Guides Rule!

Intro

Did you hear me yelling 'Finally' when the last patch for Captivate was released to version 9.0.1.320? We have now Rulers in Captivate and real (Adobe) guides. I am using that name because they are quite different from the existing Smart Guides which are useful when aligning objects. Moreover the implementation of the Rulers and Guides is really very nice,  Kudos to the Captivate engineers!  Just one example: in responsive projects you can choose to have rulers in Percentages instead of pixels, which is the most logical choice! In this article I want to explain you the reasons for my joy, showing you how I use Rulers and Guides.

Grid

Maybe you don't remember that old grid, which is still present in Captivate 9. It consisted of tiny points, with a default distance of 16 px. You cannot change color of those points (black), which makes that grid useless on dark backgrounds. You can change the default distance between points from 16px to another value, but always the same horizontally and vertically. Personally I remember that distance mostly because it will define how much an object will move or resize when you use CTRL in combination with arrows as shortcut keys (see my old blog post: Shortcut keys for moving/resizing objects). Since many years I didn't use the feature for what it was meant to be used: as a 'grid'. If you just now discover its exitence: turn on the 'old' grid, using View, Show Grid.There is a snapping linked to it as well, which you can turn on/off.

A grid can be very useful in some circumstances!  With the new Guides you have now a powerful alternative: create a custom grid, with lines instead of points, maybe with different distances in horizontal/vertical direction, and use a custom color that stands out from the background. It can be especially useful for responsive projects because percentages instead of pixels  I recommend to lock the guides after creation of the grid. Your grid will be saved with the file, you can show/hide the grid whenever you want.

Here is an example of such a grid, created with the option Multiple Rulers in a blank, normal project:

You can see that the guides were used to have identical symmetrical arrows to the left/right side, to define a space to be left for CC later on, and a top margin. The settings in Multiple Rulers can be seen in this screenshot:

For a responsive project, I would mostly limit the grid to vertical guides, because it is the width that is most important for the design of such a project. Here is a screenshot for a responsive project, with guides in increments of 10%, extra guides at the left and right side at 45% (margins). Only one horizontal guide at 50%. I dragged out an extra guide to 10% for the title.

Theme/Template design

A grid, as described in the previous section, will help a lot when designing master slides - third step in designing a custom theme (after the color palette and the object styles). Of course you can add extra guides, as I showed already in that same section: to indicate margins, to show the center lines etc, space to keep free for custom navigation, control panel, CC etc.
Sometimes you'll need a template on top of a custom theme (which provides all necessary design features) because you need a fixed resolution and custom content: recurrent information, variables, advanced actions, assets in the Library, placeholder slides. For such a template rulers and guides can help as well to create a consistent look for all the future modules that will be based on that particular template.

Motion Paths

If you ever created custom motion paths, which has become much more interesting in Captivate 9 where we have three types of custom motion paths, you know how difficult it is to adjust start and end points to a specific location. I remember the example that I created for this blog post:

Reset Effects

All the cards followed a custom motion paths but had to end up in a stack. My work flow was bit cumbersome:

  • create a "cross hair" using a horizontal and a vertical line object in a group
  • position that group on the exact location, using the X coordinate of the vertical line and the Y coordinate of the horizontal line
  • adding a motion path (no curved, I used the zigzag motion path) to each card, and drag the end point carefully over the crosshair
  • saving that motion path as a custom path
  • applying it in the necessary advanced action

Now I can use a horizontal and a vertical guide, which I can exactly position without using the Options tab with coordinates. Just double-click on the ruler on the exact coordinate that you want.

Watch this screenshot: the thee shapes move each along their individual motion path, but they end at the same location (and paths cross at another location). 

Custom shapes

SVG are a big new feature, but they don't have (yet) the flexibility of shapes which can be used as text container, as button and filled with a texture, and image, a gradient all on the fly. Although Captivate is not meant to have all the editing features of a vector graphics application like Illustrator, you can create pretty nice custom shapes. Any included shape can be converted to a freeform shape, you just have to edit the points and tangent points. 

How can guides help with this process? Have a look at this screenshot. The creation of this symmetrical shield (or highway sign) was lot easier with the help of the rulers when editing the points and tangent points.:




Drag&Drop in 2016 with Captivate 9

Update: an updated version (with a new workflow) and more details about Resetting a slide is published recently under this link

Intro

As promised in a previous article, I explored the enhancements to Drag&Drop in Captivate 9, more specifically added InBuilt States. In previous versions only buttons and shape buttons had those states. Captivate 9 added multistates to all objects and provided InBuilt states for all objects in a Drag&Drop slide: drag sources and drop targets. Custom states can be added as well. Both InBuilt states and custom states have some limitations similar to the Inbuilt states for buttons. Drag&Drop objects have also limitations for added custom states.

Example Movie

Watch this movie, I left the default play bar active to allow you free navigation. You'll find two Drag&Drop slides with different use cases on slides 4 and 5:
  1. The first use case has only two drag sources, one of them being correct, the other incorrect. There is one drop target, the cup. Watch the different InBuilt states both for the two drag sources which have identical states and for the drop target. All states are introduced on slides 2-3. All objects have also one custom state. Because of my manipulation of the states on Submit, the default Reset button will not return you to a fresh start if you have used the Submit button. You'll have to use the custom 'My Reset' button in that case. 

  2. In the second use case you'll see 7 drag sources and 2 target objects: the box and the trashcan. You are supposed to drag all sources to the appropriate target. You'll find the 'My Reset' button here as well.

Drag Sources: states

The Drag Sources have 5 InBuilt States (see slide 2 in movie). Common to all those states and to the custom states is that you cannot add any object in a state. All the options on the Big Button Bar (horizontal toolbar) are dimmed with the exception of the Record button (for audio): no Text objects, no Shapes, no Higlight boxes (under Objects), no Media can be added to any state. Here is a short description of each state, of its functionality and limitations. As a visual reminder have a look at the Gallery, which shows those states for the first use case
  1. Normal state (InBuilt): is the Default state. This state will appear before dragging, and will re-appear if a drag source is sent back to its original position as well (for an incorrect object). The size of this state is important, because several states are locked to the same size. You can rotate the Normal state (watch the rotate handle at the top), which will also lock some of the states to the same rotation.

