using a screen reader, initially hidden text blocks are announced by the screen reader when shown through an action. By enabling Lectora authors to include interactions like “click to reveal” or to show question feedback on the page instead of through a pop-up, accessible courses become more engaging.

TechSmith

The Latest Versions of Camtasia and Snagit

Inspire includes the latest and most powerful 2018 Camtasia and 2019 Snagit.

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Disable tablet or phone views to simplify Responsive Course Design

Build responsive courses more quickly. Just disable tablet or phone views (landscape or portrait) and focus only on the views you want, allowing for normal scaling in the others.

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HTML5-only publish option

When this option is selected, HTML5-only publishes exclude any Flash fallback elements so there are no issues importing into your LMS.

DragAndDrop

New for Drag and Drop Questions - limit Drag Items per Drop Zone

Choose how many items can be dragged into a particular drop zone. Learners will be warned when they exceed the limit.

Scale

Scale to Fit

For traditional titles published to desktop, easily scale content to fill the browser as long as either of the two existing publish scaling options are checked.

Watch video: Scale Published Content

Audio

Enhanced audio event syncing

View the waveform for audio files when synchronizing events to make the process easier and more precise.

Accessibility

Accessibility Improvements

Lectora and Lectora Online include support for creating accessible content that meets 508 and WCAG 2.0 AA specifications. This includes visible focus indicators, language declaration for the title and text, reading order control, closed caption ability for audio and video, scope attribute for table headers, and more.

Added in Previous Versions

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eLearning Brothers Stock Asset Library

The eLearning Brothers Inspire Tool now provides access to the Stock Asset Library. The library includes over 2,000,000+ stock assets including images, graphics, sound effects, music loops, videos, and more.

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Publish to cmi5

Create and publish xAPI titles for any LMS that supports cmi5 standards.

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Productivity improvements to sync media events

Add events to audio or video files and use the same dialog to sync those events to actions, all without ever leaving Lectora.

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Save FTP profiles

Save your FTP settings to streamline the publishing process.

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Disable browser resize publish option

For responsive titles, resizing the browser window from a desktop will keep the course in desktop view, rather than switching to tablet or phone view.

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Scale published content

This new publishing option allows your course to fill the full size of the student's browser, no matter how large they expand the window. Increasing your title’s display will make the content easier to see for visually challenged individuals, and is perfect for full-screen presentations.

Watch video: Scale Published Content

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Publish for Seamless Play

When the Publish for Seamless Play option is selected, your title will smoothly flow from page to page, eliminating the screen wipe commonly associated with loading HTML pages. Additionally, media files will honor the Auto-Start selection on mobile devices, allowing simplified use of page narration and videos.

Watch video:

Publishing for Seamless Play

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BranchTrack Integration

Lectora Inspire users can easily create and import scenario-based exercises using the BranchTrack application. The projects you create download directly to your page. And when changes are needed, this fully integrated feature provides one-click, roundtrip editing capability. You can even track the learner's selection path during the exercise and use the score value to control other course behaviors and remediation.

Watch videos:

Lectora BranchTrack Integration

Inspiration Wednesday: Using BranchTrack with Lectora

View additional samples: BranchTrack.com

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Anchor Position of Objects

The Anchor Position feature allows you to specify whether an object will maintain its location on the page within the view, even when the view is scrolled. This is perfect for use in mobile courses to anchor logos, headers/footers, navigation controls, images and videos.

Watch video:

Anchor Position

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Import and Export Question Files

Use comma-separated value (CSV) files to import and export nine question types, as stand-alone questions or contained within a test or survey. In addition to specifying the correct answer, you can assign a point value, include feedback text, and define options such as randomization of choices and case-sensitivity. These files are useful for SMEs or other parties to create questions and tests to import into Lectora. It’s also a handy way to export and store your test information in a text format for use as an answer key during development, and for review by auditors and stakeholders.

More Information:

Working with CSV Question Files

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SVG Rendering of Shapes and Buttons

Using scalable vector graphics technology, published content will remain crisp and scalable on high-resolution displays, while also keeping your content’s file size to a minimum.

