Intro

Almost 8 years ago I posted this article on my personal blog: Editing Motion Paths and Using Custom Effects. 

Since that time Effects have been improved a lot, advanced and shared actions can make life much easier. Time to upgrade that blog post, meanwhile testing the behavior of effects in HTML output in CP2019. While Flash was always to be trusted, that is not the case for HTML output. And indeed, I bumped onto a problem with the Scale effect, and sometimes the Rotate to effect. When those problems are solved, I will post a published movie. The workflow to use Custom effects in a shared or advanced action is however still the same since many versions. It is a bit complicated, I have answered many questions about it in the forums. I will write it out now step by step.

When do you need  a custom effect?

Effects have been improved in some ways. Some parameters can be defined in the Advanced Actions dialog box. Look for the start time of an effect, its duration and more numeric fields (alpha, rotation, ease in/out, alpha….). However when using a combination of effects over and over again, you can create one custom effect which saves that combination and can applied in one step including the sequence and duration of the different effects. Another practical example are the motion effects, where you need to edit the motion path, which is certainly the case for more complicated custom motion paths.  This screenshot shows an example of a complicated combination of effects on the Timeline. It was meant to be applied to simulate a swimming fish:

Step by Step

Step 1:  Create and save effect

Create the effect or combination of effects on any object as a ‘Self)time based animation and test it out thoroughly (Preview HTML in Browser for a non-responsive project) in several browsers before saving it with a custom name.

You don’t need to save it in a specific folder. I use to save it with the project I am working on as is the case in the screenshot above. Effects are stored in XML-files.

Step 2: Apply the custom effect as time-based animation

If you would try to use the saved effect in a shared/advanced action it will no be available. If this is the first custom effect you ever created, there will not even be a Custom category to choose from You need first to delete all the individual effects applied to the object (above it was to the object SV_Fish (a SVG image). Then apply the custom effect as a (Self) time based animation again, but now with ‘one’ effect chosen with the browse button.

When looking at the timeline you’ll see exactly the same result as in the screenshot at the beginning: all the effects in the correct sequence and with the duration you had chosen.

The result of this second application is that the Category ‘Custom’ will now have been created, and it will have the new custom effect ‘Swimming’.

Step “: use in advanced or shared action

If you only wanted to apply this action using an interactive object, you could use a simple action. The field Category will now have the Custom category.

However often effects are used in Advanced or Shared actions in combination with other commands. In this example the Fishes are originally hidden, so I need to Show them and apply the effectn eventually also have an audio clip playing separately.

The two buttons on this example will trigger the same shared action. Both fishes are hidden in output at the start. When creating the advanced action, the category Custom can now be used, and the available parameters (start, duration) could be edited, but mostly you’ll not want to do that.

Because I needed to use this action twice, maybe also later in other projects unchanged or as template for other actions, I preferred a shared action which will have only one parameter: the object itself. An effect cannot be a parameter. However, the effect can not only be applied to one object, but also to a group. I can replace one fish by a group of fishes.

Intro

Interactive Video is without any doubt my favourite new feature in Captivate 2019. It makes adding some interactivity to a passive video very easy compared with the old workflows which I used to simulate such an interactive video in previous versions. I had in mind to blog about some possible workflows that could add even more functionality. A user posted a question today about Bookmarking for Navigation. I had already some workflows in mind, and want to share one of them with you. I tried it out on the sample project provided with Captivate. That project has only two bookmarks, which are labeled 'ExerciseBenefits' and 'O3Jump'. the workflow can easily be extended to more bookmarkst. We'll create a shape button to pop up a menu. 

Popup menu

To create the menu, which is hidden when the video starts, I used a shape,  but you can use a text caption as well. I filled that shape with one word for each of the bookmarks. In this case I used the words 'First ' and 'Second'. Those words will be indicated as hyperlinks. Hyperlinks have a lot more functionality than just pointing to an URL, as I explained in some blog posts.