  2. Dragover state (InBuilt): this state appears when the drag source is over a drop target and will remain so until the object is dropped on or moved away from the target. This state is not locked, it can be resized and rotated.
  3. DropAccept state (InBuilt): will appear after dropping a drag source on the drop target, it will replace the Dragover state and become permanent. It is totally locked (watch the lock symbol bottom right): will keep the same size as the Normal state, cannot be rotated. Be careful: if you allow all drag sources, both correct and incorrect, to be dropped on the target, the DropAccept state will also appear for correct and incorrect objects! If you only allow the correct drag sources to be dropped, this state will only appear for them.
  4. DropReject state (InBuilt):  will appear after dropping an incorrect drag source on the drop target if the target is not set to allow All objects to be dropped. It will replace the Dragover state. When the incorrect object is sent back to its original position, the DropReject state is replaced by the Normal state. Like the DropAccept state this state is totally locked: no resizing, no rotation possible
  5. DragStart state (InBuilt): this state appears when you start the dragging movement until you are over a drop target, where it will be replaced by the DragOver state. The state is not locked, it can be resized and rotated.
  6. Custom state: this state is also fully locked to the rotation and size of the Normal state. As written before, you cannot even add objects in this state (which is possible for buttons). That is a limitation, in many cases you'll want to revert to the old method of hide/show objects. For this example it seems as if I added the image of the wings, but I'm just cheating: for all states I used smart shapes. That way I was able to change the form of the shape (Replace shape), to change its fill and stroke. For the InBuilt states I used gradients or solid colors as Fill, for this custom state I used Image Fill. Since a shape can also be used as Text container, it was possible to change the labels of the states as well. If you are not yet member of the Smartshape fan-club, maybe... :)


Drop Targets: states

The Drop Targets have 6 InBuilt States (see slide 3 in movie). Three of those states have a name that is identical to an existing state for the drag sources: DragOver, DropAccept and DropReject. For Drop Targets you can add objects to all states, both InBuilt and custom states. Some states appear immediately, other states only appear after Submitting the exercise. Here is the overview, again with a visual reminder from the first use case in the example movie.

  1. Normal state (InBuilt): is the Default state. This state will be the main state before the Submit button is clicked. It can be replaced by another state but that will only be for a short duration. The size of this state is important, because several states are locked to the same size. You can rotate the Normal state, which will also lock some of the states to the same rotation.

  2. Dragover state (InBuilt): this state appears when a drag source is over the drop target and will remain so until the object is dropped on or moved away from the target. This state is not locked, it can be resized and rotated.
  3. DropAccept state (InBuilt): will appear after dropping a drag source on the drop target, it will replace the Dragover state. However this state will remain visible only for a short duration. Then the Normal state will re-appear. The reason is that a drop target can accept multiple drag sources, and has to be ready to 'accept' or 'reject' the next drag source.  It is totally locked: will keep the same size as the Normal state, cannot be rotated. But, as told, you can add objects, which was the case in the example movie (adding the wings).
  4. DropReject state (InBuilt):  will appear after dropping an incorrect drag source on the drop target if the target is not set to allow All objects to be dropped. It will replace the Dragover state. The state will appear for a short duration before reverting to the Normal state. State is  It is totally locked: will keep the same size as the Normal state, cannot be rotated. But, as told, you can add objects, which was the case in the example movie (adding the wings).
  5. DropCorrect state (InBuilt): this state will appear after Submit if the drag source(s) dropped on the target are all correct. It will replace the Normal state permanently. The state is fully locked (to the Normal state): no rotation nor resizing is allowed. You can add objects.
  6. DropIncorrect state (InBuilt): this state will appear after Submit if the drag source(s) dropped on the target are not all correct. It will replace the Normal state permanently. The state is fully locked (to the Normal state): no rotation nor resizing is allowed. You can add objects.
  7. Custom state: this state is also fully locked to the rotation and size of the Normal state which is limiting even though you can add objects.  

Reset - My Reset

The default Reset button has been added to both use cases (slide 4-5). This button can only be used to reset before submitting the result. I added an extra button 'My Reset', which is really the Replay2 button described in a previous blog post. If a D&D slide is not included in a quiz, has not score it will be reset when you re-enter the slide. This is what I'm doing, getting back to the last frame of the previous slide, then continue. That may result in some flickering, depending on the bandwidth, but the D&D will be totally reset. The mentioned blog post explains the need for a user variable v_enter to store the first frame number of each slide with an On Enter action. 

Setup Use Case 1

Have a look at the Timeline of this slide:

There is only one correct answer: DragSource1 to Target1. There is an object action for this correct answer, to change the state of the other drag source to the Custom state, as you can see here:

Setup is almost the default set up: Snap behavior will change the size and the opacity of the dropped object to 70% (size) and 80% (Opacity), and snaps to the center (Anchor). There is one attempt allowed, and the actions on Success and Failure are visible here:

The advanced action DDSuccess4 has three statements:

Due to hiding the drag sources with this Success event, the On Enter action of the slide has to 'reset' the situation by showing the group Gr_Draggers again. This was combined with the assignment of the user variable v_enter for this slide in the action:


Setup Use Case 2

Have a look at the Timeline of this slide:

Effects are time-based, starting after the pausing point of the Drag&Drop (1.5secs which is default). Back and Next buttons have no pausing point in this slide. When the playhead is released by the Success event, it has to continue seamlessly to the end slide 6.

For the correct answer all Christmas balls have to be dropped either in the box (2, 0, 1 and 6) or in the trashcan (3, 4 and 5). There are no object actions in this use case. 

For setup of both drop targets size and opacity of the drag sources will change to 0% to have them disappear in the target. You can see that the actions on Success and Failure are very simple:

Even the on Enter action of this slide can be a real 'simple' action to have the correct frame number assigned to the user variable v_enter:






Replay (slide) Button

Update:

A new version of these workflows (for CP2019) can be found in a new post and in an interactive Captivate tutorial.

Replay or Reset Slide

Replay/Reset (Captivate course)

Intro

This pretty short article will explain several ways to create a button that will replay a slide from its first frame and is functional on that slide only. The reason is that I have been asked about this use case multiple times. 

Questions

First thing to check is: does this slide have an On Enter action? The default On Enter action for a slide is 'No action'. On Enter actions are however the way to go if you want to reset a slide to its initial configuration, to clean up the 'mess' that can happen on that slide by the user or by the interactivity on that slide. On example: maybe the user has popped up objects  using a hyperlink on a word or iimage? In that case you'll need an On Enter event. The action needed for a Replay button will have to make sure to 're'- enter the slide, in order to have that On Enter action done. To better understand what I mean, I created a short example movie.

