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

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

Being able to use SVG’s, for which you can limit the clickable area to the SVG itself, creates a lot of opportunities. In a recent post I explained how you can use them for a custom Hotspot question. 

This time I played with Flags, in Europe a lot of national flags have a cross embedded. Play with this example file. After the title slide which has some explanation, you have to color 5 knowledge check slides, Have fun. 

Small warning: if you are on a small screen, you may have to insist to color the small parts (especially on the UK slide). The part is really clicked when you have seen it shrink. You can play from this link (scalable HTML) or with the embedded version (fixed size):

Setup

You’ll find details about the setup,with topics:

• Objects (including timeline)
• Variables and Events
• Advanced actions
• Shared action (has been used 47 times)

Objects – timeline

From bottom to top you see:

• SS_Proback1: (smart shape) the white background of the progress bar (bottom left). Since the flags have different amounts of parts, I preferred to have an individual background on each flag slide, whereas
• SS_Progress: (smart shape) progress bar is timed for the rest of the project. It has a normal state which is invisible (no Alpha nor stroke), and a state for each added green star, totals 18 states but not all states are used on each slide.
• Gr_Denmark: has all the flag parts, on this slide 5. All parts are SVG’s used as buttons with the default pausing poins at 1.5secs. Each SVG has 3 object states: Normal (with a black pattern), Correct (colored), Wrong (Gray tint). Here is the screenshot with object states for the Cross part of the UK flag:
  

  
• Gr_Colors: group with 5 colors, timed for the rest of the project because same colors are used for all flags. Colors are shape buttons, default pausing point at 1.5s. They have 3 states: Normal, Current and Dimmed. Here a screenshot for the Red smart shape.
  

  
• Country_DK: country name (text)
• SB_Next: shape button timed for the rest of the project, no pausing point, with 3 InBuilt states (Normal, Rollover, Down)
• Title

Variables and events

Three user variables are created for the actions:

• v_color: will store the name of the color chosen from the color shapes; the exact names are needed which are Blue, DarkBlue, Red, White and Yellow.
  
  
• v_counter: will track the number of correct flag parts which have been colored (is equal to the number of stars displayed by the progress bar).
  
  
• v_max: the number of flag parts to be colored. For the first two flag slides this is 5, for the two following slides it is 9 and the last flag slide has 17 parts.

I didn’t provide a replay course button at the end, to limit the number of events and actions. The used events  are:.

• On Enter slide event for all flag slides. They trigger a similar advanced action, depending on the number of flag parts: 'Enter5' (first two flag slides), 'Enter9' (two following slides) and 'Enter17 'for the UK slide.
  
  
• On Enter slide event for the End slide triggers 'EnterEnd'.
  
  
• Success event for the Color shape buttons trigger a similar advanced action 'Blue_Act', 'DarkBlue_Act', 'Red_Act', 'White_Act' and 'Yellow_Act'.
  
  
• Success event of the SVG’s which are the flag parts (used as buttons), trigger all the same Shared Action 'FlagAct'.

Actions

Enter5Act/Enter9Act/Enter17Act (advanced actions)

You see it is mainly a Reset action. Because the color shape buttons are timed for the rest of the project, it is necessary to reset their state to Normal when entering a new slide.  That wouldn’t have been the case if I had repeated the colors on each slide, and left the option ‘Retain state …’ unchecked. However such a setup would have complicated the actions a lot more, than using this advanced action On Enter. The actions for 5 and 17 parts are almost identical, only the value of the variable v_max will change (command marked in red in screenshot). Because of the limited number of actions (3), and the fact that only one command had to be edited,  I prefer duplicate advanced actions over a shared action with multiple parameters.

EnterEnd

This simple action will hide several items which were displayed for the rest of the project and no longer necessary on the Congratulations slide:

Blue_Act, DarkBlue_Act, Red_Act, White_Act, Yellow_Act

These advanced actions are triggered by the success event of the color shape buttons.

The 5 actions are also very similar, here is the screenshot of the Red_Act:

It is very simple to duplicate the actions for the other colors, and change the first command and switch one dimmed and current state to adapt the action to the new active button.