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Camtasia Version 9 and Snagit 13

The latest Lectora versions of these great products from TechSmith™ are integrated with Lectora Inspire. Camtasia allows you to create screen recordings as you’re working with applications on your computer. You can also record video using your computer’s video camera. Add synchronized audio, zoom/pan effects, and more. Use Snagit to capture and edit images, add highlights, shadows, and other effects. With these Inspire Tools you can insert video and images directly into your Lectora projects to deliver robust eLearning content.

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Responsive Course Design

With Responsive Course Design (RCD) you can develop titles for your primary desktop audience as well as for display on all tablets and smartphones. You can even convert existing titles to be responsive—if you’d like.

Watch video:

RCD Overview

Responsive Course Design in Lectora

View/Download: RCD Quick Start Guide

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RCD Overrides: Customizing Views

Lectora’s Responsive Course Design inheritance automatically positions and sizes objects on the page in mobile views. However you still have all of the power of Lectora to customize each view and design the WYSIWYG title you desire.

Watch video:

RCD Overrides: Customizing Views

Converting a Course to be Responsive

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Inline Variable Replacement

Using variables in your title is easier than ever! Use the Variable drop-down list to select a variable and insert it directly into your text. Display the student’s name, test scores, or any other information.

Watch video: Inline Variable Replacement

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Status Condition Relationships

Lectora includes the ability to automatically track the progress of learners throughout the title. You can use this information to control actions through the use of Status condition relationship. With Lectora you can make actions conditional based upon whether the chapter, section, or page Is Not Started, Is In Progress, or Is Completed. With Lectora 16 and Lectora Online 3 you can also check for the opposite of those: Is Started, Is Not In Progress, or Is Not Completed.

Watch video: Status as Action Condition

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Device Rotation and Current View

With Lectora’s Responsive Course Design you can control what information is provided to you learners depending on the type of device—desktop, tablet or smartphone—and orientation they are using.

Watch video: Device Rotation and Current View

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Cross-device Moving and Resizing

When working with a Responsive Course Design (RCD) title, this feature will allow you to change the position or size of an object across all devices at the same time.

Watch video: Cross Device Moving and Resizing

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Custom Progress Bar Actions

Custom progress bars may be used for many things including showing progress in a non-linear title or as a visual reference for any number of things. You can associate a variable with a custom progress bar and use the Step Progress Bar Position action to determine what direction the bar will move.

Watch video: Custom Progress Bar Actions

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Using Page Layouts

Page Layouts determine where default objects such as text blocks, images, and other media are placed on a page. Using them makes it easy to apply a consistent structure for your course development team, and a consistent experience for your learners.

Read article: Using Page Layouts in Lectora and Lectora Online

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Customizing Test Results

Lectora and Lectora Online allow you to determine the behavior of quizzes/tests including whether test results will be shown to the student. With the Results Designer, how results are displayed is completely customizable. You can choose what data to show, the order in which the data is presented, how the text is styled, and even embed images within the results.

Watch Video: Customizing Test Results

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Improved bullets and numbered lists

Lectora 16.1 supports modern browser rendering of bullets and numbered lists including right-alignment of numbers and Roman numerals.

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Additional status indicator objects

Select from 50 additional status indicator sets, such as the three-cut pie, bullseye, hourglass, and progress meters.

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Media play optimized

The playing of media has been optimized with a new HTML5 player, eliminating the Flash requirement and providing for sharper rendering on mobile devices.

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Enhanced Likert questions

Likert table questions have been reformatted into a single object, improving creation, editing, moving and sharing. Additionally you can now specify instruction text as part of the question, and customize the scale choices.

Lectora Inspire Tools

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BranchTrack

In just minutes, you can create, edit, and directly insert a BranchTrack scenario in Lectora. Scenarios are helpful for decision-based employee training and more.

Learn more about BranchTrack

Camtasia 2018

With the latest version of Camtasia, you can accomplish cross-platform screen recording, integrate with Google Drive and record mobile video with TechSmith Fuse, a free mobile app.

Learn more about Camtasia 2018

Snagit 2019

Snagit introduced a completely redesigned editor, an enhanced capture experience and video trimming.

Learn more about Snagit 2019

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