Example movie

Watch this movie, which I have been testing both for SWF (version here) and for HTML5 output. You'll see two slides:

  1. Slide 'Title': it has an On Enter action to play an audio clip.

  2. Slide 'Pills': a user variable v_counter is used (and displayed) to store the number of clicks on the 'pills'. The timeline of this slide looks like this


    Each of the pills (shape buttons) triggers a shared action, that will show a state (with explanation), increment v_counter, wait for 2 seconds before releasing the playhead.

On both slides you'll see two buttons: 'Replay1' will restart the slide from its first frame, without re-entering the slide. That means that the On Enter action is not executed again. The second button 'Replay2' will re-enter the slide. Listen and watch the difference (look at the counter on the second slide). Refresh the browser when you are ready to watch this example. Refreshing will also get you back to the start of the movie.

'Replay1' - On Enter action is not repeated

If you do not need a resetting action On Enter, a replay button can be coded very simple. If you are on the slide with the label 'Intro', this simple code will do the trick:

    Jump to slide Intro

However you'll not find the slide 'Intro' in the dropdown list for the 'Jump to' command in the Actions tab. You need to choose 'Execute Advanced Action', and create a one-line standard advanced action.

It is simple but I do not recommend to use this work flow. It means creating a new advanced action for each slide. A first alternative would be a shared action, defining the slide name (or number) as a parameter.

If you need this action for many, even all slides in a project, there is a much better work flow. Create this advanced action:
  

Why do you need an expression to subtract 1 from the number of the current slide, which is stored in cpInfoCurrentSlide? The index of the system variable cpInfoCurrentSlide starts by 1 That way it can be inserted on a slide indicate the slide number. Its value for slide 3 is '3'. To show the slide number you insert cpInfoCurrentSlide in a text container on the master slide or timed for the rest of the project.

The index of system variable cpCmndGotoSlide starts not by 1, but by 0 (usual in programming languares). If you want to navigate to slide 3, you have to give a value '2' to cpCmndGotoSlide.  So far the reason for that Expression in the advanced action Replay1.

This command is functional both for SWF and HTML5 output. I tested this in several browsers.

This action is triggered by both Replay1 buttons in the Example movie. The On Enter action is not executed with this Replay, which results in:
  1. For slide 'Title': the audio clip will not be heard.
  2. For slide 'Pills': the variable v_counter is not reset to 0, and will continue to increment.
Watch the variables I inserted top left of the slides: they show the current frame, and the frame number stored in the user variable v_enter.  If you wonder why the frame number never starts with 1, read the explanation under the next subject 'Replay2'.

TIP: 

be sure to create this action as a shared action, no need to define the system variables as parameters. Store that action with much used shared actions in a separate project. In any project you can open the Library of that project as an external Library and drag that Replay action to the library of the new project.

Replay2 - On Enter action is repeated


As explained under 'Questions', you'll have to enter the slide in this case, not just jump to the first frame as was done with the Expression in the scenario for 'Replay1'.

This is a bit more complicated. I had to use 'micro-navigation', a term introduced by me in this old  blog post: navigating between frames. Look at the advanced action created for the 'Replay 2' buttons:

This is the work flow:
  • Create a user variable v_enter that will be reused on each slide that needs a Replay button of this kind. That variable will store the number of the first frame of the slide. To achieve that I have to add a command to the already existing On Enter actions. Here are the actions for both slides:

  • When the Replay button is clicked, there is first navigation to 2 frames before the first frame of the present slide. Why 2? Theoretically 1 frame should be OK, but for HTML5 output (slower) I learned that it is better to use
  • Although I use the system variable cpCmndGotoFrameAndResume for navigation, which should release the playhead and navigate very quickly to the next slide, I detected that adding the second command 'Go to Next Slide' made the process more fluent (again for HTML5 output). 
The result is very clear in the Example movie:
  1. For slide 'Title': the audio clip is played
  1. For slide 'Pills': the variable v_counter is reset to 0.

Frame enigma - TIP

If you watched the frame number closely, you will have seen that the 'first' frame (on slide 'Title') is not 1 but 3 or 4. Here is the explanation: since I wanted the Replay2 button to be active on this first slide, I needed a slide before that first slide for the micro-navigation. That slide will not be visible to the user because it is only 0,1 sec long. At a frame rate of 30fps, that means ...3 frames.



1 action = 5 Toggle Buttons

Intro

In the past I wrote some posts about creating Toggle buttons. The oldest article explained the use of an Expression and a system variable for a button that kept the same style but could turn on/off a functionality (created for versions 5/5.5). My excitement about shape buttons, appearing in version 6, was the inspiration for several scenarios in which the style of the toggle button changed with the on/off situation. 

When shared actions appeared with Captivate 7, I posted some articles about the difference with advanced actions. Captivate 8 enhanced shared actions by allowing variables and literals as candidate parameters. Although Captivate 9 seems not to add any improvements to shared actions (had hoped secretly for an easier way to edit them), combining shared actions with the new multistate objects will save a lot of time. The use case described here is a good example. Start by watching the example movie to understand my interpretation of Toggle buttons.

Example movie

This movie has 4 slides, the third slide shows the toggle buttons. Try them out, there are two instances of the shape button that toggles the visibility of an image or a group. They use a different user variable. Beware: images do overlap on the slide. The other shape buttons are muting/playing audio, showing/hiding Closed Captioning, Table of Content and Playbar. I choose shape buttons over normal buttons because they offer more freedom for styling the InBuilt states. To navigate to the last slide you have to 'toggle' on either the playbar or the TOC for navigation.

Concept 

All toggle buttons have in common to be associated with a variable that can be toggled by the developer: I'm talking about Boolean variables, which can have only two logical values '0' (False/No) or '1' (True/Yes). Both system and user variables are possible. On this screenshot you see the Timeline with the 6 shape buttons, labeled to identify their functionality (SB is my indication for Shape Buttons):

Variables

The associated variables are in the same sequence as on the timeline, from top to bottom:

  • v_visgrp (user variable with Default value = 0) for SB_visib_group

  • v_visib (user variable with Default value = 0) for SB_visib

  • cpCmndShowPlaybar (system variable with Default value = 1) for SB_Playbar

  • cpCmndTOCVisible (system variable with Default value = 0) for SB_TOC

  • cpCmndCC (system variable with Default value = 0) for SB_CC

  • cpCmndMute (system variable with Default value = 0) for SB_Audio

This list shows that one of the system variables doesn't have '0' as default value, cpCmndShowPlaybar. Solution for this discrepancy can be found in switching the states for the associate button, or in switching the variable itself to '0', thus hiding the Playbar. I used the second scenario: with the On Enter action for the third slide I did Hide the Playbar, which toggles cpCmndShowPlaybar to 0

The shared action can be used for any button with such a, associated Boolean variable, system or user variable. Some examples are shown in the last slide of the example movie: cpLockTOC or a user variable to toggle an audio object.

