To all readers: best wishes for a healthy and enthralling 2020!

Have some fun with this small game, created from an Adobe Stock image, using Illustrator (for assets) and Captivate 11.5. Again SVGs are used extensively. You can play the embedded game (fixed resolution) but I recommend to play it from this link which is a rescalable version. It may be easier to find the differences, especially if you are using a big screen.

Lot of SVGs, some multistate objects, one shared action, two small advanced actions + two variables. If you follow me since a while you know that I had lot of fun with all my favourite Captivate tools.  I didn't use any Javascript directly (actions are converted to JS on runtime) but I’m sure this can be done with JS as well.

The usual white screen with grey arrow is replaced by a poster image. After the mysterious title slide game, game and end image are all on the second slide.

Setup

Objects and Timeline

SVGs reign as you can see in the screenshot of the Timeline panel of the game slide:

The stacking (z-order) of the objects is important. From bottom to top you see:

• Two instances of the same image (SV_Correct to the left and SV_NOK to the right.
• Two text containers which show the two titles (Tx_Correct and Tx_Difference).
• A click box CB_Wrong: it is important that this click box is below all other interactive objects, and that its pausing point is at the same time as the other ones (here 1.5secs).

• 
• A multistate object functioning as progress bar. The Normal state is invisible (Alpha set to 0), and you see all the states in this screenshot:
  
  

  
  Just a note: there are some display problems with SVGs in the present version, and that can make the previous screenshot bit confusing. Although the circles have the same size in all states, they seem to be smaller when more circles are present. Moreover something seems to be wrong with the C4 state: total width seems smaller than for the other states. Reason was that originally that state switched to 'Custom', instead of Original.
  In this case it is very important that the option 'Original' size is forced for each state.
  

  
• A shape 'Cover', which is rectangular filled with Solid dark gray, with Alpha = 70%.
• Final image 'SV_Eind' (sorry for the Dutch label). 

Variables 

Two user variables were created:

• v_counter: with a start value of 0, will be incremented when a correct hotspot has been clicked.
• v_hotspot: will be set to the number of hotspots minus 1; in this case it is set to 6 since there are 7 hotspots.
  

Advanced Actions

Two advanced actions are used:

EnterGame triggered by the On Enter event of the Game slide

WrongAct triggered by the Success event of the Click box CB_Wrong

Another rather simple standard action, to let some audio play and have effects with the cover:

Shared Action 'CorrectHotspot' triggered by the SVG buttons (Success event)

The most important script for this game. Several actions happen when a correct hotspot is clicked:

• An effect is applied to emphasize the clicked SVG, in this example I used a ScaleTo effect.
• Secondary an audio clip is played (sort of congratulation)
• The hotspot needs to be disabled, to avoid having it clicked multiple times.
• To track the number of discovered hotspots, the counter variable needs to be incremented.
• Progress has to change in the indicator (yellow circles multistate object)
• When all hotspots have been found, the final image has to appear (with an effect).

This is a Preview of a filled in action, where the 5 necessary parameters are marked in a color rectangle:

None of the candidate parameters need to be a parameter: the two variables (v_counter and v_hotspot) nor the literals. As I have emphasized many times, it can be tricky to define a literal as parameter. In this particular case it could have been possible to indicate the Delay time needed to listen to the audio clip being defined as parameter. That would be necessary if you want to use audio clips with very different lengths for the the individual hotspots. The parameters are visible in this screenshot:

Why shared action instead of duplicate advanced actions?

You can use exactly the same shared action if you have a different number of hotspots (differences). Just edit the action EnterGame to replace the value to be assigned to the variable v_hotspot. It is the reason I replaced the literal '6' by a variable v_hotspot. Several parameters are used multiple times in the shared action: the name of the progress bar, the hotspot, the audio clip. When using duplicate advanced actions you would have to edit quite a lot. 

One of the disadvantages is the fixed status of the applied Effects. If you want another effect, use the shared action as template for an advanced action, replace the effects and save it as a new Shared action. If you are new to shared actions: contrary to advanced actions it is perfectly possible to save a new action with the same name, provided the older one is no longer used.

Why?

Recently a Captivate posted a question in the Adobe forums.: ‘How to create a lightbox within a state of an object‘. She was upgrading an older project, where the developer used a slide for each lightbox, by using multistate objects to replace the multiple slides.  After having asked for some extra information, it turned out to be more complicated than just the creation of lightboxes.  It was about a two-step process for extra information:

1. Clicking a ‘question button’ would show the answer to the question as a popup (Click-Reveal workflow). That popup didn’t really need a way to close it, but clicking another question button should replace the content by new content. OP was correct that using a multistate object was the perfect workflow for this first step, with a Normal state which was invisible by setting Alpha (for the Fill) and Stroke both to 0. I have demonstrated this use multiple times in blogs.
   
   
2. The content needed to have a way to open a ‘lightbox’ (in the traditional sense explained before) with more information related to the question/answer already shown. 

