Intro

Coincidence because this blog, answer to another forum question, is an alternative workflow to my most recent blog post about Software Simulation Assessments.

Summary of the request:

• Learner needs to click a specific region, two attempts are allowed.
• On Success the Success message appears and the project advances to the next slide.
• On First failure a Hint message appears and an arrow indicates where to click. Moreover a Retry button appears.
• When the Retry button is clicked the Hint text and arrow should disappear.
• If second attempt is successful, Success message appears and the project advances to the next slide.
• If the second attempt is failed, a Sorry message appears with a Continue button to go to the next slide.

Contrary to the previous article, the slide is created manually (no click boxes are added automatically as in a simulation). For that reason I preferred shape buttons over click boxes. A shape button can be made invisible by setting Opacity and Stroke to zero.

The same idea is at the origin of the workflow: at the bottom of the Timeline, a shape button (invisible to the learner) covering the full slide is added. Have a look at this screenshot of the Timeline of the first slide (Flags):

The Success event of this big shape button will trigger the FailureAct action to show the Failure messages. 

Sample project

Watch a scalable version using this link. The fixed resolution version is below:

The Timeline screenshot of the first slide (Flags) shows the objects on this slide, from bottom to top:

• The shape button covering the slide SB_Back. This button will trigger an advanced action 'FailureAct' with the Success event!
• Gr_Flags groups the four flag images
• Title which function as instruction
• A multistate shape SS_Failure. The normal state is invisible (same as the shape buttons), it has a state for the two Failure situations. The Hint message is stored in a user variable v_hint. Reason: this allows to time this message shape for the rest of the project. The workflow is needed in a sequence of similar slides, message can be hidden when no longer needed.
  

  
• Shape button SB_Next, also a multistate object. I took out the Rollover and Down states, but it has a custom state 'Second' where the label changed to 'Continue'. 
  

  
• Shape button SB_Flags, multistate object where the custom state 'Indicator' adds the arrow pointing to the correct location. This shape button is 'invisible' and over the Belgian flag on the first slide, over Portugal in the second slide (see screenshot belos). One of the advantages of shape buttons over click buttons: they can have custom states, and you can edit the form, needs not to be a rectangle:
  

  
• The Text caption is added to show the state of the variable v_attempt. It is part of the debugging workflow, and I forgot to hide it before publishing.

Step-by-step

Variables

Two user variables are needed:

1. v_attempt: has a start value of 0 and will be incremented on each failure (which is a click on the button SB_Backx).
2. v_hint: will store the text to appear on the Hint message (first failure). Careful: you will need to increase the length of the inserted variable because 50 will not be sufficient in most cases.
   

   

FailureAct (Advanced Action)

This action is triggered by the Success event of the shape button SB_Back. The OP preferred to avoid Shared actions. You can assign this action to that shape button on the first slide, but you'll need a duplicate advanced action for each slide, because the color marked items need to be changed:

CleanAct (Advanced Action)

EnterAct (Shared Action)

Success?

For the Success situation I just kept the default Success message. This is the Actions tab for the shape button SB_Flags and similar:

Two messages are allowed, Success 'caption' (is a shape) is activated, and the Last Attempt action is set to 'No action'.

Overview

The Advanced Interaction panel shows which actions are attached to which events:

Intro

Thanks to a question on the Adobe forum: ‘How to have two different Failure messages for click boxes in a software simulation, assessment mode?’, I created a sample project showing the solution, and will explain the workflow step-by-step. It has become a pretty long article, be prepared.

At this moment multiple Failure messages  (up  to 3) depending on the number of the attempt, are only possible for question slides. A click box nor a button have that functionality. Moreover interactive objects, question slides, Drag&Drop slides have only two events to trigger an action: Success and Last Attempt. This means that you cannot use the first attempt to change a situation at all. Of course you could add events using JavaScript or InfoSemantics CpExtra widget. I accepted the challenge to try to figure this out only with Captivate’s features.

Example project

Watch this project either with the embedded fixed resolution version below, or by clicking this link for a rescalable one (recommended).

Step-by-step workflow

Slide setup

Have a look at the Timeline of the first slide with a scored click box:

From bottom to top you have

• A shape button, labeled ‘SB_Back2’ (because this was slide 2 in the project). That interactive object covers the complete slide and needs to be at the bottom, behind the original click box. This means that such a workflow is impossible in a fluid box where stacking is prohibited. It may seem better to create a SVG (used as button) which has a ‘hole’ corresponding with the original click box. However that would be a lot of work, since that click box will be in another location on all slides. Only the Success event of this shape button will be used, and you can leave the number of attempts at Infinite or 1, doesn’t matter.
  Check the screenshot of the Properties, Actions tab: the Success message which appears when the Back button is clicked will act as First Failure message. You may call this ‘cheating’.
  This back button is triggering a shared action labeled ‘BackAct’.
  

  
• The shape ‘SS_Hint’ has no role in the workflow, was in this assessment as help.
• CB_Assess is the original click box inserted in the software sim, assessment mode. The OP provided 2 attempts, but that has to be changed to 1 (see further). I deactivated the Failure message, and kept only the Success message. You see the Properties of this click box to the right. I didn’t use the Failure message, but replaced it by a multistate shape.
  The action On Success is to proceed to the next slide with the next action to be done by the learner. Since there is only one attempt, the Last Attempt action is a Failure action. It is an advanced action ‘FailAct’.
  