States

The shape buttons have three InBuilt states: Normal, Rollover and Down. For each button I added one custom state. That state will change the shape button to show the 'OFF' state, and if necessary additional objects are added in this state. In this screenshot you see the 4 states for the shape button SB_Audio:

This shape button has a SVG added in each state. At this moment SVG cannot be used as a Fill image for a shape button (maybe in a next version?), they are separate objects. For some states I also changed the style of the shape itself (Fill):

  1. Normal: has a SVG indicating you can mute  audio (since cpCmndMute has a default value of 0, which means that audio is playing)
  2. Rollover: Speaker only (SVG), Fill different
  3. Down: Speaker only (SVG), Fill different
  4. AudioOn: has a SVG indication to play audio; this will be the state that is visible when audio is muted, cpCmndMute = 1.

The buttons SB_TOC, SB_CC and SB_Playbar have a similar setup: for the InBuilt states text was inserted in the shape. The custom fourth state adds two line objects (cross) over a duplicate of the Normal state. Look at the screenshot for the SB_Playbar:

Both instances of the Visibility toggle button use SVG's to change the style of the shape button (similar to SB_Audio), but they add other objects for the 4th custom state as you can see here:

Shared Action

The action has to be conditional, checking the value of the Boolean variable. Only two commands are needed, both in Then and Else part: to change the state of the shape button itself and to toggle the variable. Toggling the variable between 0 and 1 will switch the functionality between On and Off. If you write this out as an advanced action, in this case for the Audio button, it would look like this:

When creating a shared action, it is important to identify the parameters. Compulsory parameters in this action are:
  1. the button itself (SB_Audio in the screenshot above)
  2. the state 'Normal' which is used and
  3. the state 'AudioOn' which is used as well

Candidate parameters are:

  1. The variable cpCmndMute: it has to be a parameter, because we need other Boolean variables for the other buttons
  2. Literal '1': because I choose the 4 th state (custom) for each button with this action in mind, it is not necessary to define this literal as a parameter

This leads to the definition of the shared action with 4 parameters, the compulsory and one candidate parameter. In this last screenshot you see the parameters with their values for another button, SB_Playbar. Watch the description of the parameters.

Conclusion

In many situations using a Captivate playbar is not a good choice, and with states, one single shared action from your script library it is now really simple to create not only Next and Back buttons, but also every other toggle button needed on the course slides. If using shape buttons (as was the case here) you can put them on the first slide of the course, time them for the rest of the project. They will have each a unique ID, which allows you to take control of those shape buttons, to hide them when they are not needed on some slides. Good luck!








Playing with Captivate 9

Intro

Version 9 has been released about 10 days ago, while I was on vacation. My fans know that I seldom will post immediately a 'full' review, because I want first to play around a little bit, to try out some reported new features before offering my personal reflections and tips. You will not read anything about the new Quiz features, nor about the enhancements to Responsive projects today, maybe later on in another article. There is too much to write about!

First project

No better way to get the feeling of new features than to create a real project from scratch. In the following movie (only one slide) you'll see that I recreated a slide that was posted in the first article about shared actions. I didn't upgrade the project, didn't use the objects, nor the actions/variables from the old project. If you watch it closely, you'll detect that I used:

  • new states work flow, both for static and interactive objects
  • imported SVG's and roundtripping with Adobe Illustrator
  • Effects 2.0 with custom curved motion paths
  • new commands in Advanced/Shared actions

I will offer some tips about those 4 major new features when you have played with this slide. Refreshing the browser will allow you to restart the movie. Of course I discovered also some little gems hidden between the big diamonds, while exploring. 

Example movie

Multiple States

In Captivate 8 it was possible to create 3 states for shape buttons, both in the Object Style Manager or individually using the Properties panel, Style tab. In this example you did see that the 'default button states' (Normal, Rollover, Down) can even have a different label, not only a fill and a stroke applied to them. Look at this screenshot of the Object State panel for the central oval shape button in the movie. Watch the default states (marked by red rectangle) and the extra 4 states I added to end up with 7 different states. 

For the four extra states I used SHIFT-CTRL-ALT-Z to Duplicate State a couple of times. You'll find the option also in the right-click menu on a state.

Drag&Drop objects also have InBuilt states, but will blog about Drag&Drop in a future post.

Hidden gem

In the Object Style Manager (I saved the style for that central shape button) the different default states for shape buttons show up, just like for any normal button. They were also saved in the OSM for Captivate 8, but not displayed in this 'cool' way :)

SVG - Illustrator roundtripping

I call this the (until now) missing link in the beautiful bracelet of Adobe applications that allow you to create amazing eLearning courses: Captivate, Photoshop, Audition, Edge Animate, Edge Inspect and now finally Illustrator!! Scalable Vector Graphics, contrary to bitmap images, do not suffer from quality loss on re-scaling. Moreover for simple graphics the file size is incredibly low, which is certainly an advantage when you are creating for mobile devices. Beware: file size can be large if you have complicated graphics. Look at this screenshot: I used 8 SVG's - they end up in a dedicated folder in the Library:

You see the usage in the Library as for other assets. Example: the SVG ManGreen has been used 4 times, in the 4 states of the central shape button.
The man-SVG's are very small, but the lightboxes with text are using a complicated filter and size is much bigger. The settings used in Illustrator to save these files as SVG are visible in the next screenshot. To preserve the font, you have to convert it to outlines.

Effects 2.0

The previous Effects panel is gone! Effects timelines are now embedded under the object to which they apply. Live preview with the Play button in the Timeline (or use Space bar), you can have all motion paths on different objects visible at the same time. That makes life so much easier. Curved motion paths are possible. When you hover over an effect in the Effects part of the Timeline panel, you'll see a preview of that effect. This works even with custom saved effects:


Hidden gems

  1. You can use the same shortcut keys for effect timelines as for the object timelines to increase/decrease its length. That is a valid alternative for typing in a value in the Timing panel or for dragging with the mouse. Example: right arrow key will move the whole effect timeline 0.1sec to the right, CTRL-Right will move over 1sec, SHIFT-Right will increase the timeline duration with 0.1sec. All arrow combinations shortcut keys described in this old article: TinyTimeline Tidbits are functional. I regret that CTRL-E, which extends the duration till the end of the slide has not been included for Effect Timelines. Neither does CTRL-L move the effect timeline to the playhead position, it will move the object timeline with the Effect timeline even if the Effect timeline is the selected one.