Close button

Dropdown menu

The menu for hyperlinks is missing some options (which I regret): you will not see the option 'Jump to Bookmark' nor 'Execute Shared Action'. My only choice was to use the command 'Execute Advanced Actions'.  That means that you have to create as many advanced actions as you have bookmarks. They are very simple oneliners, but with a simple action or a shared action it would be a better workflow.  It is also impossible to prevent release of the playhead, but that is not really an issue in this case since we are creating navigation actions, and the video may continue to play when it gets to the chosen bookmark.

The shape with the hyperlinked texts needs to be invisible in output, and timed for the rest of the slide. If you have multiple video slides, and you want one menu for all videos,  time it for the rest of the project. Because the overlays are possible, you'll not have any problem to have the shape being visible on top of the video.

Menu Button

The menu button (which you could see in the screenshot with the popup shape) is a shape button. I added a custom state 'Close' to the 3 InBuilt states, where the label is changed from Menu to Close. To avoid confusion I took out the label from the Rollover and Down state which are used both for the open and closed version of the button:

The button is a toggle button, to track the visibility of the popup shape I needed a user variable (Boolean) which I labeled v_visib as usual. Default value = 0, which means the popup shape is closed and the Normal state of the button is active. When the button is clicked to open the popup, the state will change to Close, and the variable will be toggled. This leads to a conditional action which I have described/used already many times:

Conclusion

I hope you liked this workflow which is not included by default. You can add this toggle button to other buttons like an Audio/Mute and a CC button. If you missed it, you can find a workflow for that type of buttons in this blog post:.

Intro

It is not a secret that I am a big fan of Shared Actions. A project without at least one shared action is a big exception to me. From what I hear and read, lot of you don't realize how much time you can save with those mysterious action. This short article will offer some ideas where Shared Actions are used for (maybe) a totally different situation than you expect.

1. Creation of Variables

If you are reading this post, it is very likely that you use system variables as well as user variables. Do you create user variables in each project, and include a proper description and eventually default values?  I have a list of variables which I use very often in projects, here are some examples:

• v_null: an empty variable used to check if Text Entry Boxes remained empty after a learner clicked its Submit button, or to reset the variable associated with a TEB.
• v_counter: as the name tells to track a number of clicks, attempts....
• v_visit: for situations where the content of a slide has to be different on a later visit, you want to track if the slide has been visited
• v_one, v_two, v_three....: number of variables that can be used for different use cases, like tracking clicks on hotspots, finishing chapters...

Knowledge fact: when you import a shared action in another project, variables not defined as parameters, will be created including the description and default value.

I have a shared action with a list of Assign commands, one for each of those often used variables. It doesn't matter what you assign at all. I drag that shared action from my external Library with shared actions to each new project. Variables are ready for use, even as parameters in other shared actions. 

2. Shared Action without Parameters

Sounds very strange, because the reusability of a shared action is based on parameters? I already gave a first example of such a parameter-less SA under 1.  It is much safer and easier to transfer a shared action to another project than an advanced action. You use the shared action directly or convert it to an advanced action if you prefer (maybe for more editing). Here is an example:

 I use this action to calculate the reference time in seconds (to be used later in calculations) of a frame, mostly the first or last frame of a slide. Defined as a shared action, it needs no parameters. Once dropped into the project Library, I can use it for any frames where I want a reference time.

3. Shared Action as Template 

You can copy an object or a slide, which has advanced actions attached to a new project. But that is not always working great. If you have navigation in the advanced action 'Jump to Slide', that command will often be reset to 'Continue' if that slide is not found. Same for objects, variables etc. 

Less known is that any shared action can be used as a template to create an advanced action. In the top left of the Advanced Actions dialog box, you are used to see 'Blank' which is the default template for an action. Open the dropdown list, and you'll find all shared actions in the project as extra templates:

Choose one of them, you'll have to fill in the parameters, add a name, edit the commands (delete, add as you want) and save as an advanced action. 