  

  It is impossible to have states for the default feedback messages of interactive objects. You can see in the Timeline that this multistate shape is labeled SS_Failure and that it is displayed for the rest of the project, always on top. Its visibility is triggered by state changes.

• The Failure message, which is the second message, is labeled ‘SS_Failure’ and you see the two states in this screenshot. The Normal state is completely transparent and has not text. The state ‘Second’ has the failure message, and the multistate object will be hidden until the ‘second’ Failure attempt happens. 
  

  

Actions

FailAct  (Advanced action)

This action is triggered by the Last Attempt event of the Click box. 

The Failure shape is shown, and will have the Second state in place (see below in the shared action ‘BackAct’. Since it is not a default feedback message, it will not appear automatically nor leave the slide paused for 3 seconds as will be the case for the Success message. That is the reason for the Delay command, followed by navigation to the next slide.

You see that this advanced action will be the same for all the click boxes, because of the Timing of the SS_Failure message for the rest of the project.

BackAct (Shared action)

This action is triggered by the Success event of the shape button SB_Back2. 

Because there are so many instances of that shape button, I largely prefer using a shared action over duplicated edited advanced actions. In the next part (other slides) you’ll see how to avoid having to enter the parameters on each slide. Here is the screenshot of that action, with the indication of its parameters:

The state of the Failure message will be changed to show the ‘second’ message when the click box is not correctly clicked. To allow such a failure you need to hide the back shape button so that a click outside of the click box is possible. But since you don’t want the Failure message to appear right away, you need to hide it. As you could see it will be made visible with the Last Attempt advanced action. Sequence of the actions is very important here: you need to change the state before hiding.

ResetAct (Shared action)

This action will be triggered On Enter for each slide with a scored click box. Since the OP provided multiple attempts on quiz level, I needed also to take into account that the slide will be revisited and custom objects have to be reset in their original status. Custom objects are the shape Back button (SB_Backx) and the multistate shape used for the second Failure message (SS_Failure). That explains why I preferred a shared action with these three parameters:

This is the screenshot of the action with parameters filled in for the first slide:

Slides setup (after first slide)

1. Slides with a Click Box

• SS_Failure: since this shape is timed for the rest of the project, you don’t have to do anything on slides with a click box.
• SB_Backx: the shape button covering the slide. I recommend to copy/paste SB_Back2 from the slide with the first click box, having the Shared action ‘FailAct’ applied to it. Take the time to rename the new copy which will have a generic name starting with SB_Back. I prefer to just change the number to the slide number. It is very important that you send this new instance to the Back, using either the right-click menu, Arrange or the Align toolbar, Arrange options.

  
  The attached shared action will be edited automatically to use the correct Back button for the slide.

• EnterAct: needs to be applied manually to the slide. There is no workaround, you’ll need to choose the correct parameters. Only the first parameter (SB_Backs) is different, both the failure message and its state are always the same.

2. Slides with Text Entry Boxes, FMR or Video Demo slides, Static slides, Results slide

The two failure messages were only needed for the click boxes. You’ll need a simple On Enter action to make sure that the Failure shape has been hidden. With static slides I mean the very short slides which sometimes appear during capture and eventually intermediate explanation slides. You can use the Advanced Interaction panel to help with this setup. Here is an example of this panel for some slides:

Watch the labeling of the Shape back buttons on slides with Click boxes, and the applied actions to the Back button, the Click box and On Enter.

Slide 7 has a Text Entry box and shows the simple State action to hide the Failure message.

This project had 26 interactive objects, Click boxes and Text Entry Boxes. Each of them has a score of 1pt, which leads to the total score showing at the top. It is that score which is stored in the quizzing system variable cpQuizInfoTotalProjectPoints/cpQuizInfoTotalQuizPoints and is used for calculating the displayed fields on the Results slide.

Conclusion

My apologies for this rather long blog post, where I tried to explain the full workflow in detail. A simple question, however with not a real simple answer, agreed? Questions are always welcome. Post them in the comment.

Intro

Another post meant as answer to a more complicated question in the Adobe forums. You can find the (long) thread under this link. Title 'Play different audio on slide revisit' is not covering the final required situations. I will explain the end situation in short terms.

• Project has a menu slide with 4 buttons. Each of the buttons jumps to a chapter of the course. There is narration on this slide, which needs CC and that means it has to be slide audio. That slide has staggered items synchronizing with the narration, and also several  effects applied to objects. The learner can click each button multiple times. Buttons are all active.
• At the end of each chapter the learner returns to the menu slide. On return the playhead should skip immediately towards the end of the slide, when all the objects are in place and narration has finished. Except...
  
• When the four buttons have been clicked at least once another audio clip needs to be played. That clip doesn't need CC.

The solution is less easy than I thought, hence this blog post. 

Example project

I created a barebone project for testing, using some slides from the Quick Start Project Safety. Have a look, to understand better what I explained about the request.