Problem

Such an interactive object can be a button, a click box or… a hyperlink. Quite a while ago I wrote a couple of articles to demonstrate the power of hyperlinks which is ignored by many. However, for HTML5 output in the recent version (11.5.1) its use to run advance actions seems not always to be functtional, needs lot of testing. Originally when creating the sample output, I planned to use hyperlinks in most cases, but had to give up for the reason just explained. BTW all actions triggered by hyperlinks worked perfectly for SWF output. So I had to revert to buttons in most cases. I will explain the complete setup in a blog.

Example project

• Clicking a question button will show a popup which should contain the answer, and there is a (image used as) button to open the lightbox. The question buttons shows a ‘Current state’ when clicked.
  
  
• Clicking the button opens a lightbox: cover, shape with content, and a hyperlink used to close the lightbox. When the lightbox is closed, the question button will revert to a ‘Done state’. It is not a Visited state, but a custom state.

You can watch the project below (fixed resolution) or using this link (rescalable output)

Setup

Objects – timeline

See the setup, using this screenshot of the timeline panel:

From bottom to top:

• Five question buttons, which are shape buttons labeled SB_Quest1….SB_Quest5. They have a pausing point at the default 1.5secs. For those buttons I deleted the InBuilt Rollover and Down states, but added two custom states: ‘Current’ and ‘Done’. 
  

  
  .
• A group of shapes used as text container for the answers SS_Answer1…. SS_Answer5. I could have used a multistate object as well. I started using individual texts because I hoped to use a hyperlink for the lightbox switch.
  
  
• A shape used as Cover. Its position in the stack order is important: it needs to be above the answer and question objects, but under the multistate object SS_ExtraInfo. That cover is a shape, filled with dark gray, partially transparent. Beware: it is also used as text container: look for the text ‘Close Lightbox‘ which has been converted to a hyperlink triggering an advanced action.
  
  
• Multistate object SS_ExtraInfo which has a state to appear in the lightbox for each of the answers. The Normal state is empty (Alpha and Stroke shape = 0).
  

  
• Button Bt_Info (used a button from thitOt not necessary to be on top of the stack, Its position in the stack order is not important, because will be hidden when the lightbox appears.

Variable

Events and Actions

On Enter slide event: "EnterAct"

This simple non-conditional action is meant to set the slide to its original situation:

If I had used a multistate object for the Answer popups, with a Normal state that was invisible (like for the SS_ExtraInfo), I would not have needed the second command (Hide Gr_Answer). By hiding the Cover, I also hide the hyperlink since it is a text in the cover. No need to hide SS_ExtraInfo since the Normal state is invisible. Why didn’t I use a hyperlink instead of the button Bt_Info? Because the advanced action was not triggered as it does when using SWF output. Too bad.

Question buttons:  Shared Action "QuestAct"

Another non-conditional action, based on this Advanced action:

I converted it to a Shared action, with these 6 parameters:

Button Bt-Info: Advanced action "ShowLightBox"

This is an action with 6 decisions. The first decision is non-conditional, the five remaining decisions are conditional because a different state has to be shown based on the question number in the variable v_quest.  Those decisions have only one command and can easily be created with the duplicate decision button.

Hyperlink: Advanced action "CloseAct"

The hyperlink in the Cover shape triggers a 6 decision action very similar to the previous one:

More…

You can extend the described workflow to more than 5 questions. The shared action can be used, and you may have to add decisions to the two longer advanced actions.

I didn’t provide a close button on the answer popups, for learners who don’t want to see the lightbox, for whom the answer popup is sufficient. It could be done with a hyperlink or an extra button.

It would be possible to have something happen when all question buttons have been clicked, but that will require the creation of one extra variable for each button, a Boolean to be toggled from 0 to 1 if a button has been clicked.  The check for the extra happening has to be added to the CloseAct.

Intro

In a recent thread user asked how to prevent that a learner would click the Submit button on a Drag&Drop slide before having performed at least one drag action. Sort of alternative for preventing ‘Skip’ on a normal quiz slide. Such functionality is not available out of the box.  The D&D slide needed to be scored, which made the situation more complicated (easy reset by developer is only possible for Knowledge Check slides).

Like all quiz buttons, the Submit button on a D&D slide is an embedded objects. Consequence: it doesn’t have an individual timeline nor an ID. There is no way to disable that button. You can drag it out to the scratch area, and use Auto Submit, but that was of course no solution for this situation.

Example file

Have a look at this published file.  As usual I used some ready-to-go-slides, in this case from the project ‘Rhapsody’.  All slides were taken from this Quick Start Project, but I deleted the existing Drag&Drop interactions,  just used the design components. After the title slide, you’ll see two Drag&Drop slides. The Submit button is not on the slide when you start, it will only appear after the first drag action.

The Submit button is not on the slide when you start, it will only appear after the first drag action.  To make the slides more similar to quiz slides, I added a second step to the Submit Process.

Check your Captivate knowledge for version 11.5. Either use this link (rescalable) or watch the embedded published file (fixed size):

The trick is to use the Timeline and a motion path effect triggered by any Object action. Not really very complicated, follow the steps below. This workflow, due to stacking of objects, is not that easy in a Fluid Boxes project, the example was a non-responsive project with Scalable HTML output.