FlagAct

Shared action triggered by the Success event of the flag parts (SVG used as button). In older versions than 11.5 this setup would not have been possible since many bounding boxes are overlapping. The shared action, which I used 47 times, looks like this:

I indicated the 6 parameters by a color code. Four of them are always the same, but they are compulsory, need to be parameters (Progress bar, Next button, Wrong and Correct states). Only the color and the flag part are important to set up correctly. A good labeling system for the flag parts can help. You may have seen that I took care of labeling in a consistent way.

Conclusion

Hope this example releases your creative ideas for similar use cases, both for adult learners and (of course) kids.  It would be great if you commented about that. Or do you have questions, suggestions?

Intro

About 5 years ago I published this blog explaining the workflow for such a question using shape buttons. The embedded example in that blog was of course a SWF output.  With release 11.5 the possibility to use SVG’s as buttons, and to control the clickable area, combined with multistate object made me feel it is time to update this old post.

Why a custom Hotspot Question?

• hotspots have to be rectangular
• partial scoring is impossible

• hotspots with any shape
• partial scoring, which still can be reported to a LMS
• full control

Limitations of custom questions

Example

Please be a bit patient when you see a ‘pink’ feedback (which is the correct style). It may be due to the amount of SVG’s on the slide, but it takes time to hear the audio and see the flag appear and animated.
If the embedded movie is too small for your device, you click this link.

Setup

Look at the screenshot, which shows the Timeline and the Properties, Actions tab for one of the non-correct SVG-buttons  (Luxemburg). In the Style tab, the option ‘Enable Click in Bounding Box’ is disabled to limit the clickable area to the shape of the SVG itself (see recent post). In the screenshot both groups (countries/flags) are expanded. 

For the SVG buttons (countries) Success message is activated and used to display feedback. Those messages have two different styles: grey for the wrong clicks, and pink for the correct ones. After the correct message, an audio clip sounds and the flag of that country will appear at the bottom left. Both for correct and incorrect SVG’s the state will change to the Visited state when clicked: That visited state is grayscale for incorrect clicks. No advanced actions needed so far.

Actions

The on enter event of the question slide triggers the simple action ‘Hide Gr_Flags’

The first three commands are self-explanatory. Why did first apply the effect (line 4) to the group, and wait 0,1 sec before showing the flag? Because that will avoid flickering, a trick I learned from another user many months ago.

Duplicate that action, and edit it for the three other correct SVG’s.

Why did I not use a Shared Action?

If you are a fan, you know that I mostly use Shared actions when possible. This was also the case for this example.Of course, I created first a shared action. But a strange phenomenon appeared: the Effect was not applied for each instance of the shared action, only for the first one. I wanted the whole group to be animated after a correct answer. Yes, I could have ungrouped and changed the action, but then that meant another advanced action On Enter for the slide (where I now hide the group). Moreover I like to have the effect emphasize the whole group instead of one flag.

Still looking out for the reason of this non-consistent behavior. Really this is the first time I encounter a difference between an advanced and shared action behavior. Be sure, will update this post when I have an answer.

Intro

You may also ignore that the new Assets Panel (wait for an in-depth exploration in the near future) includes a set of ‘icons’ which are SVG’s. The hotspots used in 360 slides are SVG's as well, the editing functionality was added to make customizing their colors possible. All SVG’s in your project end up in a dedicated folder of the project Library.

Remember: SVG used as button is only possible for HTML5 output, not for SWF output

.

Example slide

Step-by-step ‘Edit colors’

I will explain this for the Normal state of the big SVG which you clicked in the example slide.

1. Insert SVG and resize

Step 2: Edit mode

Step 3: Select a ‘path’

Step 4: change color

SVG button states

The Visited state is selected in this screenshot. Look at the Properties panel: you see that the opacity is reduced to 50%. This always applies to the full SVG, but in this case only to this state of course. You see a user variable inserted in the added speech bubble. That bubble has no reduced opacity, it is not part of the original SVG but an added shape£.

More?

The Advanced action triggered by the big SVG buttone:

No need to trigger the Visited state, it appears automatically after the first click on the SVG button.

Why?

Recently in this thread user asked how to control the appearance of a hint caption.  It was meant to save some frustrations to the learner: hint should appear automatically after some seconds (to be defined), but should not appear when the learner had performed a certain action before that time. This is clearly not possible with the inbuilt Hint messages for interactive buttons. They only appear when the learner is approaching the place where he should click. A custom solution needed to be found. Three solutions were posted, interesting to have a look and compare them. Personally I always bear in mind that someone would like to use this workflow in a fluid boxes responsive project, and that limits the possibilities because stacking is not allowed in normal fluid boxes. We have multistate objects and since a couple of versions a “Delay Next actions….” command.