The course has 7 slides:

• Slide 1: Title (poster image is based on this first slide)
• Slide 2 = menu slide
• Slides 3-6: one slide for each chapter
• Slide 7: End slide

Analysis

The menu slide should appear in 3 possible states:

1. First visit: default state, play head will start from the first frame and pause at the pausing point, narration (slide audio) and effects will be visible.
2. Later visits, when not all buttons have been clicked at least once: audio shouldn't play and no need to wait for the staggered objects and their effects. The easiest way to realize both is using the shared action explained in this blog post:
   Force first view and/or play audio only on first visit
3. Visit when all buttons have been clicked at least once: situation like in 2 BUT another audio clip needs to play. At the end of that clip something needs to happen. I choose to jump to the end slide, but this can be replaced easily by another command.

Have a look at the Timeline of the menu slide in the Example project:

You see the staggered objects including an entrance effect. Those are the white numbered shape buttons. The meaning of the top most button (SB_Done) will be explained below but you see that it has audio attached (object audio).

Step-by-step workflow

Variables

Create the user variables shown in this screenshot. The tracking variables (one per chapter) v_1 - v_4 are Booleans, default value =0. The variable v_skip will be populated with the duration of the narration audio clip in seconds. The variable v_audio gets the duration of the final audio clip. As indicated in its description v_buttons is meant for the sum of the tracking variables, which will be calculated whenever the menu slide is revisited.

Button SB_Done

Since it proved to be impossible to use Play Audio for the final audio clip in the project, I opted to use Object Audio. That type of audio plays when the object appears, or is made visible.  The shape button which I use is invisible because both Opacity (fill) and Stroke are set to 0. The eye button in its Properties is marked 'Invisible in Output'. The audio clip is added in the Options tab. The action nor the attempts matter, since the Jump to the last slide will not be done by clicking this invisible button. Have a look at the Style and Options tab in these screenshots:

ReturnAct (shared action)

This action is triggered by the success event of the Return buttons at the end of each chapter, it is pretty simple to understand from the Preview screenshot:

EnterAct (advanced action)

This action is triggered by the On Enter event of the menu slide, takes care of the three possible situations (see Analysis above). Both conditional decisions are mutually exclusive because they are based on the value of the sum variable v_Buttons.

I could have used JS to calculate the value of v_buttons to avoid the sequence of the 3 Expression commands.

If you want to reuse this action for other projects, I would recommend to convert it in a shared action. Be careful with the two literals (duration of both audio clips). They can be tricky, and it may be better to replace them by variables getting their value in the Variables dialog box.

Overview: Advanced Interaction

This screenshot shows all events and actions in the example project.

Intro

Randomizing exists in some limited situations in Captivate:

• Question pools allow to add randomized quiz slides to a project.
• Shuffle feature for several question types can be seen as randomizing.

However in all other situations you need to use JavaScript to get a randomized number (or text). This short blog is meant as an answer to a user request in the eLearning community, to be found under this link. In my blog you will find multiple examples of randomizing for games. This is a very simple example since the user only wants to have a random card chosen from a deck on clicking the deck. A second click on the deck needs to flip back to the cover of the cards.

Example file

There is only one slide in this project besides the Title slide. The three (tarot) decks are identical, have 14 cards. Try it out. You may get some ideas how to use this workflow for games. In the future I will post more examples of this workflow in a bigger tutorial project. 

This example can be watched below (fixed size) or you can click this link for a rescalable version.

Step-by-step workflow

Multistate object (deck)

Decks are multistate objects with 15 states. The Normal state shows the cover. Due to the script the labeling is important for the other custom states. They are all labeled Cardx  where x is a number corresponding with the rank of the card. The three decks in the example are identical, but you can have decks with a different number of cards, just use the same logic for the numbering. Look at the Object state panel for Deck1:

Variables

In Captivate I need only one variable for each deck to follow up the status: is it showing the cover, or a random card? Two possibilities means that I can use a Boolean variable. When the cover is visible, the variable has the value 0, for a random card it has the value 1.

Advanced Actions

Click boxes trigger a conditional advanced action. Here is the action for the first click box (CB_1) over Deck1:

The Boolean variable v_1 is checked. If it has the value 0, a random card needs to be shown which is done by a JS script (see below), and the variable is toggled to 1. If it has the value 1, the cover (which is the Normal state) is shown. 

For the second and third deck, the variable and the name of the deck need to be edited.

Javascript

The used trick is to create the name of the state by concatenation of two strings:

• First string is always 'Deck1'.
• Second string is a random number between 1 and 14, converted to string.

I have explained in depth the use of Math.floor(Math.random()*(max-min))+min) in an older blog post:

Playing-with-numbers-part-1

That random number is converted to a string with a JS method. Result of the concatenation is the name of one of the states in the deck multistate object. 

For the second and third deck, the deck name need to be changed in this script. If you do have more or less cards in those decks you need to edit the maximum number (here set at 15).

More ideas?

This basic example may have ignited your creativeness? What about creation of a jackpot game? A funny mathematics exercise for your kids? A board game where you use a dice? 

For this use case it is impossible to create a shared action. One of my long-standing feature requests for actions is the possibility to generate a command using concatenation. A second one: being able to change a state based on a variable.

Intro

One of the reasons I started using eLearning assets as professor in a university college, was to offer students a more personalized learning experience. In this blog I will not expand on that goal, but show how you can use an ignored feature of advanced actions in combination with multistate objects to offer the choice or a personal avatar. 