Step-by-step Delaying Submit button

1. Pause the timeline before the default pausing point

By default each Drag&Drop slide has a pausing point at 1.5secs, similar to question slides and linked to the Submit process. Too bad, that pausing point is not visible in the Timeline panel, you can only see and edit it in the D&D panel.

You need to pause the timeline at a frame before this pausing point  at 1.5secs by inserting an interactive object which remains invisible to the learner. In this case I inserted a click box, small size (1px for width and height) and located in a place where it is very improbable that learner will try to click. Set it to infinite attempts with the command ‘No action’ to be triggered by its Success event; do not show the Hand cursor. Have a look at this screenshot for the setup of this click box:

The topmost click box which appears later, will be explained the workflow for creating second step Submit process.

Step 2: Drag Submit button off the slide

To make the Submit button invisible you drag it in the scratch area, either to the left (first D&D slide) or to the right (second D&D slide).

Step 3: Timebased motion effect to Submit

Although the Submit button is an embedded object, you can apply an effect to it using the Right-click menu or the Timing properties. The timing of the effect will not be visible in the Timeline panel, because the button has no timeline. The only way to set up the timing is with the numbers in the Timing panel. This motion effect (I used Left-to -right or the opposite one depending on the location) can be very short (used 0.2secs). It is important that it starts at or after the pausing point of the click box (step 1), and ends before the default D&D pausing point (which was kept at 1.5secs.). See this screenshot for one of the Submit buttons:

Step 4: Create User variable 'v_drag'

Create a Boolean variable, labeled it v_drag. Its default value should be 1. It will be toggled to  after the first drag action.

Step 5: Advanced (conditional) action 'ObjectAct'

The purpose of this action is to release the playhead with the first dragging of any drag source to a target. The result will be that the Timebased effect on the Submit button will occur, and the Submit button enters the slide. The playhead will be paused by the default D&D pausing point at 1.5secs. Hence the importance of the timing of the effect described in step 3.  To avoid a same playhead release to happen on subsequent dragging, the tracking variable v_drag is toggled to 0, and the action is conditional:

Step 6: Attach 'ObjectAct' to all Object actions

Since you don't know which will be the first drag action, you need to attach to every drag action. That  is the boring part since there is no easy way to attach the same action to all at once, not even for one drop target. Here are the steps for each drop target:

• Select the drop target
• Click the button ‘Object Actions’ in the tab ‘Format’
• For each of the drag sources open the No action list, choose Execute Advanced Action
• Choose ‘ObjectAct’ as advanced action.

In the example file you’ll have 3*6=18 object actions in the first D&D slide, and 4*4=16 in the second slide. I really hope one day there will be a way to apply the same action to multiple object actions at once…

Do not forget to test! The actions Success and Last Attempt (wrongly labeled as Failure) were left both to the default command ‘Continue’. That way the learner will have time to watch the feedback. Timing of the feedback shapes (or captions) can be edited as you probably know.

Workflow: adding second step to Submit Process

If you veiwed the example file, there was a second step (click the slide to proceed) added. If you don’t do that, the feedback message will appear and the playhead will be released, out of control for the learner. It is a simple trick, as you may already have seen in the first screenshot of the Timeline for the first click box.

I added a second click box, covering the whole slide, but appearing after the release of the playhead by the Drag&Drop actions on Success of Last Attempt (1.5seconds). This click box triggers the default ‘Go to Next Slide’:

Don’t forget to warn the learner about this second step, The example file had the warning in the feedback messages.

This last extra workflow is NOT possible in a Fluid Boxes project because stacking is not allowed. You can use the first workflow with the motion path in a Fluid Boxes project, but may have to replace the click box by an invisible shape or transparent button (no fill nor stroke) if you want to add them to a normal fluid box.

Intro

Example project

I used some ready-to-go slides from the project ‘Earth’. I didn’t allow Review, and the score slide is not included. As usual, needed to edit the embedded slides. Several slides have a Pause On Enter, which is never a good idea IMO.

Setup

Multistate objects

Both popups triggered by the extra shape buttons labeled ‘Info’ and ‘Score’ are multistate objects with 2 states:

1. Normal state is a shape with Alpha = 0 and Stroke = 0. This means it is invisible to the user
2. State popup exists for both buttons, and has the necessary information to pop up. I used only text, but you can also add images or even event video.. For the Score button I used inserted system variables (cpQuizInfoPointsscored and cpQuizInfoPointsPerQuestionSlide). That way popup will have different values on each quiz slide.
   

   

The  multistate content shape objects (SS_Info and SS_Score) are inserted on the second slide ‘Instructions’ which is the slide preceding the first question slide.  This is very important, don't try to do it on the first question slide itself. I added a button Continue to that slide to replace the Pause On Enter. The multistate object timelines start after the pausing point of the button. They are timed for the rest of the project with the option ‘Place object on top’. Since their Normal state makes them invisible to the learner, no need to mess with Show/Hide.

Variables (Boolean)

Two Boolean variables were created, labeled v_info and v_score.  Their default value = 0, corresponding with the Normal state of the two mulitstate content shapes SS_Info and SS_Score.