  2. For the custom motion effects (scribble, curved, line) start with the cursor over the present location of the object, and the beginning of the path will snap to the center point of that object (more precise: the center point of the bounding box).

  3. You can uncheck 'Show motion paths' if your screen is getting too crowded, look in the Timing panel just above the fields for Effect Start and Effect Duration. BTW you can increment the values in those fields using arrow keys: UP for 0,1sec, SHIFT-UP increments to the next full second. Field has to be selected in that case. If field is not selected you can use the typical Adobe scrubber.

New Commands

These commands have been added:

  1. Go to Next State: only available in the list for simple actions, for all events

  2. Go to Previous State: only available for simple actions, for all events

  3. Change State: available for simple, advanced and shared actions. This command needs two paramaters: the object and the state; for a shared action both will be compulsory parameters. I used this command a lot in the example movie, both in a conditional advanced action (on the central shape button) as in a shared action triggered by the four bubble shape buttons.



  4. Delay Next Actions by: finally you will be able to time commands in the sequence for standard/conditional advanced and shared actions. This new command takes one parameter: the amount of time which can be a literal or a variable. In the next screenshot you see that I used it to play the audio clip after the custom effect (with a duration of 1.2secs) has been finished. That parameter is a 'candidate' parameter, not compulsory, when you use it in a Shared action. For more information about parameters see the article Parameters in shared actions. The situation is the same in Captivate 9 as it was in Captivate 8.

    Personally I am very excited about the this new command, which allows better control over timing by advanced/shared actions. 

Hidden gem

Also about timing, not a new command but an improvement of the command Apply Effects in an advanced/shared action: you can now add values for the Start time and the duration of the effect.

More Small Gems

  1. Drag&Drop until Captivate 8 didn't have a Success Caption by default. I explained a workaround in Drag&Drop Tips. You can forget about that tip in Captivate 9, Success caption is now available. It uses the default Success Shape or Success Caption style, depending on your Preferences and theme.


    Objects used in Drag&Drop similar to interactive objects, have also 'Inbuilt states'. That is not a little gem, will post a new Drag&Drop Tips article for version 9 in the future


  2. Intelligent naming of copy/duplicate. In former versions, a copy or duplicate of an object in the same file or in another file would get a generic name. In Captivate 9 if you copy/duplicate an object with a meaningful name the copy will keep that name with an added underscore+number. Big improvement, and now you have even more reasons to set up a good naming convention for your projects. Look at this screenshot: this is a copy of the central shape button to another file:



  3. Simple action feature: another popular post (and a Youtube video) can be dropped in the trash can for Captivate 9 but I don't regret it at all. You no longer have to create a standard oneline advanced/shared action (or use micro navigation) to prevent the playhead from continuing. Just check the box that is highlighted in this screenshot:





Dynamic Buttons

Guidance

If you’re planning on attending the Adobe Learning Summit, DevLearn, or both this fall, read on….   (If you can’t make it this year, there’s a consolation! Skip to the bottom of this post to get a tip about dynamic buttons.)

Most of you know that I frequently blog and post about Adobe Captivate. Well, Adobe has given me the wonderful opportunity to offer free in person peer-to-peer Captivate project help at the MGM Grand Las Vegas on September 29th and 30th. Since I’m flying from my home in Belgium to present at the Adobe Learning Summit, this is a great chance to meet and help you face to face, not virtually.

My friend and fellow Captivate user, Alice Acker, will host this event. To see as many Captivate users as possible, we’ve limited each appointment to a maximum of 30 minutes.  If you are part of a project team, we can accommodate your team at the appointment. These times are designed to limit disruption of your Adobe Learning Summit or DevLearn schedule. We’re co-located with the conferences at the MGM Grand, so there is no need to Uber or bike to us. We’ve made this super convenient for you.

Please bring me your most headache-inducing project, and I’ll do my best to solve your quandaries.  Since these spots are limited, make sure to sign up now with your top 3 appointment choices. The slots will be filled on a first come, first served basis. We’ll do our best to schedule you for one of them. If you just want to drop in to say hi, I’d love to see you. But, please make sure that you register so we get an idea of how many Captivate users to expect.

Once you’re successfully registered, you’ll get an email confirmation of your appointment, directions to the session, and a link to upload the project. It will really help if I can review it before the session. All information will be kept confidential. What happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas.

Looking forward to meeting you. Tot weldra in Vegas!

Lieve a.k.a. Lilybiri

This is the link to the registration form Form to complete


Dynamic buttons

In the archive you'll find several articles about shape buttons, which appeared with version 6. I used to call them 'chameleon', because they can be useful as shapes (images), text containers, buttons, and recently also for the automatic feedback text appearing on question slides and with interactive objects. Maybe you are not yet aware of this aspect of shape button? You can insert a variable as a label on the button. On runtime the value of the variable will appear. That value can be changed by actions, and the label will change in that case, hence my title 'Dynamic'. Some ideas to use this feature?

  • Localisation: if you use custom shape buttons on master slides (or timed for the rest of the project) to replace the play bar, you can change the label on those buttons based on the language choice. If the language is chosen from a dropdown list (learning interaction) or with radio buttons (learning interaction), insert the variable associated with that interaction. Combine this with the work flow explained in Branch Aware Quiz

  • Custom Question Slide: if you want to allow a limited number of attempts, you can add the attempt number on the Submit button, or you can change the label to 'Continue' after the last attempt. Of course you'll need a companion conditional action to change the functionality of the button as well.

  • Navigation: if you use shape buttons on the master slide, they cannot be hidden/shown. But you can change the value of the variable that acts as label on each slide. Using a Back/Next button, put a null value to the label on the first slide for the Back button, and change the Next button to an Exit or Return button on the last slide (you'll need to create a conditional action in that case as well).


Windows 10

Just a short warning: do not hurry with upgrading to Win10.  Be patient, Captivate 8 is not guaranteed to be fully functional in this new OS. Personally I will wait to see eventual issues on forums and in groups.

Matchstick Game - shared actions

Update: new version of this game, with HTML5 output and using images as buttons to be found under this link


Intro

This post is inspired by a question on the Captivate forum, have a look at this thread: 'Advanced actions for a Matchstick Game'. After reading the question, I accepted the challenge. Some advanced actions are used, mostly to reset the game, but the two 
most important actions are shared actions. It is also a good example for a lot of tips I have offered in this blog:
  • Setup of a labeling system that makes it easier to choose parameters when applying a shared action.
  • Sequence of statements and decisions in a conditional action is very important because Captivate will always evaluate each statement and decision in sequence.
  • Choice of optional parameters for a shared action.
  • Using On Enter Slide events to reset variables and objects.
  • Using groups to simplify advanced/shared actions.