Example movie

If you prefer to watch the rescalable version, use this link.

Workflow

Hint = multistate object

Both Hints on slides 2-3 are multistate objects. The normal state is the green text bubble, the second state ‘Void’ is completely empty:

On Enter Shared Action

• Hide the Hint shape
• Wait for a number of seconds
• Show the Hint shape
• Apply an effect (I used an emphasize effect).

Only two items needed to be defined as parameters: the Hint shape itself (compulsory parameter) and the literal used for the Delay, to make it possible to have a variable delay if wanted. The Parameter dialog box will look like this:

Advanced Action ArrowAct

What is the purpose of the Continue command? An advanced action will not release the playhead automatically as is possible with a simple action. On slide 2 a Next button has been added, with a timeline starting after the pausing point of the Arrow shapes acting as buttons. Release of the playhead is necessary to make the Next button visible.

Advanced Action DragAct

Intro

Several years ago I have already created a blog about this topic.

Meanwhile Captivate has added a lot more features: multistate objects, changes in system variables, easier commands etc. Since that question often appears on social media and the old post is also still visited daily, time to offer an easier way. It is also a use case illustraing use of a system variable, following to my recent posts about system variables.  Here you'll discover how you can use an Interactive Video to as training asset for a workflow. It is up to you: video or step-by-ste textual instructions with screenshots.

Why do I prefer a Shape Button?

Captivate has 4 types of buttons, which  have 4 InBuilt states: ‘Normal’, ‘Rollover’, ‘Down’, and ‘Visited’. They can all have extra custom states, which allows to create nice toggle buttons showing the situation at that moment. Examples: TOC open/closed, Audio playing/muted, CC visible/invisible etc (have a look at: 1 action = 5 toggle buttons).  The three first states are included in the object style of the button or the shape, the Visited state is not included. Custom states are neither included in the button style.

Text buttons, Transparent buttons (which are not necessarily transparent), Image buttons can NOT be used on master slides, can NOT be timed for the rest of the project.  A shape button can be used on master slides, can be timed for the rest of the project. For a toggle button Play/oause this is a big advantage: you need only one shape button for your project. If you prefer one of the older button types, you would need a button on each slide.

Workflow - Interactive Video

The movie is based on a Video Demo. The CPVC-file was captured at 1280x720. It is embedded as interactive video in a cptx-rpoject with a resolution of 1024x627. The ratio widht/height is not the same because the synchronized interactive video has a top control bar. I extended the functionality of Interactive video, you'll find some tips in my next post.

I will not embed the video in this post, it would be too small. I offer you two links: the first is to the unscaled published movie, where you'll have the best quality which is important to watch the sometimes very tiny features of the Captivate UI. If you want to see it oscaled to your browser resolution, you can use the second link, which is to a rescalable version. It may look more blurry on a very big screen, but you need to use this version if you want to watch on mobile devices:

Fixed resolution: Custom Play/Pause

Rescalable: Custom Play/Pause

Workflow Step-by-Step

Step 1: Creation of the Shape button

• Create a shape and check off the option ‘Use as Button’.
• Open the State panel, using the button ‘State View’ in the Properties panel.
• In the Normal state, fill the shape with an image and/or text you want to show when the course is playing, to pause the course.
• Delete the InBuilt states ‘Rollover’ and ‘Down’, using the right-click menu on those states (you cannot use a simple Delete key).
• Add a Custom State, and name that state  (I use 'Play' as label)
• In this custom state fill the shape with an image and/or text you want to show when the course is paused, to resume Playing.

Here is a screenshot of the states I created in the video:

Step 2: Location Shape button

Once the button is ready, you have to decide where to put it, and take out the Pausing point. Reason: you want this button to be available all the time, but not a pausing point like you need for a Submit or a Next button. There are two possibilities for its location;

1. On Master slides

If you want to use the Play/pause button on all slides, and you are creating a non-responsive project or a responsive project with breakpoint views, the easiest way is to copy/paste the button to the Main master slide. The daughter master slides can inherit the button. Careful: in some themes the Title master slides is not using the main master slide objects, you’ll need the button also on that master slide in that case.