Do you know that several simple actions (dropdown list in the Actions tab for a slide or an interactive object) also appear as possible commands in advanced action, but that they are ‘enhanced’? Typical examples are:

• Show/Hide: as simple action they can only address objects (or groups) on the same slide as where you trigger the action. However when used in an advanced action, you can address all project objects.
  
  
• Change State/Go to Next State/Go to Previous State: when used as simple actions you can only point to multistate objects on the slide of the action, but used in an advanced action you point to all multistate objects in the project.

Example project

Have a look at this example. You can use the Table of Content (custom button) to navigate freely. This project has:

• Title slide
• Slide ‘Flashlight’ with timeline staggering, where you see bottom left an avatar
• Slide ‘AvatarChoice’ where you can change the avatar. It is not the first slide to prove that the avatar change will also be functional on the previous slide (Flashlight)
• Slide ‘CareerSteps’ which has an avatar outside of the slide, but it will appear in steps if you click the play button (motion path animation triggered partially with each Play button click)
• Slide KnowledgeCheck where the avatar is used to give a feedback message

Have fun:

Setup workflow

Multistate objects

Lot of multistate objects were used in the project:

Slide AvatarChoice

The four buttons with the avatars are SVGs used as buttons. The InBuilt states Rollover and Down were deleted, but a custom state labeled 'Chosen' was added to show the selected avatar by adding a white-stroked border (shape) to the original avatar image.

Slides Flashlight, CareerSteps, KnowledgeCheck

The images SV_Candidate (Flashlight), and People (CareerSteps) have 4 states. The Normal state shows by default the first male avatar. This screenshot shows the states for SV_Candidate, the one for People is similar. They use the same names for the states.

The image KCMessage (KnowledgeCheck) has 5 states, the Normal state being an empty shape (Alpha and Stroke both set to 0). It is just an alternative, because that message needs to be hidden with the On Enter action of this slide. Reason: the message should pop up only after clicking the Submit button. Same names are used for the states, but M1 is new since it is no longer the Normal state:

Events and Actions

W1Act, W2Act, M1Act, M2Act

Those advanced actions are triggered by the Success event of the the buttons on slide AvatarChoice. Here is an example screenshot for the button SVB_W1, the action W1Act:

The four first commands, changing states, take care of the buttons on the slide itself. Only the clicked button will switch to the second state 'Chosen'.  You can easily adapt those commands for more or less buttons on that slide, in this case there were 4 buttons.

The three later commands switch the multistate objects on the other slides to the appropriate state.  Add similar commands if you have more than 3 slides to propagate the choice.

Beware: it is important to check the option 'Retain state on slide revisit' for the multistate objects on the three slides where the chosen avatar has to be solidified. If you don't do that, the choice will be visible only on the first visit of that slide, not on later visits.

KnowledgeCheck slide

The On Enter slide event is used to hide the multistate object 'KC_Message'. 

For the setup of the actions on the slide, refer to this screenshot:

It is of course possible to have different feedback messages, by using conditional actions, but that was not the goal of this blog post. 

You cannot have any multistate object in a default feedback message (Failure, Success) on a question/knowledge check slide. That is why you need to create a custom solution.

No shared actions?

Why did I not choose for my favourite shared actions in this particular use case? Reason is that such a shared action would need a lot of parameters, even for this short project: 7 for the multistate objects, 4 for the states on the AvatarChoice slide, and 3 for the to be changed state on the other slides. That results in 14 parameters! It is much easier to edit the duplicate advanced actions in this case than applying shared actions with 14 parameters.

Why?

Recently the question appeared a couple of times in the forums: is it possible to delay the appearance of the Next button until all tabs in the learning interaction Tabs have been clicked.  This ‘Forced view’ request has been documented many times for normal click/reveal interactions and for a branching scenario. However the limitation of all learning interactions to the provided editing functionality prevents an easy way to realize such a scenario. Same is valid for Accordions, Timeline, Pyramid etc… interactions.

My recommendation is to use one of the multiple interaction slides from the Quick Start Projects (version 11.5, Assets panel). They do not offer Forced viewing out of the box, but can be transformed to do the trick. Have a look at the published example.

Warning: This blog contains three short video clips, it may some time to load completely on your system.

Example project

In this example I took 3 ready-to-go slides: one from the Safety, the Alliance and the Earth projects. The existing actions have been edited and you’ll get the Next button only when all tabs on a slide have been clicked:

The embedded example has a fixed resolution. You can also use this link for a scalable version.

How?

All was done using two shared actions, which you’ll be able to download in a Library project:

1. VarsCreateForceTabs: is used to create the needed user variables, and acts also as reset action On Enter for each slide. In this particular case the same action (one parameter) could be used directly. However if more is used in the On Enter action, the shared action can be used as template for a dedicated advanced action.
2. ForceTabs: has been used only as template for all the advanced actions on the 14 tab buttons in this project. I will describe the workflow step-by-step in a future blog.