Shape buttons

Actions and events

Hide buttons On Enter for Exit slide

Success action buttons SB_Info and SB_Score

A conditional action is needed. I preferred a shared action with 4 parameters. I suppose this is an action which can be used in many projects. If you import the shared action into a new project (from an External Library or with the Import functionality), you do not have to create the variables, only multistate content objects. The shared action is derived from this advanced action:

Each of the four parameters is marked  with a color. One of the big advantages of shared actions over advanced actions are the descriptions which explain clearly what you have to choose, see this screenshot which is for the second button SB_Score:

More?

Here are some possible changes or extensions of the idea, which is basically that you need the popups present on the slide BEFORE the first quiz slide and timed for the rest of the project.

• I used only text in a shape, but the popups can be anything, you can add images, video....
• With the present setup both popups can be visible at the same time. If you don't like that, add an extra command to the shared action (and a parameter) where you change the state for the 'other' popup back to Normal.
• You do not like the way popups have to be closed with the same toggle button? It is not possible to add interactive objects to a state, except to the Normal state. You can also insert a hyperlink like an X to the normal state. But that means you have to switch the content filled state (which is Popup at this moment) and the empty state. Bit more work but doable. About using Hyperlinks to trigger actions, have a look at More is in a Hyperlink
• If you want individual content in the popup, different for each quiz slide, remember you can use a variable to store content. Insert the variable in the content popup and populate it with the On Enter action of the quiz slide.
• ....

Intro

Example

You can watch this file either from this link, (scalable)  or in its embedded version (fixed resolution):

Setup

Here is the filmstrip of the example file:

Slides 1-3 are based on ready-to-go slides from the project Alliance.

Slides 4-8 are random quiz slides taken from a pool with 10 questions.

Slide 9 is again taken from Alliance (but with lot of multistate objects, see later).

Slide 10 is the hidden default score slide. It will automatically be moved after slide 9 because of the scored button on this slide (see step 3).

Slide 11,  final slide allowing to be sure that the final result (100% or 0% ) is correctly transferred to the LMS. I inserted the system variable cpInfoPercentage in a shape on this slide (top left).

Step 1: Score random question slides

Supposed you have the question pools ready, insert the required amount of random quiz slides in the project. All slides in a pool have by default the same score (10 points), it is not possible to have partial scores for MCQs with multiple correct answers.  There seems to be a bug for a FIB slide, where the correct answer appears as tooltip in case you have that question. Will log the bug, seems new.

Once the random quiz slides are inserted, it IS possible to edit the score. I took all score out, set them to 0. Just a tip, check the Advanced Interaction panel (F9, or under the Project menu) to see that the total quiz score is now indeed set to zero.  Penalty has no sense in this situation because success doesn't depend on the acquired score of the quiz.

To avoid long waiting time after the submit process for a question, I moved the pausing point near the end of the slides in all the pool questions.

Step 2: Tracking correct questions

To track the number of correctly answered question, you need to create a user variable v_counter, with a start value = 0. 

That variable needs to be incremented with each correct answer.  Number of attempts on question level is set to 1. It is then sufficient to create a simple advanced action to be triggered by the Success event of all random quiz slides:

Step 3: Results slide

I used a ready-to-go slide to show the result, but have converted several objects to multistate objects. The Normal state is the one shown on Success, the Failure (new) custom state will be shown on failure. This is the timeline of that slide:

Moreover I added two interactive objects to the slide, both invisible in output to start with (eye button in Properties):

• Bt_Failure: is a transparent button similar to the Next button in the Alliance project. It has its default command 'Go to Next Slide'. 
• SB_Success: is a start shape marked as button. Special is the fact that this button is set to Report (Actions tab ), and to include in Quiz. When you check in the Advanced Interaction panel (F9), this shows:
  

  

 Step 4: Conditional action EnterResult 

Use the On Enter action of the Results slide (slide 9) to show the correct state of the 4 multistate objects shown in the Timeline screenshot, and to show either the button SB_Success or Bt_Failure, based on the requirement of having at least 4 answers correct. Of course, the number 4 can be changed (OP wanted 7 correct answers). The action is self-explanatory:

This trick with the two buttons was published in my blog, over 8 years ago. The example file in that article is of course SWF output.  I didn't want to use two identical buttons - same location - in the example of today because that is impossible in Fluid Boxes projects.  This was not such a project, but it is perfectly possible to use the same workflow in a responsive project. It was also the main reason for the multistate objects used on this Results slide.

Extra: Editing Alliances

This is bit off topic, just for those interested

I did edit the ready-to-go slides a lot. Having a pause triggered by the On Exit event is not something  like because it can create problems. All slides have at least one interactive object, which can pause the slide near its end. That project has some quiz slides, but they are NOT based on the quizzing master slides. This means that the theme was not fully realized. When I inserted random quiz slides, which necessarily do use quizzing master slides they looked very different from the nice quiz slides. I have updated the master slides to make them looking approximately like the ready-to-go slides.

There are more problems with this project, which I detected but didn't encounter in this particular project. As I have written in previous posts, never do use the Switch to Destination theme!