Example: a shared action triggered On Enter for a dashboard, checking a number of tracking variables and showing something special after all variables prove that everything has been visited. You can set up the shared action for 4 variables. If you need less or more variables, convert the action to an advanced action and edit it!

What about you?

Intro 

After the introduction to Micro-Navigation I explained how to use it for forcing the first view of a slide, and for playing an audio file on first visit. When looking at the resulting advanced actions they are pretty similar in both posts. Moreover you probably will want to use the action on multiple slides in the course, and maybe also in future courses. That sounds like a perfect scenario for conversion of the action to a Shared action. I have been blogging already several times about Shared actions. In the present article I try to explain how to reflect on the use of parameters. Static objects need to be parameters as are states and groups, I label them as 'compulsory'. But Variables and Literals are 'candidate parameters', a well-founded choice for change them in parameters,  can save you lot of time later on. Consider it a good practice example.

Analysis

When comparing the two advanced actions created in the mentioned articles, there is a small difference: the first decision (which is a standard action) has one command extra in the second advanced action (for Audio). For the ForceAct, the number of seconds to be jumped over is directly entered in the Expression command, for the SkipSlideAudio, Assign is used to store the number of seconds in the user variable v_skip. Both versions work well, but personally for a shared action I prefer the one with the extra Assign command.

What are the parameters for the shared action?

For the first decision (labeled Always in both advanced actions):

•  'Assign v_skip with 16.5': this first command has two candidate parameters, the variable v_skip and the literal 16.5. The variable can be reused on each slide where the action is needed. Both advanced actions used the same variable in the interactive movie. There is no need to promote that variable to a parameter in that case. However the literal '16.5'  is the number of seconds to be jumped, will have a unique value on each slide, it has to be promoted to a parameter. Parameter 1 = literal. You have to be careful with literals: double-check that the same numerical value is not used anywhere else in the action. In this example there is a second literal '1' in the second decision, Increment command. It has to be different from the first parameter, which is the case.
  
  
• 'Expression v_skip = v_skip * cpInfoFPS': the user variable v_skip is no parameter (see above). The system variable cpInfoFPS has never to be replaced by another variable, will be no parameter neither.
  
  
• 'Increment v_visit by 1': the user variable v_visit has to be unique for each slide, as you can see in the action SkipSlideAufio where another variable has been used. This means that we have to promote that variable to a parameter, parameter 2. The literal '1' however will always be the same, no need to turn it into a parameter. We already double-checked that the literal in the first decision was different from 1.

The second decision is conditional:

• 'IF v_visit is greater than 1': has two candidate parameters as well. We already indicated that v_visit is a parameter. The literal in this case will always be 1, will never be changed and need not to be a parameter.
  
  
• 'Expression cpCmndGotoFrameAnd Resume = cpInfoCurrentFrame + v_skip': has 3 candidate parameters. Above was already decided that v_skip can be reused on each slide, and the system variables will always be the same.

Shared action Skip_Frames

When you choose to save any of the advanced actions used to skip frames as a Shared Action you'll see that all possible parameters are marked as OK. The reason is that there is no compulsory parameter in this action:

As a result of the analysis above, we need to mark to items as parameters: the tracking variable and the number of seconds to be jumped on later visits. The result will look like this. It is important to give a good description not only for the shared action but also for the marked parameters:

You can assign the shared action to all the slides where you want to jump frames on a later visit. You only have to define a tracking variable and estimate the number of seconds to be jumped. Here is one example setup for the slide where audio had to be jumped on later visits:

You can check in the Library for the Usage of the Shared action, much easier than for advanced actions.

Using Skip_Frames in future projects

Want to reuse this action in other projects? The workflow is described in an older blog post. Short summary:

1. Use File, Import, External Library and point to the project where you created the shared action.
2. Library will be opened in a floating panel. Look for 'Skip_Frames' in the Shared Actions subfolder and drag it to the Library of the new project.
3. Because v_skip is not a parameter in the shared action, it will be created automatically, including the description.
4. You have to create a tracking variable for each slide to which you want to assign the shared action, and define the duration in seconds to be skipped. Ready!