There is a problem with this possible workflow due to the fact that shape buttons on master slides do not have an ID, and that means they cannot be used with the Chang State command. You can not show a custom state for shape buttons on master slides. As a workaround (not explained here in detail), you can combine the functionality of that button, with a two-state image which is on the first slide, timed for the rest of the project. That image will have an ID and you change the state of that image. The shape button on the master slide needs to be transparent (you can keep a stroke if you want) so that the images will be visible.

For a fluid boxes responsive project, you cannot use the main master slide (cannot have fluid boxes). You will need to insert the button on each used master slides where you want that functionality.

To turn off the pausing point: open the Actions tab of the button, and uncheck the option ‘Pause project until user clicks’.

2. Timed for the rest of the project

The alternative for the master slides, is to have the Play/pause button on the first slide, and time it for the rest of the project, always on top. That has to be done in the Timing Properties of the button. At that same place you can also turn off Pausing:

For a Fluid Boxes project: object timed for the rest of the project is normally not possible. I explored and found it iw possible but with the requirement that you use the same master slide for all content slides.

Step 3: Create Advanced Action

The success event of the button has to trigger a rather simple advanced action. Check the ‘Conditional Tab’ and create this action:

Explanation: I am checking the value of the Boolean variable cpCmndPause (see article). If that value = 0, the course is playing.

In that situation I will use the command ‘Pause’ (‘Pause’ is exactly the same as ‘Assign cpCmndPause with 1) and change the state of the button SB_PausePlay to the Play state.

If the course is paused however, that variable would not have the value = 0 (but = 1) and the ELSE commands are done: the state of the button is reset to Normal, and the playhead is released by the command ‘Continue’ (which is the same as Assign cpCmndResume with 1, which is also setting cpCmndPause back to 0).

Warning: not everything is ‘paused’!

As I explained more in detail in my sequence of blogs about the timeline, even an absolute pause (‘Pause’) will not pause everything.  Here in short the most important:

• Animations of all type (animated GIF, SWF, OAM….).
• Event video if it is playing
• Audio which was started with the command ‘Play Audio’

For more information:

Pausing Captivate's Timeline

Pausing Timeline and Audio

You would have the same  situation  with the Pause button on default Captivate playbars. It is not due to the fact that this is a custom button.

Why?

This is not a blog post for intermediate or advanced users. Since CP2019 is released, with the hotspots for 360 images and videos in a VR project or a normal project, I see the same question appearing regularly: why cannot we have that feature for a 2D image? Hence my idea to offer you some possible workflows with a step-by-step explanation and a free downloadable project file. This first post shows a project where the functionality of VR hotspots is being duplicated as close as possible:

• When user clicks a hotspot, text, image and/or audio will appear, and automatically disappear after a specified time (here you can also use video, which is not possible in a VR project)
• The hotspots get a checkmark after having been clicked.

However only the status ‘Exploratory’ is used, not the ‘Guided’ status. I would be able to reproduce that as well, but the workflow will be more complicated.

Example movie

Watch the result in this movie with 3 slides. After the title slide you’ll see the hotspot slide. The last slide lists up the steps explained below, if you want to create the workflow from scratch. I will also offer you the project file, you can also copy/paste the hotspot slide to your project, thus allowing to skip some steps.

Copy/Paste Slide

You can download the project file (created in version 11.0.1.266) from this link.

You can copy/paste the hotspot slide (slide 2) to your project. Replace the image. You can edit the design of the hotspots (names start with HS_), change the content of the states in the Multistate object labeled SS_Info.

Have a look at the Library, folder Shared Actions. You’ll see that it has been used 6 times, once for each hotspot. If you change names of the states in the multistate object, you will have to edit that parameter. Same for the duration. The other parameters are always the same for each hotspot: the name of the multistate object and its Normal state.

Steps, from scratch

Create hotspot

I used a shape button as hotspot. It has several advantages over the older type of buttons. You can choose any shape or create a custom shape (here I used just a circle), you can fil it with any color from your Theme Colors as solid color or in a gradient (I used a gradient) or even fill the shape with any image. Moreover you can type text in the shape. I kept the hotspot very simple: just a question mark. But you can replace the text or the fill as you like. It is important that the shape button – hotspot has at least two InBuilt states: the Normal and the Visited state. You could also use the Rollover and Down state, which I deleted in the example file/movie. This is the state panel of the hotspot:

Duplicate hotspot

I labeled the used style as ‘Hotspot’. However, the Visited state is not part of the style (which I regret a lot). For that reason I did duplicate the hotspots (CTRL-D). In the project the names start with HS_.  In the example movie you’ll see 6 hotspots.

