Fluid boxes or breakpoints. The pluses and minuses of each.
I’ve been working on a project for a few weeks now knowing that it would likely be used on mobile. Over the course of this time, I’ve made a few versions of the files in Captivate. Hopefully my experience can help you going forward.
Version 1: Fluid boxes
Fresh off a training session with Pooja at DevLearn, I felt like I had good handle on how fluid boxes would make life easier. Particularly for working in multiple languages, fluid boxes only make you translate each caption/onscreen item once, which is much easier to manage.
Why we went to a second version:
Lack of control. While excited about the potential of what I could do, a very strong graphic requirement from the client didn’t make it practical to replicate exactly what they wanted the way they wanted it.
Version 2: Breakpoints
This is one that I’ve created a number of times in the past. Basically Captivate recommends three different sizes “desktop”, “tablet”, and “mobile”. The great thing about it is the full control of pretty much every screen possible. The drawback to this is the content maintenance. If you make a change in one view, you likely have to make that change in all of the other ones too. I saw likely because the item does appear in all the versions, but it’s not usually where you want it.
Tip: I thought I’d get creative and develop it on the mobile screen thinking that “mobile first” was the way to go. Sadly, when you add the content to the mobile view, that doesn’t copy back into the tablet or desktop versions.
Why we went to the third version:
The shelf life of this project is pretty low. There will be frequent changes due to political and legal updates. Not only does that effect the primary language this is being written in, but 11 additional languages. It’s just too much to maintain so many versions.
Version 3: Back to Fluid boxes
Knowing that I wasn’t getting the fluid boxes where I wanted them, I reached out to a number of experienced Captivate practitioners for advice and templates. With their expertise, we created a template that better meets the needs of the project. I also got some insight into future functionality that will make Captivate work even more easily for updates.
In the end:
If you want lots of control on the layout, breakpoints will allow you to have things look as controlled as you like.
For a diverse variety of devices to be supported and easier updates, where you’re willing to trade off some of the control as to the look, fluid boxes are the way to go.
Here is the link to the comparison, including examples and I also mention rescalable HTML as alternative:
http://blog.lilybiri.com/fluid-boxes-or-breakpoint-views
http://blog.lilybiri.com/responsive-projects-object-styles
Last one explains the big difference in setting up Object styles between Fluid Boxes and Breakpoints.
For master slide design, do not forget the Rulers and Guides, tremendously helpful:
http://blog.lilybiri.com/fluid-boxes-and-master-slides
http://blog.lilybiri.com/guides-and-fluid-boxes-best-buddies
Thank you! Yes, rulers are absolutely a lifesaver. I still think one of my favorite features in 17 or 19 (I can’t remember) is the one click alignment options.
Alignment has been there eternally. It is only the way to display that toolbar which has changed with CP8.
Did you read my blog post which I wrote when CP2017 sorted? I regret a lot that the team seems only to be talking about Fluid Boxes as if that is the only way to create a responsive project, but never do mention all the limitations linked with Fluid Boxes. Moreover, they do not offer any theme set up with Breakpoint views as was the case before CP2017, which is also regrettable since you have to start totally from scratch and there is no example available of master slides set up in a proper way.
I will post some links in another comment (moderation waiting time ).
Honestly, I’ve been disappointed with the lack of integration of fluid boxes into the themes that I have found. Maybe when Adobe starts doing challenges for us, we can all generate some really great fluid box themes to share with each other to build out a strong library.
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