Game - rules

You can play the game:
  • goal is to create a word from the initial set of matchsticks by removing some of them;
  • clicking on a matchstick will remove it and a ghost image will appear instead of the original matchstick
  • you can reset the matchstick by clicking on the ghost image
  • maximum number to be removed is 6; you will be warned when you reach that number
  • you can try to remove a seventh matchstick, but I consider that as cheating :)
  • you have a Restart button

Objects - Labeling

The game is on one slide after the intro-slide. This is the Timeline panel:

From bottom to top you see:

  1. Gr_Match: group with the images of the matchsticks. For labeling I divided them in 3 groups. I_MS_11 is the most left matchstick of the first group, I_MS_22 is the upper matchstick of the second group, I_MS_35 is the bottom one in the third group, etc. Those numbers will also be in the names of the Outlines, the Click boxes and the associated variables. This group is initially visible.

  2. Gr_Outline: group with the grey ghost images (outlines). Same labeling discipline: I_OL_11, I_OL_22, I_OL_35,...This group is initially invisible
  3. Gr_Txt: which is expanded on the screenshot has the three messages that are used in the game. This group is initially invisible.
  4. Gr_CB: group with click boxes over the matchstick images+outlines. They follow same labeling system: CB_11, CB_22, CB_35...
  5. Bt_Restart:  the button to restart, reset everything
  6. Tx_Task: the title

  7. Tx_Rules: the explanation

Variables

To track the status of each matchstick, I created a boolean variable with initial value of 0 for each of them. Labeling is similar to those for the images, outlines and click boxes: 

  • v_11, v_12, v_13, v_14, v_15   for the first group

  • v_21, v_22, v_23, v_24, v_25   for the second group

  • v_31, v_32, v_33, v_34, v_35   for the first group

Three extra variables were needed:

  • v_moves: will track the number of removed matchsticks

  • v_correct: will track the number of correctly removed matchsticks

  • v_visit: needed to track if the intro slide is visited for the first time; a jump to that slide is used in an advanced action to reset the game

Actions

Advanced actions

I will not explain the simple and the 2 advanced actions, article would be too long. In a planned cookbook for shared actions I will explain everything in depth:
  • EnterIntro: conditional advanced action with two decisions that is triggered by the On Enter Slide event for the first slide 'Intro'. It will check the value of the variable v_visit and jump to the second 'Game' slide if it is not a first visit. 
  • ResetGame: a standard advanced action is triggered by the Restart button Success event, and by the On Enter Slide event for the second slide 'Game'. It will reset all the variables and restore the initial view of this slide (no outlines, only images).

  • Simple action 'Go to Previous Slide' is triggered by the On Exit event of the second slide 'Game'.

Shared Actions

Two shared actions are used:
  1. MatchStickNOK: to be triggered by a click box over a matchstick that should NOT be removed. This shared action is used  9 times. It is a conditional action with 3 decisions: 'Doing', 'Checking' and 'Cheating'. In the screenshot you'll see this action, with as an example parameters are set to the '11' matchstick. That is a matchstick that should in this case trigger the second shared action.

    This shared action has 6 parameters. The only optional parameter is highlighted in this screenshot, it is the tracking variable v_x associated with the matchstick. No need to define the other variables (v_moves, v_correct) nor the literals as a parameter.



  2. MatchStickOK: to be triggered by a click box over a matchstick that should be removed. This shared action is used 6 times in this particular example. The first three decisions 'Doing', 'Checking', 'Cheating' are pretty much the same as for the previous shared action, with one exception: increment or decrement for the variable v_correct. This shared action has a fourth decision 'End' that will display a Success message if all correct matchsticks are removed. Since this can only happen when the user removes a correct matchstick, this decision was superfluous for MatchStickNOK action. The sequence of decisions is very important: the condition 'IF v_moves is equal to 6' (decision 'Checking') will also be True if 6 correct matchsticks have been removed, but the commands in 'End' will override those of 'Checking' because of the sequence. There are two screenshots here:


    This shared actions has 7 parameters since the Success Message has to be added. Only optional parameter that was upgraded to a real parameter is again v_x, the tracking variable associated with the matchstick.


Enhancements

I hear you! How will it be possible to use those shared actions for a Matchstick Game with another setup? I have some ideas, what about you? Please post your suggestions in a comment.





Dropdown Interaction - tips

Intro

Recently I published some tips about learning interactions, including an explanatory table. The use case in that post showed how to use checkbox and radiobutton interactions. Last week, a user asked a question about the dropdown interaction, which he used for a custom question slide: How can I check if the user has chosen an item? That is not difficult for checkbox and radiobutton, because their associated variable will be empty, but the situation is different for the dropdown interaction, hence this tutorial.
The most common failure that I detect on debugging advanced/shared actions with multiple decisions are due to a wrong understanding of the validation of those actions:
  • all decisions will be checked from left to right
  • there is no way of jumping out of the action when a correct condition is met.
In the use case from the example movie, that sequence behavior is very important!

Dropdown interaction

The properties dialog box is pretty limited:

In this example you see that:
  • entries are separated by commas
  • formatting allows to choose a font, font style and attribute (faux style), but font size is limited to 14pt maximum
  • the color dialog box doesn't show theme colors
  • the update button allows to see a preview of the look after formatting
  • if you want to validate the choice in the list, you need an associated variable (here v_drop); beware: you have to create the variable in the Variables dialog box
  • the first sentence mentions 'combobox' but as I understand the word combobox this is not correct: in a combobox you can not only choose from a list but you can type in a word (there was an older combobox widget), this learning interaction doesn't allow that.
Maybe you are bit puzzled by the first entry 'Choose a language'? Contrary to the radiobutton/checkbox interactions, the variable associated with a dropdown is never empty! By default it has a value equal to the first item in the list. In the example movie, you will see before choosing, and after resetting that v_drop is equal to 'Choose a language'.

Resetting: it is indeed possible since this latest version of Captivate not only to change the value of a variable by an action, but also to have this change reflected in the Display of the interaction. This new feature is used for the Clear button in the example movie.