If you want to try the workflow (described below) out, download this project which has the two shared actions in its Library. In an older blog (or video)  I explained how to import those actions in any project using External Library. Download the project from this link:

SA_Library

Workflow

Step 0: Next buttons

Add the Next button to each slide, and hide it in output. I labeled them SB_Next_Earth; SB_Next_Safety, SB_Next_Alliance 

Step 1: import the shared actions to your project

• Open the Library panel in your project. Scroll to the Shared actions subfolder.
• Use File, Import, External Library and point to the downloaded project file. It will appear in a floating panel top left of your screen.
• Find the Shared actions folder in that external library and select BOTH shared actions.
• Drag them to the Shared actions folder in your project library. They will both appear with a usage of 0. But the variables used in those actions will now appear in the Variables dialog box (Project, Variables). 

You can watch this step in the video below as well.

Step 2: use VarsCreateForceTabs action as Reset action

• Check the On Enter event for the Quick Start Project slide you want to use. In many case that will be the default action 'No Action'. If that is the case, apply the Shared action 'VarsCreateForceTabs' to the event. It will need only one parameter: the number of tabs. 
• If the On Enter event triggered another action than 'No action', screen that action. In many cases it is a superfluous action. One example is the 'Horizontal Tabs' layout in the Business project. It has an On Enter action to reset states to the Normal state, but that action is not needed since such a reset happens automatically when you re-enter the slide. Reason: the option Retain State on revisiting slide is unchecked.
• If the existing On Enter action has to be done, you need to use the Shared action as template to create an advanced action. In that advanced action you'll need to add the existing action, which can be done by copy/paste eventually on a new decision tab. In the available Quick Start Projects the On Enter actions are never conditional. 
• Using the described workflow, the Next button will remain visible when the slide is revisited. That is mostly the required situation: only on a first visit clicking all the tabs is required to get the Next button, but later on that is no longer the case.

Second step is also shown in this video clip:

Step 3: use ForceTabs as template for Tab action

• Select a Tab button on the slide. In the following screenshots I selected the first button on the slide from Earth, which will have the name C2R37_BTN_xx  (xx will be a number added by Captivate to make the name unique).
• Check its action in the Properties panel, Actions. Open that action in the Advanced Actions dialog box.  For all the ready-to-go slides with a similar Tabs interaction, those actions always have one standard decision. No IF conditional decisions, nor While loops
• Select all the commands in that action, copy them to the clipboard (Edit menu, right-click menu or with CTRL-C).
• Open the shared action 'ForceTabs' from the dropdown list top left (starts with Blank). You'll need to fill in the two parameters in the dropdown lists. First parameter which appears in the two first decisions is the tracking variable. Second parameter in this case is the Next button, which was hidden in output. A Preview of such a filled in shared action is visible in this screenshot, created for the first tab button in the slide taken from the Earth QSP:

• 
• Return to the first decision 'Always', on the second line (after the 'Increment' command), paste the commands copied to the clipboard (CTRL-C or from the menu).  Save the advanced action with a unique name. For that same tab button as the previous screenshot, this would result in:

• 
• Assign the new advanced action (in the example SB1_Earth_act) to the tab tutton.

You will need to repeat this third step for each of the tab buttons. Eventually you could also duplicate the advanced action for the first tab, and edit the duplicates. Do not forget to copy the commands from the original advanced action on the tab to the first decision 'Always' after the Increment command. In that scenario, only the first parameter (tracking variable) needs to be edited, but in the first AND the second decision. If you start from the shared action as template you need to define that parameter only once. However you don't need to edit the last decision, because the Next button will be the same for all the tab buttons if you work with duplicate advanced actions.

Here is the video clip for the third step:

Conclusion

Although this blog was meant in the first place to answer a forum question, I had a hidden agenda (a badass?):

• Using shared actions as template
• Using shared actions to avoid creating variables over and over again
• Combining existing advanced actions with filled in shared actions
• Understanding and extending the use of Ready-to-go slides from the Quick Start Projects.

Why?

Recently a user posted a request on the Adobe forums, asking for a Multiple Choice question to be used as Knowledge Check, but with possibility of multiple combinations of answers to be correct. Here is the link:

MCQ with more than one correct answer

Example project

I used some slides from the QSP Alliance to create quickly this example project.  It has 3 MCQ slides which are using the same shared actions. For the answers I used placeholder text, so that you can recognize the 'correct' and 'wrong' answers. All questions have 6 possible answers but the workflow is not limited to that specific number of answers. The total number of correct and wrong answers is different on each slide, workflow is flexible enough to cope with those differences. Answer is considered to be correct when no wrong answers are selected and at least one correct answer is chosen. But multiple correct answers are allowed as well. It would be very easy to add scores to the MCQ slides. At this moment they are set up as Knowledge Check slides, with Infinite attempts. You cannot proceed to the next question before having posted a correct answer.

You can watch this project using this link for a scalable version, or the fixed resolution embedded version below:

Workflow Setup

Slide setup/Multistate objects

Have a look at this Timeline screenshot of the most important objects on the MCQ slides:

From bottom to top you see 

• The 6 shapes (black) which are used as shape buttons, who will trigger either a CorrectAct or a WrongAct shared action. Their names start with SB. They have an extra custom state 'Checked' to indicate when they are chosen:
  

  
• The Submit button. Each slide has its Submit button. A custom 'Retry' was added to replace the Normal state for later attempts than the first attempt. The option 'Retain State on Slide Revisit remained unchecked.
  

  
• A multistate shape SS_Message which has an empty Normal state, two custom states (see screenshot). This object is timed for the rest of the project (and hidden on the End slide with its On Enter action). The option 'Retain State on Slide Revisit remained unchecked.
  