Contrary to the hotspots in a VR project, these hotspots have a timeline. I kept the default setup: duration of  3 seconds and pausing at 1.5secs. That pausing point is where where the playhead will pause, exactly like for the hotspots on a VR slide.

Multistate object for popups

I put all the popups in one multistate object which is also a shape: it has 1 state more than the number of hotspots. The Normal state has to be ‘invisible’ by setting the Alpha for Fill = 0 and the stroke width = 0. Each of the following states has the assets for one popup. You will see that I have states with only a text container (background in any color, partially transparent), but some have also an image, audio and one even has an event video (which is not possible on a 3D slide).  You can choose any location, it is not locked to the Normal state location. In the example file, the Object states for this shape looks like this:

Import Shared Action ‘HotspotWorkflow1’

Use File, Import, External Library and open the file you downloaded. Find this shared action in the floating Library panel which will be opened. Drag that action to the Library of your project in the folder Shared Actions. More info about external libraries in this post.

Add shared action to hotspots

Select a hotspot. In the Actions tab of its Properties panel, for the Success action choose ‘Execute Shared Action’. Click on the tiny button {p} to define the parameters which are:

• Multistate object with the popups (labeled SS_Info) in my example file. That parameter is the same for all hotspots.
• State: having the info to pop up for that particular hotspot
• Time you want to leave the popup on screen, can be different for each hotspot
• Normal state of the multistate object, is same for all hotspots.

Here is one example screenshot for the hotspot referring to the Virtual Reality project:

Conclusion

Maybe you’ll already feel that this workflow could be optimized. I would prefer to give the learner control over the time he needs to watch the popups by adding a close button. Or maybe cover up the distracting background in a lightbox style? What about the next button only appearing when all hotspots have been clicked? Or a warning if not every hotspot has been visited when the learner clicks the Next button? Lot more workflows are possible, let me know which one you would prefer?

Intro

A week ago I published a first showcase, explaining how to replicate the hotspot workflow for VR projects on a 2D image. This second article about using hotspots for a 2D image is not duplicating as closely that same feature: instead of showing the popups for a duration defined by the developer, this workflow will offer a close button for the popups. The learner decides when to close a popup and proceed (eventually) to the next hotspot. I also used a technique, often labeled as 'lightbox': to have the popup stand out of the rest of the content, it will have a semi-transparent cover in the background dimming the rest of the slide.

Example movie

I used the same image (welcome screen) and content for the popups as i the first workflow. Only  some small color changes and changes in the location have been applied . Watch this 3-slide movie: after the title slide (doubles as poster image) you can test the new hotspot slide, and the last slide gives a short Step-by-step list if you want to use this slide in your project. 

Try it out: quick workflow

You can download the project file from this link

If you do not need to have more than 6 hotspots, and you are happy with the resolution of the project (1024x627) and its Theme (Pink Icing), you can quickly use the hotspot slide using these steps:

1. Create a blank project, with that resolution and theme. Create your title slide, and eventually a poster image as explained in his older article
2. Copy the hotspot slide from the sample project and paste it into your project. The object names will get an extra number, but you don't have to bother about that. The advanced and shared action is automatically adapting to the new names.
3. Select the Image..  'WelcomeScreen.png' and replace it by your image (Properties panel).
4. Move eventually the hotspots to the right location. If you need less than 6 hotspots you can hide some of them in output. Deleting is also possible. Start by hiding or deleting the last hotspot(s). The sequence of the hotspots is starting with HS_Responsive (first in first row), going to the right and then to the second row. Last hotspot is for the PPT.
5. Open the multistate object SS_Info.. which is just on top of the 'Cover' (needs to be there). Click the State view button in the Properties panel to open the Object State panel.
6. Leave the Normal state alone. Replace the content in the other states by your content (follow the sequence described under 4.)  You don't need to rename the states, nor to delete the last unused ones (just leave them as they are).
7. Start testing with 'Preview HTML in Browser' (F11).