Intro

Example

• Geo slide: alphabetically clicks on countries (used English names, not the original names of the coutnries)
• Keypad slide typing the pincode on a numeric keypad.

First and last slide are taken from the Quick Start Project 'Aspire'. The images used as button also are from the Assets panel.

You probably will have more ideas where this workflow can be used for Knowledge Check slides. There is a sequence type of quiz slide, you can test a sequence with Drag&Drop slides, but these alternatives are less limited in design. ould love to hear your proposals for sequence checks as well

Setup

Variables

• v_counter: will track the number of clicks on interactive objects. It starts with a default value of 0. It is reused on the second sequence slide, by resetting to the default value using the On Enter action of that slide.
• v_correct: will track the number of correct clicks, set up with default value of 0 and re-used in the same way as the previous variable.

Multistate Objects

The Normal state is empty (easy to reset, will automatically reset when returning to the slide if ‘Retain State’ is unchecked). The 6 following states correspond with the correct sequence, hence their labeling. The last state is the Wrong state. The sequence of states is important, because I will be using the ‘Go to Next State’ command in the actions.

SVGs

The group Gr_Wrong on the Keypad groups all button SVGS which are not used in the pincode. Those buttons are on top of the image, and can be hidden, since the remaining keypad image shows them as well but in a non-interactive version. For the Geo slide, the colored country  SVG buttons are also on top of a big SVG (Europe), but I don’t want the colored ones to disappear, for that reason the buttons will be disabled, not hidden (see advanced actions below).

Actions and events – Geo slide

Only the items marked by a red oval have to be switched for the actions SV2….SV5Act: the name of the SVG button in the first decision, and the literal (number) in the second decision. If the clicked country is not fitting in the correct sequence, the learner sees the Wrong state in the multistate shape and the Retry button will appear.

The last country SVG button (SV6) has a slightly different action, derived from the previous one.  Reason: the Next button has to appear if the sequence is correct. That extra command is highlighted by a blue rectangle.

The Next button has the default command ‘Go to Next Slide’ on its Success event.

The Retry button needs to  everything, as you can see in this screenshot. Action is triggered by the Success event:

Actions and events – Keypad slide

Some explanation may be needed for the Hide command which I highlighted. Since the required pincode (29791) needs the number ‘9’ twice (second and fourth position in the sequence) I have put two SVGs on top of each other: SVG_Two and SVG_Four. By default SVG_Two is visible, but SVG_Four  is hidden and becomes visible With the same action where SVG_Two is hidden. You cannot have two interactive objects on top of each other when both are active at the same location.

The Number buttons trigger an advanced action On Success.  It is similar to the one in the Geo slide, except for using Hiding instead of disabling. Example of the first number button (which is 2):

As explained above, for SVG_Second (number 9) is bit different

Similar to the Geo slide, the last correct button (number 1) will show the Next button if all was correct:

Any wrong number button will trigger this action using its Success event:

The new Retry button, labeled RetryBis is similar to the one on the Geo slide, triggers:

Remember that the SVG button Four  is in the same location as Two, because both have the number 9. That is why SVG_Four has to be hidden and SVG_Two shown.

Why no Shared Actions?

• The SVG button SV_1 – compulsory parameter in the first decision
• The literal ‘1’ in the condition of the second edition, not compulsory
• The multistate object Tx_Display, compulsory parameter in the second decision
• The state Wrong in the ELSE part of the second decision
• The button Bt_Next in the ELSE part of the second decision

Why is the literal a problem? Because it is also used in the Increment command. If you replace it by 2 for the second button, this will also be the case in the Increment command. I may have a workaround, but it is not always functional.

Second reason: with the workaround the parameters would increase to 6, which is my limit for a usable Shared action. Whereas using duplicate functionality for the advanced action is lot quicker, since only two items need to be edited.

This blog is already way too long. If you like to hear about my ‘thumb rules’ for choosing between duplicate advanced and shared actions, post a comment. Maybe I’ll dedicate another blog to it.

Why?

In Flanders there is a saying ‘Twee vliegen in één klap’ (killing two flies at once). Let me show a workaround for a Pretest (without the normal limitations) and update  that old post, taking advantage of improvements since …. version 6. Have to refurbish a lot of posts, which are still attracting visitors, with HTML5 output. Here is one of them.

Example file

Setup

I will explain the variables used in this example, and the actions/events in the rest below.

Variables

System variables

cpQuizInfoPointsscored: the points scored so far by the learner, is updated after the Submit button is clicked.

cpInfoLastVisitedSlide: is used to check if the learner gets to a slide from the previous slide or from another slide (because getting a passing score has become impossible.

User variables

v_PassPerc: required pass percentage for the Pretest. As explained for the previous variable, I preferred a specific variable instead of the system variable cpQuizInfoPassPercent. The value has to be filled in on definition, in this case it was set to 80  %.

v_PassScore: will be calculated from the two previous variables (is same in the example as cpQuizInfoPassPoints.

v_MaxUntil: will be calculated. What is the maximum score the learner would have gotten until the present question (all answers correct).

v_MaxRemain: will be calculated. What is the maximum score the learner can obtain with the remaining questions? Logically the sum of v_MaxUntil and v_MaxRemain should be equal to v_MaxPretest.

v_Possible: will be calculated, what is the maximum score which the learner can obtain if he/she gives a correct answer to all questions still to be answered.