  
• The Next button SB_Next which is also timed for the rest of the project (and hidden on the End slide with its On Enter action).

Variables and events

8 user variables are used:

• Six tracking variables of the Boolean type, labeled v_1, v_2.....v_6 - one for each possible answer. Their default value is 0, will be toggled to 1 when that answer is chosen. 
• Two counter variables v_correct and v_wrong which will track the Correct and Wrong answers which are checked.

The used events are:

• Enter slide event for each MCQ slide, for a reset action 'EnterAct'. 
• Success event of the answer shape buttons SB_x to trigger either the 'CorrectAct' or the 'WrongAct', which are both shared actions.
• Success event of the Submit buttons to trigger a specific advanced action 'SubmitActx'.
• Enter slide event of the End slide to hide the messages shape SS_Message and the Next button. That Next button kept the default action 'Go to Next Slide'.

Actions

EnterAct

This Reset advanced action is triggered On Enter for each MCQ slide, it is self-explanatory. I used an advanced action in this case, based on a shared action CreateVars, which I use all the time to create a bunch of variables. 

CorrectAct (shared action)

This shared action is triggered by the Success events of the answer shape buttons which have the correct answers. Only two parameters are needed: the button itself and its tracking variable. As you may have read in my Tips about Parameters using numbers in the names makes the assignment of the parameters a lot easier:

WrongAct (shared action)

Similar to the previous action, using the same two parameters:

As you may know both shared actions appear in the project Library, easy to check with Usage if they have been assigned correctly:

SubmitActx

Due to the change state needed for this button, there is an individual advanced action for each Submit button:

EnterEnd

A very simple advanced action for the On Enter slide event of the last slide, to hide the Next button and the multistate Message shape, both were set till the end of the project.

Intro

First 4 tips in this series were valid for both Advanced and Shared actions. 

This blog is only for Shared actions, which are still not very popular amongst the Captivate developers. In my workshop at the Adobe eLearning World Conference I have demonstrated their power, even for unexpected uses. For each action I develop in my projects I always take a little time to reflect on this question 'Will this be useful as Shared action'? Result is that more than half of my actions end up to be Shared, not Advanced actions. My Libraries with useful shared actions are growing all the time, and have saved me already many hours of work.

In this article I will focus on tips for choosing Parameters to make the shared actions as flexible as possible. When saving an action as Shared action, you get a dialog box where compulsory and candidate parameters will appear:

• Compulsory parameters: include all objects, audio clips, states... which you have in the advanced action dialog box, with the exception of literals and variables. You recognize them by the appearance of a yellow exclamation sign. When you add a description to such a line and indicate something as placeholder for the parameter the yellow sign is replaced by a green checkmark.
• Candidate parameters: are the literals and variables which you find in a condition, or in commands like Increment. They get a green checkmark, but by using the checkbox you can convert them to parameters as well. 
  

Here is a screenshot of the dialog box for a toggle button. You'll see the compulsory and candidate parameters.  Description for the compulsory parameters has not yet been typed:

General Tips

Using several instances of one shared action to replace duplicate advanced actions leads normally to smoother projects, less risk of choking Captivate and even lower file size. However it is important to keep the number of parameters to assign on each instance not too high. Personally my goal is to have a maximum of 6-7 parameters. If you really need more of them, but appreciate the ease of transferring shared actions to new projects, remember that you can use each shared action as template for advanced actions. You can use that knowledge to create duplicate advanced actions if the number of parameters is too high. Labeling (see Tip 1) remains very important as well, because of the filtering (Tip 2) which is possible in the dropdown lists for parameters. You'll find some more tips below for the two types of parameters.

Compulsory parameters

Depending on the action using those parameters, they are either very specific (only one type) or they can be flexible and cover more than one type. Examples:

Show/Hide actions: they can aim at lot of object types. All graphics (bitmap or SVG), video, but also audio objects (invisible objects which have audio attached), learning interactions, but also Groups! These are probably the most flexible actions, and you may consider to replace a multistate object approach by Show/Hide for that reason.

Change State: not so flexible, they need always two parameters which are the multistate object and the state. Whenever possible try to use 

Go to Next State/Go to Previous State: you only need the multistate object as parameter

Assign:  can be used with 0, 1 or 2 parameters. You need 0 parameters if using two variables which are not defined as parameters, 1 if you have a literal which is no parameter or one variable defined as parameter, 2 if you have both literals/variables defined as parameters. 

Toggle: can only be used for Boolean variables, better choice than Assign because you have 0 or 1 parameter (the variable which could be defined as parameter).

Play Audio: needs an audio clip as parameter.

Apply Effect: only the object or group to which you want to apply the effect can be a parameter, not the effect itself. In most cases you'll want to use a custom effect to have the correct setup parameters.

Candidate parameters

Variables

If a variable in a shared action is not defined as a parameter, it will automatically be created when you import the shared action to a new project, including its Default value and description. One of the shared actions in my actions library is meant to avoid having to create much used variables in new projects. See this screenshot:

I also use that action as template for the many Reset actions needed On Enter for slides.

When you define a variable as parameter, this automatic creation will not happen!