Intro

In a previous post I explained the possible workflows to force the learner to view a slide completely before the Next button appears, but only on first visit. This new use case is similar but for another goal. Most courses will have narration explaining how to use the functionality of the course: how to navigate, how to use the TOC, how to pop up extra information, how to use a dashboard/dynamic menu etc.  When the learner is free to come back to those slides, it can be annoying if she/he has to listen to the audio again. To avoid this I will explain two possible workflows:

1. Using the On Enter event to trigger an advanced action, which will use the Play Audio command based on checking which visit it is to the slide. It is an easy workflow, with one drawback: for the Play Audio command it is not possible to use the Closed Captioning feature packed with Captivate.
    
2. Since Closed Captioning is only possible with Slide audio, this alternative workflow will use micro-navigation to jump to a frame after the end of the audio timeline. If you didn't read my introduction to Micro-navigation, please use this link. 

Both workflows can be watched in this interactive movie. Be sure to check out later visits by using the Back button. As explained in the previous post, we'll need a tracking user variable. It starts with a default value of 0 and is incremented with each visit to the slide. 

Workflow 1: Play Audio

For each slide where you want to use this action, you'll need a tracking variable. For the slide in the movie where this action was used, the variable was labeled v_visit_PlayAudio. Look at the Preview of the action, which is triggered by the On Enter event of the slide:

It has two decisions:

• TrackVar is not conditional, will increment the tracking variable (which started at 0).
• CheckVisit checks the value of v_visit_playaudio. If the value is greater than 1, which means it is not the first visit, nothing will happen (Continue), if it is not greater than 1, which means the first visit, the audio clip will be played.

Workflow 2: Skip frames

Look at the timeline of the slide with the Touareg salt caravan (Ténéré desert):

The Next button appears at 16,5secs. If the visit is not the first, all frames in 16,5secs have to be skipped. We need a tracking variable, which will be labeled v_visit_SlideAudio. It is not possible to reuse the variable which tracked the visits to the previous slide where workflow 1 (Play Audio) was used. I suppose  free navigation is possible, hence tracking visits will need a variable for each slide where you want to use the workflow. However, the variable v_skip, which is used to store the number of frames to be skipped, can be reused for each slide where you want to use this second workflow. It doesn't matter if you want to skip part of the slide to avoid an audio clip to be played the second time, or to avoid that animatios are playing the second time. As you see in this screenshot, the advanced action looks very similar to the one in the first post 'Force first view'.

It is so similar that it was possible to create this action as a duplicate from the one in the post 'First View'. If you are not familiar with duplicating an action, have a look at  Advanced Actions Dialog Box. 

Afterthoughts

Such a situation with two (or maybe more) similar actions,  immediately triggers this question for me: can I make this easier, can I save time if using this action multiple times. Two possibilities:

1. Change the advanced action so that the same action can be applied to both situations? There are two differences in the situations: the literal which is the duration in seconds to be skipped (was 10sec in the first post, 16,5sec in this timeline) Second difference is the tracking variable. For the literal a solution could be found, but that is not the case for the tracking variables because they have to be unique for each slide. This approach is not possible for the present situation.
   
   
2. Convert the advanced action to a shared action, with as little parameters as possible. That would also make it much easier to transfer the action to future projects, and as you learned from my webinar (see summary in this interactive movie) due to the presence o the shared action in the Library, much easier to manage. How to do the conversion and use the shared action, will be the topic of my last post in this sequence.

Update

Thanks to all who attended the webinar, mentioned below. As usual I created a presentation with Captivate (2017) for this webinar. This allowed me to convert it to an interactive movie, which I want to offer to all readers of my blog.  I hope you'll enjoy it and learn something about Shared Actions, which are so ignored by most Captivate users. 