Advanced Actions – Events

EnterFirst

The variable v_Passcore is calculated from two other variables having a default value. In this case v_MaxPretest was 40 points  (maximum score) and v_PassPerc = 80% required for passing the test. Result will be 32 points for v_Passscore.

The variable v_MaxUntil will get its first value, which is the score possible to obtain for this first quiz slide.

EnterPre

CheckPre

The trick used is to calculate v_Possible, which is the maximum score a learner can still get after the present question, supposing he/she will give a correct answer to all the remaining questions  (value of v_MaxRemain). Learner already obtained a score stored in cpQuizInfoPointsscored. This calculation happens in the first decision ‘Maths’.

The second decision is conditional, and will navigate the learner out of the Pretest (Jump to Score slide) if he will not be able to pass the test. If it is still possible to acquire the passing score, the test continues.

EnterScore

This is the most complicated action, because it has to take care of three situations.  Each situation results in a conditional decision:

1. If the learner has finished all questions (last visited slide was slide 8, which is the last question slide), but did fail, (comparing score with v_PassScore).  In that case the appropriate state of an multistate SVG and a multistate text container is shown.  The Next button appears as well.
   
   
2. If the learner has not finished all questions, (last visited slide was not slide 8) another state is made visible for both multistate objects, and the Next button appears.
   
   
3. If the learner has a passing score for the test, another state is shown and not the Next button, but the ‘ToTest’ button appears, which will navigate the learner to the results slide (from which a separate quiz file can be launched).

Conclusion

Of course the same approach can be used for a normal quiz. It can spare the learner a lot of frustrations if he started the quiz, without mastering the content, and quickly sees that the result will never be sufficient. That was the original reason for the first older post. 

It would be interesting to know if you ever use the default Pretest slides, because I really dislike the many limitations. All Pretest slides need to be at the start of the course and in sequence. All navigation will be disabled, on the playbar as well in the TOC, not only for the Pretest slides but also for content slides which is very annoying. What do you think?

Would it be possible to replace the Pretest slides by Knowledge Check slides? I suspect it would be possible, maybe stuff for another 'anti-frustration' post? The advantage would be that a final quiz will be easier to set up.

Intro

Adding audio clip

• Import the audio clips to the project Library
  

  
• Drag the audio clip to the timeline of the slide (or to the stage, be careful not to drag to an object on the stage). Originally the slide timeline on most QSP slides is 3 seconds. If the audio clip is longer, a dialog box will appear. Choose the first option to extend the slide timeline.
  

  
• Audio timeline appears below the slide timeline. I will increase the slide timeline duration manually bit more, so that I’m able to move the audio clip to leave a small gap before and after the audio.
  

  
• You see in previous screenshot that all the object timelines have been extended automatically.  Reason is that most - but not all  - slides in the QSP are timed for the 'Rest of the Slide'. Check Timing Properties. Have also a look at Tip 1 below.
  
  
• Test the audio, not by using Play Slide but by using a real Preview. This means for a non-responsive project that you need to use F11, Preview HTML5 in Browser. For responsive projects any Preview is fine. The three following tips are meant to fix problems detected during previewing.

Tip 1: Fix when objects disappear

In this slide (12 from Aspire) some objects have a timeline keeping the original duration of 3secs. When playing that slide in Preview, those objects will disappear after 3 seconds.

How to fix?

Tip 2: Pause commands on slide events

Many slides in the Aspire project have the setup as shown in this screenshot.

This setup will prevent the audio clip on the slide from playing because the Pause command on the first frame will pause also slide a udio.

You have to take out that pause. You can safely replace it by ‘No action’ which is the default setting both for On Enter and On Exit slide events Result will be that the slide will not be paused, but the playhead will move seamlessly to the next slide when the audio has finished. That is IMO the most logical situation. If you want to mimick a presentation, where each slide is paused at the end and needs learner intervention, you can change the On Exit action to ‘Pause’ or add a button ‘Next’ to pause the slide. However do not forget that this may not be the best practice.

Tip 3: Pausing points

Contrary to the Pause command (see tip 2) a pausing point will not pause slide audio, although the playhead will be paused and so will all graphics assets/effects which are running or appear later.  By default, all pausing points will be set to occur at 1.5secs, either on the slide (for Quiz slides and Drag&Drop), or after the start of the interactive object timeline.

In most cases the increase of the slide duration due to inserting an audio clip will not cause problems, when the pausing point is due to an interactive object like a button. Reason is that the button will often trigger an action jumping to another slide, or revealing some content. The frames after the pausing point (inactive part) are not important in that case.