Beware: for some reason, the first time you use the interaction you will have to click twice, first click to put focus on the interaction, second click to select item. Strange :)

Example Movie

This movie has only 4 slides. After the 'Intro'-slide you can choose a language on slide 'Drop'. Watch the variable v_drop that is visible in a text caption next to the learning interaction. You get 3 attempts to guess the correct language, reason for the variable v_attempts. The 'Drop' slide has two interactive objects: Submit and Clear. Try out Clear to see how the interaction is reset to its initial state. You can click Submit without choosing a language, you can choose a wrong language or the correct one. The third slide you'll only see when your answer is correct. If you exhaust the three attempts without correct result, you will end up at the 4th slide 'Retry', where you are able to get back to the 'Drop' slide and start guessing again.

Variables

Here is a screenshot of the user variables

As explained before v_attempts tracks the number of attempts and starts with value=3, v_drop is the associated variable for the dropdown interaction.

I used v_dummy, a variable containing the text  'Choose a language' out of laziness, to avoid having to type that text over and over again. Be careful: it has to be exactly the text in the first item, it is not possible to use a variable in the item list.

The variable v_groet is used on the third slide, to customize the text based on the current time of the user (cpInfoCurrentHour). The variable v_wrong is a Boolean (value=0) that will be set to 1 when the attempts are exhausted without finding the correct language.

Events and Actions

EnterDrop, triggered On Enter for slide Drop

This standard action resets everything on the second slide 'Drop': the group Gr_Feedback with empty, wrong and correct feedback messages (empty, wrong, correct) is hidden, group Gr_Bt with the two interactive objects made visible, variables v_drop and v_wrong are reset to the default values.

ResetAct, triggered by the Success event of the Clear interactive object

A standard action that restores v_drop to its default value and hides the group Gr_Feedback.

CheckSubmit, triggered by the Success event of the Clear interactive object

This conditional action has 5 decisions, one for each possible situation:
  1. EmptyDone if the user clicked on Submit without making a choice and it was the last attempt
  2. Empty if the user clicked on Submit without making a choice and there are still attempts left
  3. Correct
  4. WrongDone if the user choose a wrong language and it was the last attempt
  5. Wrong if the user choose a wrong language and there are still attempts left

The Sequence is important: if you put Empty before EmptyDone, it goes awry if it is the second attempt, because Empty would have decremented v_attempts and that means that EmptyDone would result also in a True condition, and user will lose an attempt. Same for WrongDone and Wrong, they cannot be switched. 

ExitDrop, triggered by On Exit event of slide Drop

Exceptionally I use the On Exit event, because in this case it will function perfectly. 

A simple conditional action, based on the value of v_wrong.

More...

There is a simple Jump to slide 'Drop' on the last slide. Resetting will happen with EnterDrop action.

The third slide has an On Enter action, to show the right caption based on the system variable cpInfoCurrentHour. 
Do you accept the challenge to figure out that (conditional) action? No need to use my tongue :)

Force first view - Captivate 8

Update: if you are on a more recent version, please check out this article:

Forcing First View with micro-navigation (shared action)

Intro

As a former college professor I don't like to push students/trainees to watch everything in an eLearning course. After all, you can watch without really seeing as well, that doesn't prove anything about the real 'learning' process. Apparently not everyone agrees with my personal opinion and again a question popped up on the Captivate forums in this thread: Force navigation upon FIRST view....

Problem

The course was totally linear, which is a requirement for the simple work flow I will propose here. To force the student the first time to have the slide played totally before being able to continue is simple: use a custom Next button, timed at the end of each slide, do not use a playbar but a TOC for navigation to previous slides. And set up the TOC settings to allow navigation only to already visited slides.

To improve the user experience, when he is coming back to an already visited slide, the Next button should appear from the start of the slide. That way he can skip part of the slide if wanted. The easiest way to solve that problem is by using an extra, replacement Next button. Because timing from start till end of a slide is the same for all slides, this can be a shape button put on the first slide that is timed for the rest of the project, always on top. It is not possible to use a shape button on the main master slide because such a button has no ID, which means it cannot be controlled, shown/hidden which is necessary for our use case.
The initial buttons can also be shape buttons and for a seamless user experience I'd recommend to use the same look for both the initial and the replacement Next button. However those initial buttons need to be individual buttons on each slides because not all slides will have the same duration, especially when they have VO attached as slide audio.

Example movie

Watch this movie to check the solution. To make the switch between the initial Next buttons and the replacement Next button clear I used a different style. Moreover I inserted a text container with two variables: the system variable cpInfoCurrentFrame and a user variable v_frames (see later) that are used to solve the problem. To navigate back to already visited slides, open the TOC with the red curved arrow top left. The TOC close button has a similar look. Refresh the browser to start the movie again. I didn't check AutoPlay, you'll have to click on the (ugly) arrow in the middle of the slide.


Events and Variables

I created one user variable: v_frames. The system variable cpInfoCurrentFrame will be used as well.
This variable will be used to store the current frame number when the user clicks on an initial Next button. Example: on the first slide the initialNext button Bt_One will appear at 5 secs and pause at 5.5 secs. When you click that button, you'll see that on the second slide the variable has the value '166' which is about the frame number of 5.5 secs at a speed of 30FPS. It is never totally exact (should be 5.5*30 which is 165, but index starts at 0, the exact number should be 164). But for the purpose it will be used, this is OK.

The used events are:
  1. Success event for the initial Next buttons: rBt_One, Bt_Two, Bt_Three, Bt_Four. I don't need a Next button on the last, fifth slide. Those button will trigger the same advanced action NextAction:

  2. On Enter event of slides 1-4 will trigger a shared action Show_Next:

  3. Success event for the replacement Next Shape button SB_Next executes a simple action: "Go to Next Slide"
  4. On Enter event of slide 5 (last slide) will trigger a simple action: "Hide SB_Next"

Advanced/Shared Actions

Advanced Action "NextAction"

This action, triggered by the initial next buttons on each slide except the last slide, has only two statements:

The frame number of the pausing point (which is where the action is executed by design) will be stored in the user variable v_frames. Then the Go to Next Slide command is done. 
Why did I prefer to use an advanced action over my favorite shared action? I don't need to change this action when applying to another button. You could create a shared action if you expect this action to be used in other projects because it is easier to transfer them using the library. In that case the shared action will not need any parameters. When you transfer it to another project, the user variable v_frames will be created automatically. That is certainly an advantage!