Before defining a variable as parameter, you need to check if that variable is used multiple times in the action. Know that when assigning a variable to the parameter, it will replace that variable wherever it has been used in the action. I will try to explain by an example. If you ever created an advanced action for 'Forced View', where the appearance of a Next button is postponed until all clickable objects on the slide have been used at least once, this action for the first clickable object will look familiar:

In this project, the first clickable object is SV_Decision.  That object has a custom state showing Info, and acts as a toggle button. On a second click the Normal state will re-appear. Its tracking variable is v_1, a Boolean, which will get the value 1 on each click. On the slide 4 of those buttons need to be clicked.  For the three other buttons both the name of the button and the tracking variable need to be edited in a duplicate advanced action. The second decision checks the 4 tracking variables, shows the Next button if all have the value 1.

In this setup you cannot convert this action to a shared action. It would need 3 parameters:  the Next button, the button itself and the tracking variable. But if you replace the first variable by the second variable, that will also happen in the second decision, thus leading to a non-functional second decision where only 3 variables are checked. Have a look at this action:

In this action 2 extra variables are used:

• v_counter: will be incremented only on the first click; that makes the third checking decision easier, and the tracking variable v_1 which appears twice can be replaced by any other tracking variable.
• v_max: instead of the literal '4' this new variable makes the action more flexible. It can be used for any number of clickable objects on the slide. The value of v_max (4 in this case) can be assigned either directly in the Variables dialog box, or with the On enter action of the slide. You could also define that variable as parameter if you prefer.
  

Literals

Be very careful with literals as parameters. My replacing it by a variable in the previous example gives you a possible workaround. Especially if you have multiple literals in an action, defining them as parameters can lead to issues.  Look at this variant on the same situation described above:

It could be possible to define the value '4' in the last decision as a parameter, so that you can use the action for any number of clickable objects (alternative for the variable v_max). However, if you should define the '1' as parameter, changing it in an instance of a shared action would lead to changing it in 3 locations of the action! 

My recommendation: avoid defining literals as parameters!

Intro: Decision (tab)

The Advanced Actions dialog box in its default setup for a new action, shows  3 decisions with the generic names 'Untitled-1', 'Untitled-2' and 'Untitled-3'.It is possible to replace the generic names of course. In this screenshot they are marked by a red rounded rectangle. 

On top of the decisions to the left you see three buttons, which allow to Add decisions, Remove or Duplicate a decision.  There is no real limit to the number of decisions within one advanced/shared action. 

In the center above the decision names you find two buttons (blue rounded rectangle in screenshot above) which allow to change the sequence of the decisions by moving them to the right or to the left. That sequence is very important! First rule to remember when starting with Advanced/shared actions:

"All commands (actions) within an Advanced or Shared actions are always executed when the action is triggered. They are done always in the same sequence: top to bottom within a decision, left to right in the decision sequence."

Tip 1: Combining standard and conditional decisions

This tip is based on my experiences with consultancy jobs and answering on the forums.

When starting to create advanced actions it often happens that too much commands are pushed into one conditional decision. I recommend to reflect: which of the commands (actions) have to be done independently of the condition? Those commands will appear in both  THEN and ELSE sections. In that case, take them out and put them in a separate non-conditional decision. 

Same recommendation when using multiple conditional decisions, if some commands appear in all of those conditions.

Example

This scenario appeared several times for debugging on the forums: 'Looping through a number of images  with their text, and showing a Next button after the first loop'.  The loop in this example is done with show/hide, not with a multistate object (which is easier however). Look at the original advanced action, meant for 3 images:

The second/third image and text are hidden in Output. The first image and text are visible. The result of this action is that the loop will not work, that each click on the button will always show the third image, while the counter will indeed loop and the Next button will appear as wanted. Reason is that the last conditional decision overrides the other decisions. Compare this with this solution:

In this action:

• Texts and Images were grouped, to allow taking out the Hide actions from the conditional decisions.
• A non-conditional decision was added before the conditional ones to hide the groups before the showing the text/image corresponding with a specific variable value. Moreover the (absolute) Assign command was replaced by Increment.
• The conditional decisions show text, image. The last one needs also to show the Next button and reset the counter to its original value, which is 0. In that case you need Assign of course.

Tip 2: Multiple conditional decisions - make them mutually exclusive

When you have multiple conditions decisions in sequence (remember the sequence rule), avoid using the ELSE parts. You'll have less possible problems when using only the THEN part and write a conditional decision for each possible situation. If you use the THEN parts, there is a big chance that a later decision will overrule what has been done in the previous ones.

Eventually it is possible to use an ELSE part, but only for the last decision. You need to double-check if that THEN part will not mess up with previous decisions.

Example:

Using the same situation as for the first tip, there is no way to use the ELSE part of the decision 'Second' to replace the decision 'Third'.  The complete action would then look like this:

The result would be that the First decision would never be done, the second image/text never pops up and the Next button will appear after having viewed only the first and third image.

Tip 3: working with Tracking Variables

The first tip already showed how dangerous it is to change the value of a tracking variable within a conditional decision, if you have more than one of those decisions. In most cases it is safer to keep the value change in a non-conditional decision. You are probably aware of the three ways to attribute or change the value of a variable:

• Assign: which I label as the 'absolute' way, and is valid for both strings and numerical values.
• Increment/Decrement: often used when you also need a counter.
• Toggle: typical for a Boolean variable, which is used for an On/Off situation. 
  