Possible issues can occur on quiz slides, if you insert an audio clip.  Here is an example (T/F slide 23 in Alliance):

You see the pausing point on the slide timeline at 1.5secs. Some smart shapes are not timed for the rest of the project (see Tip 1). However since the slide is paused at 1.5secs, before the end of those shape timelines, you’ll not be bothered by that while the audio continues playing (not paused). However, if while testing that slide, you have to wait a long time after the Submit process, and you see the shapes disappearing, that is due to the Actions setup in Quiz Properties. They were set in this slide as shown here:

Both actions are set to ‘Continue’, which means that the playhead is released. It will have to move through all frames after the pausing point (inactive part), and only moves to the next quiz slide after reaching the last frame. Not exactly what you want. Two possible fixes:

Fix 1: 

As is the case for other quiz slides in the QSP projects, replace the action ‘Continue’ by ‘Go to Next Slide’. You don’t have to bother about the wrongly timed smart shapes in that case.

Fix 2: 

Move the pausing point on the quiz slide with the mouse (not possible in Timing properties) to place it near the end of the slide. In that case you have to extend the smart shape timelines as explained in Tip 1. This workflow is recommended over the first fix,  if you expect slow connections with the LMS.

Similar problems can occur on Drag&Drop slides but will not expand on that. Know however that the pausing point is not visible on D&D slides in the Timeline panel as is the case for quiz slides.

Some links

Pausing Captivate’s Timeline

For quiz slides, the Submit Process is explained in detail in this post:

Submit Process

If you want to add audio clips from another type than slide audio:

Pausing Timeline and Audio

Intro

However yesterday a user asked another similar question on the forums. You can visit the thread here

The title doesn’t really reflect the full question, which was clarified later on. User wants to have survey slides, which each have two statements. The learner should rate each statement with a number between 0 and 10, and the sum of both ratings should always be 10. As usual I have a dislike for the word ‘force’ used in the title. The example you will be watching, is not forcing really. I considered three possible situations:

1. Two ratings have a sum of 10, rating is accepted immediately.
2. Sum of the two ratings is not equal to 10. In that case the second rating will be edited to achieve a sum of 10. Learner can accept this change or if he prefers:
3. Learner gets the opportunity to retry to set correct ratings.

Contrary to my old blog post, where I used a MCQ, for this solution used the Radiobuttons interaction. Likert question was not possible, since I needed a rating scale with 11 dvisions (0-10). Moreover Likert is not supported for responsive projects. Although the example is a non-responsive project, the described workflow would also be possible for responsive projects (some changes needed)..

Example File

Setup

Due to this specific setup, extending the survey to more than 3 survey slides is very easy.  Just duplicate a survey slide and edit the statements. Everything will work fine. I will explain the objects using the timeline, the user variables to be created and the advanced actions.

Timeline Survey slide

Have a look at the screenshot of the timeline of the FIRST survey slide:

• Two statements, labeled SS_XStatement, and SS_YStatement. I didn't create a dedicated master slide with two placeholders for these statements, but that would be possible. Labeling of those statements is not so important, because they are not used in any action.
  
  
• Two instances of the RadioButtons Learning Interaction, used as rating scales. Please don't be confused by their green colored timeline, because these interactions are not interactive, they are static. This is a design bug. The properties of one interaction can be seen in this screenshot:
  

  
  Important fields are marked in Red or Green. Beware: you have to create the variable - here ‘v_X‘ i- n the Variables dialog box.
  
  
• Question1: text above the statements with the warning about the sum (could also be a placeholder on the master slide)
  
  
• Submit button: needs to be a shape button, because it has to be timed for the rest of the project. Eventually you can use a SVG or bitmap image (from 11.5 on). Both can also be timed for the rest of the project.
  
  
• A group Gr_Feedback, including the Accept button, Retry button and the Message which appears when the sum of the rates is not equal to 10.  This group is also timed for the rest of the project, which means that both buttons need to be shape buttons, SVG or bitmap images.

Variables

• v_null: empty variable is used to clear the associated variables to the learning interactions. More details about its functionality in this blog
  
  
• v_start: will store the first frame of each survey slide. For the Retry action, the micro-navigation solution described in Replay Slide (scenario 2) is used, hence the necessity of the variable which can be empty as default value. This variable is reused on each survey slide.
  
  
• v_X: variable associated with the rating scale (interaction) of the first statement, default can be empty. This variable is reused on each survey slide. Default value can be empty.
  
  
• v_Y: variable associated with the rating scale (interaction) of the second statement, default can be empty. This variable is reused on each survey slide. Default value can remain empty.
  
  
• v_sum: will be calculated by adding v_Y to v_X. Default value can be empty.
  
  
• v_XScore: will be calculated after each survey slide, by adding the value of v_X. Default value can be empty.
  
  
• v_YScore: will be calculated after each survey slide, by adding the value of v_Y. Default value can be empty.
  
  

Actions/events

EnterAct

SubmitAct

This action is triggered by the Success event of the Submit button. Because that shape button is timed for the rest of the project, you need only one instance of this two-decision action:

The first decision ‘Always’ is not conditional, calculates the value of v_sum which is used in the condition of the following decision.