Shared Action "Show_Next"

This is the action that does the trick! It is a conditional action: 

When a user enters a slide for the first time, the frame number of the first slide frame will be greater than the frame number stored in the user variable v_frames. That user variable has in that case the frame number of the Next button pausing point that was on the previous slide. But if the user comes back to this slide, v_frames will store a frame number of a similar Next button pausing point on a later slide. In that case the condition in this shared action will be correct, v_frames will be greater than the cpInfoCurrentFrame. The appropriate button is shown or hidden. It is necessary, for an unknown reason (was not the case in CP6, when I blogged about toggle buttons), you also have to enable/disable as well. This is probably due to the buttons being in exactly the same location, but it was not necessary in a previous version. 
I defined only two parameters in this shared action:

It is not necessary to define the user variable v_frames as a parameter because it is always reused. It is a pity that objects have always to be a parameter, because in this particular case it would have saved some time to be able to deselect SB_Next (the replacement Next button, timed for the rest of the project) as a parameter. Maybe in a future version? Some will prefer advanced actions and duplicates to be edited for each button but remember: multiple instances of a shared action do not increase the file size, whereas multiple duplicates of an advanced action do increase file size. And I like the presence of the shared actions in the Library, and easy way to use them in other projects.

Conclusion

I love to solve this kind of problems, trying to find an easy solution that can be reused over and over again. If you ever are stuck with such a problem, please contact me. I am available as a freelance consultant, and having taught for many years in college, be sure to get some training on top.






Tips - Learning Interactions

Intro

Captivate 8 has included several learning interactions, that are not well documented in the official Help. You'll be able to download a descriptive table at the end of this article. In the past I have been blogging quite a few times about using Widgets. And there was a similar article 'Using Captivate Widgets? Some tips'. Learning interactions is the name used by Adobe to indicate widgets that are compatible with SWF and HTML5 output, whereas the former Widgets were meant for SWF output. Some of the widgets are still available, others have been replaced by a learning interaction. Widgets can be found in the Gallery\Widgets under the installation folder of Captivate. Learning interactions can be found also in the Gallery, but you'll use them from a duplicate folder in Public Documents, which is easier to access if you don't have full administrative rights. 

In this article I'll offer some general tips. You will see an example movie, using the Radiobutton and Checkbox interactions but I will not explain in depth the advanced actions used for that example. 

Inserting Learning Interactions

There are two possible work flows:

  1. In the Big Button Bar, use the button Interactions, last option. A dialog box with thumbnails of all interactions will be opened. You'll see a badge 'New' or 'Updated' sometimes, when a new version has been pushed to your system.

  2. From the Insert menu, choose Widget and if necessary browse to the appropriate folder. I'm on Win7, you see the folder in top of the screenshot:

The second work flow is also valid for Widgets, and can be used also if you have problems with the Thumbnails dialog box not showing up. I also prefer it because scrolling through a list with names is more efficient than with the other dialog box. Which work flow you prefer, you'll see the the dialog box to edit the properties and parameters for the interaction popping up. In this screenshot you see the dialog box for a simple radiobutton interaction with 2 options (True/False). I unchecked Highlight because that puts a rectangle behind the words 'True' and 'False'. This is one of the interactions that has an associated variable, labeled v_one in this case.


Associated Variables

As you'll see in the table, several interactions have one or more associated variables. In combination with advanced/shared actions this gives you lot of possibilities for using the interactions. You can have a look at the example movie, using both the radiobutton and checkbox interaction. 
As I warned already in the article Tips about widgets, mentioned above, those variables are not created automatically because you type their name in the Properties dialog box, you have to create them in the Variables dialog box as well. The type of the variable is mentioned in the reference table that you can download from the link at the end of this article. 

Example Movie

After the title slide you'll see a slide with 3 Radiobutton interactions to create T/F questions. The Next button triggers a rather complicated conditional advanced action that covers all possible situations:
  • if the user clicks without answering any question
  • if all questions are answered with False (they are mutually exclusive)
  • if more than one answer is True

If you want to test all possibilities you'll have to refresh the browser several times.

I'm using the new possibility to control the display of the radiobuttons, they can now be cleared by controlling the variable.

On the third slide I use the Checkbox interaction, and if you choose the first option (Captivate 8.0.1) on the radiobutton slide, the first option will already be checked for you, another application of controlling the display, in this case using the same user variable for the first T/F radiobutton and the first option of the Checkbox interaction. The advanced action triggered by the Next button will navigate you to another slide, either slide 4 or 5 as you'll find out.

I added a text container with the four user variables v_one...v_four to show how they are changed in the movie.

Resizing - Refresh Widget

When using the interactions Radiobutton, Checkbox, Dropdown and Scrolling Text you'll often need to resize the interaction on the stage to make everything visible. The placeholder on the stage then can look very distorted, discover the Resize Widget button in the Properties that will appear after each resizing to have the placeholder adapt to the new size:


Customizing - Theme colors

All learning interactions can be customized, at least concerning the colors used. New in Captivate 8 is the possibility to have the Theme Colors palette applied to the interactions. I mentioned this already in the article about: Theme Colors. In the table I indicate which interactions do have that new feature. It is not the case for the Checkbox, nor the Radiobutton interaction. You can see the option in this screenshot of a Glossary interaction:


Improvements for Responsive Projects

Some interactions recently got an update to improve the user's experience when used in Responsive projects. You'll also find indication about that in the table. Whenever you see the option 'Scale Text for Responsive Projects'. On the screenshot of the Glossary interaction that option is visible.

Static versus Interactive interactions

In the former Widgets panel, which disappeared in the new UI of Captivate, you could see that widgets existed in three types: Static, Interactive and Question. Interactions have only two types: Static and Interactive. The difference is the same as for the standard objects: an interactive object (shape button, click box, button, Text Entry Box) has events that can trigger an (advanced/shared) a action and can have a score that can be added to the Quiz total. Non-interactive or static objects do not have those two features.

Most learning interactions are Static. Only the Games (with exception of the old Word Search interaction) are Interactive. Beware: although the score for some Games is stored in the associated user variable, you cannot add that score to the Quiz total. The points attributed to a Game in the Reporting section, are granted to the user in the same way as most questions in Captivate (with exception of the MCQ): black-white. If the game has been played, the user will be awarded the points, whatever the score of the game was.

Table - categories

You can download the table here. The categories are my personal choice:

  1. Interactions without variables
    1. Objects: several small interactions
    2. Display: interactions like accordion, tabs... that allow you to show a lot of info on one slide
  2. Interactions with variables: most of my favourites are here like the checkbox, dropdown, radiobutton and scrolling text
  3. Games (with or without variables)

Drag&Drop is to me also an interactive interaction, but because of its importance and different work flow it is not in this table.

Waiting for your comments :)