Here are two situations where you will need to have the variable value change within both parts of a conditional action (THEN and ELSE):

3.1 Toggle button action

Such an action will often have only one conditional decision and uses a Boolean variable for tracking. Have a look at this script, which will show/hide an object:

3.2 Non-eternal loop (WHILE)

Such a loop needs to have a way to stop looping. That is done with a tracking variable which needs to be changed within the actions which need repetition. Here is an example from a dice game. The dice number (random) is stored in a variable, and another variable stores the number of stairs which need to be climbed. The screenshots shows only the While decision of the action.

Intro

• Show/Hide commands: when using those in a simple action you can only address objects residing on the same slide as the action. It doesn't matter which event you use as trigger: Success event of a button, On Enter event of the slide. That is not the case when using those commands IN an advanced/shared action.
• State commands: are also restricted in a similar way. You can only point to multistate objects on the same slide. Another limitation which disappears when used IN advanced/shared actions.
• Jump to slide command: when used as simple action it is impossible to point to the same slide as where the action is triggered. That is a show stopper when trying to Replay a slide. See the blog Replay/Reset Slide.

This blog will focus on the two first command groups. Although they are both used often for Click/Reveal actions, it is in a branching scenario, with a dashboard branching to chapters that the extended commands are especially useful.

Due to being able to access objects on other slides than the active slide, the dropdown lists can become very long. That is the reason why my first two tips were about Filtering and Labeling of course. 

In most courses the learner will be allowed to revisit slides. To allow that it is important to include that situation when setting up actions. 

Dashboard Setup

Situations

1. The dashboard or menu slide has interactive objects - mostly buttons - branching to the different chapters in the course. 
2. On the last slide of each chapter another interactive object will navigate back to the dashboard slide.
3. The progress is made clear to the learner by adding an indicator to the dashboard slide for completed chapter. That indicator can be a checkmark, a different look to the chapter button, a progress bar... 
4. Tracking full completion of the course is often required. After having taken all the chapters something will occur: a new button appears, navigation to a congratulations or recommendations slide,...

Show/Hide workflow

Add the checkmarks (or other objects) to the Dashboard slide, and hide them in output (eye button on Properties panel). Label them with a referenced to the chapter they belong to. I will use Check1, Check2, Check3....

Use these events and actions:

• Buttons on the Dashboard slide (Success event) need a simple action 'Jump to....' pointing to the first slide of each chapter. Do NOT create a Visited state for those buttons, because such a state will appear immediately after the button has been clicked, not after finishing a chapter. This refers to situation 1.
• Return button on the last slide of each chapter t(Success event). That will need an advanced or shared action with these commands:
     Assign v_1 with 1                                a Boolean user variable will be set to 1 to track completion of chapter (situation 4)
     Show Check1                                      to make the previously hidden checkmark visible (situation 3)
     Jump to Dashboard                             situation 2
  A similar action is needed for each return button. If you choose a shared action, the tracking variable (v_1), checkmark (Check1) and Dashboard slide will be the parameters.
  
• On Enter event of the Dashboard slide will need a conditional action to complete situation 4:
     IF v_1 is equal to 1 AND
         v_2 is equal to 1 AND
         v_3 is equal to 1 ....
      DO.....                                               whatever you want to happen when all chapters are done at least once.
  This example is for a dashboard with 3 buttons/chapters. You can of course extend this for any amount of chapters.
  

This is the easiest setup, better than having a much more complicated script On Enter for the dashboard slide, which will check all chapters. I often see that still appearing during consultancy jobs.

If you want to allow resetting the dashboard slide (taking out checkmarks and toggling the tracking variables back to 0) during one  session, start by grouping the checkmarks in Gr_Checks. Use this action for the Reset button:
                 Hide Gr_Checks
                 Assign v_1 with 0
                 Assign v_2 with 0  
                 Assign v_3 with 0
                 Hide.....                      whatever you had popping up after course completion

Multistate object workflow

Add a custom state to each button on the dashboard slide, which includes the checkmark and eventually has a different style forr the button. Make sure to check the option 'Retain state on slide revisit'.

The same events are used as in the Show/Hide workflow. Even the same actions, except for the Return button on the last slide of each chapter:

• Buttons on the Dashboard slide (Success event) same as in Show/Hide (situation 1).
• Return button on the last slide of each chapter t(Success event). That will need an advanced or shared action with these commands:
     Assign v_1 with 1                                a Boolean user variable will be set to 1 to track completion of chapter (situation 4)
    Change state of Button1 to Done       to show the custom state (situation 3)
     Jump to Dashboard                            situation 2
  A similar action is needed for each return button. If you choose a shared action, the tracking variable (v_1), state (Done)/button (Button1) and Dashboard slide will be the parameters.
  
• On Enter event of the Dashboard slide: same as for Show/Hide (situation 4)

If you need to reset the dashboard slide within the same session, the Reset button action will be bit longer:
                 Change state of Button1 to Normal
                 Change state of Button2 to Normal
                 Change state of Button3 to Normal
                 Assign v_1 with 0
                 Assign v_2 with 0 
                 Assign v_3 with 0
                 Hide.....                      whatever you had popping up after course completion