Second decision ‘Checkit’ verifies if the sum of the ratings is equal to 10. If that is the case, the ratings for X and Y score can be added to the totals, and navigation to the Next slide is done. If the sum is different from 10, the group (2 buttons + message) shows up. The value of v_Y is corrected (10 – v_Y) which will show immediately on the rating scale. The learner can accept this correction or opt for retaking (Retry) the rating.

AcceptAct

RetryAct

This action is triggered by the Success event of the Retry button. Because that shape button is timed for the rest of the project, you need only one instance of this action:

EnterResults

Conclusion

Hope you liked this solution? For a responsive project with fluid boxes, the workflow will be more cumbersome, not only because of the Fluid Boxes setup but also because:

• You cannot use grouping in fluid boxes.
• The possibility to have objects timed for the rest of the project is limited. It is possible if the slides are based on the same master slide, which could be the case for the survey slides.

Could I have used Shared actions? Of course,  I dragged the Replay action from my external library with Shared actions bit for your convenience converted it to an Advanced action. The other actions can be converted to shared actions as well. However withthe described setup, the advanced actions are used only once. If you have issues with the timing for the rest of the project in a Fluid Boxes project, I would certainly recommend to use shared actions because you’ll need an instance on each survey slide.

Intro

• Warrning;  Switch to Destination theme
• Embed QSP slide
  

All QSP projects have also a responsive version, created with the Fluid Boxes workflow. To embed such a slide, you'll  an extra difficulty: how will the fluid boxes – both on master slides and slides – behave?  In this blog that extra problem is discussed, including tips to avoid problems. Supposed is that you have read the two previous articles – for the basic knowledge. First recommendation ‘NEVER’ use the switch to Destination theme for a Fluid Boxes project when inserting a QSP slide in a custom responsive project.

Master slides – Tips

All responsive QSP projects have a bunch of master slides. Those master slides have fluid boxes setup.  Setup can be totally different from the non-responsive projects with the same name. Look at the 'Wired' projects: lot of master slides in the responsive version, no master slides except the necessary 6 in the non-responsive version. As you may have deducted from my previous posts,  the NAME of the master slide used for an embedded QSP slide is very important. If the same name has been used in the receiving (destination) project, extra care is needed. For your use I have created a table comparing Master slide names used in the 5 available QSPs (at this moment: September 2019).  You can download the pdf (was quite a lot of work to create it, please show respect for the protection built in).

QSP MasterSlides

In the table some cells are identified in a special way:

• If the same master slide name is used twice in the QSP, both numbers  are in the same cell, red font on  a grey background. This is a very worrying situation, not sure why the developers did use dual names.
  
  
• Some master slide names appear in several QSPs. If they are identical they are bolded and red for the projects where it is the case. Italic names point to master slides similar to others, but with a slightly different name.

I didn’t include the quizzing master slides. They rarely have been edited a lot (except for the Results slide) and follow the rules I explained in this older post ‘Quiz Slides and Fluid Boxes‘. You could extend the table with the master slide names in your project if you try to embed QSP slides in a company project with an existing theme.

Even master slides with same name, can have a totally different Fluid Boxes setup. The Master slide 'Objectives' is present in 3 QSPs. Have a look at the fluid boxes setup for this Master slides in the projects Aspire, League and Wired.

Aspire's master slide, as you can see, has a rather simple Fluid Boxes setup. The slide ‘Course Objectives’ which is based on this master slide didn’t add supplementary fluid boxes.  That is the case for most slides in the QSPs, only using the Fluid Boxes defined on the master slide. The slide provides 4 topics (Objectives) all in one Fluid Box to the left.

In this master slide of the 'League' project, a lot more Fluid Boxes have been defined. In the screenshot the boxes FB_956 and FB_957 have been collapsed. Their setup is similar to the one shown under FB_955. This master slide provides 3 topics, each in its Fluid Box. As with the Aspire project, the Slide ‘Objectives’, based on this master slide, doesn’t have extra Fluid boxes.

The 'Wired' master slide has the most complicated setup. It is impossible to show the full setup for this master slides. The collapsed FB’s at the bottom each have 5 vertical fluid boxes. No extra FB’s wer added n the slide ‘Objective’. Aspire had 4 topcis (in 1 FB), League had 3 in an individual FB, but Wired has 5 topics. .

You can imagine what happens when you switch from source to destination theme for an inserted slide where both themes use a master slide with an identical name. Have a look at the mess in this example. After inserting the described master slide from the Aspire project, I applied the Wired theme to it. Result, without any warning:

Not only are the objectives not getting into the appropriate FB, the green topics text is not in a Fluid box at all. You will have to move them manually into fluid boxes, and probably delete a lot of (empty) fluid boxes. That is cumbersome work, especially since the FBs are defined on the master slide. That means they cannot be deleted on the slide itself..

Conclusion

For responsive project to brand embedded QSP slide, please follow the step-by-step plan to add a fitting Master slide to the project theme, as described in ‘Embed QSP slides‘. Double-check the name of the Master slide, if it is an existent name in your project, first edit that name in the  QSP theme. That way you will avoid a disaster like I showed above with master slides using the same name.

Feel free to use the pdf I provided with an overview of master slide names for the present responsive QSPs. Beware: there may still be typos, please report them.