As for a normal training I like to use the subject of the training in the presentation. As you can see in this screenshot of the Library many shared actions were used in the presentation:

Their usage can be found in the Advanced Interaction panel, with the exception of the shared action which was used on the Drag&Drop slide:

I plan to explain some of those shared actions in future blog posts. Another plan is to write a more elaborate workbook for Shared Actions, which can be used for exploring in-depth, but also as a 'cookbook' because it will have recipes. A typical use case for Shared actions are Custom question slides, which are not treated in this short presentation. If you think a workbook would be help you  please send me a note or post a comment.

Invitation

If you are interested in a live session about using Shared Actions, you can register for the webinar on March 15, at 4pm CET (8am PT).  You'll find the link to the registration form for  webinar 'Dare to Share: Power of Advanced Actions in Captivate'. at the end of this invitation.

The majority of my blog posts are dedicated to advanced and shared actions. Advanced actions is a feature of Captivate since version 4. It allows to extend Captivate's functionaltiy in many ways, without having to learn a programming language. With the point-and-click interface of the new enhanced Advanced Actions dialog box in CP2017, you can realize scripts that will be converted to JS on runtime for HTML output (if you still use SWF output, will be converted to AS3).

Shared actions were new in Captivate version 7. They are a more flexible alternative to Advanced actions, with focus on reuslability. Due to the presence of parameters, to be filled in on assigning a new instance of the shared action to an event, you can adapt the action to each new situation. In Captivate 8 variables and literals became possible parameters as well, thus increasing that usability. Shared actions have some other important advantages over Advanced actions: they will appear in the Library like any other asset. Using the External Libraries feature this makes exchanging shared actions between projects very easy. The Usage button is available for Shared actions.

Variables that are not defined as parameters will be automatically created in a new project when you import the shared action using it. That is a real timesaver.  Some parameters can have only one type (variables, literals, states, audio clips) but most of them can have different types:  they can be a group, an image, a video, whatever you need in that project.

Less known is the ability of using a shared action as a template for the creation of an advanced action. That can be a great time saver. Learn about this feature as well in the webinar

You're welcome to particapte in this webinar, Here is the registration link:

Dare to Share

Be sure: you’ll walk away with many creative ideas!  As a plus: you’ll be working in the brand new Advanced Actions dialog box of Captivate 2017.

HTML Update

A blog post about Hyperlinks in HTML output is published recently. Please check it out:

Hyperlink tips (HTML)

Intro 

Hyperlink commands

• Continue: since the hyperlink event has no way to prevent 'Continue Playing Project' as is the case for simple actions, this is not that important
• Return to Quiz: is meant for remediation, normally to be triggered by a Next button
• Play Audio/Stop Triggered Audio: can always be done using an advanced action
• Execute Shared Action: which is really a pity :(
  
• Pause: can always be done using an advanced action
• Exit: can always be done using an advanced action
• Toggle: can always be done using an advanced action
  
• Show/Hide TOC: can always be done using an advanced action
• Show/Hide Playbar: can always be done using an advanced action
• Lock/Unlock TOC: can always be done using an advanced action
• State commands: Go to Next State/Go to Previous State cannot be done by advanced action, Go to State is possible.
  

For hyperlink events some commands have been put together in one dialog box, which is the case for the Slide command:

Example

Watch the movie: after the title slide the dropdown menu 'Go To' appears. When you click on that shape button, another shape wlll drop down. It has 6 hyperlinks, I left them underlined to emphasize their type.

When clicking on a hyperlink you'll be navigated to another slide which has a Back button to return to the Menu slide. The content slides are about the same subject as the previous blog post about popups and Close button. Of course it would be possible to have multiple slides in each 'chapter', and have only selected slides in the dropdown list.

Setup, variables and actions

Objects on Dropdown menu slide

The objects on the slide with the Dropdown menu are visible in this screenshot of its Timeline:

User variable v_start

The shape button SB_Menu (Caption 'Go To') is on top of the originally hidden Smart Shape SS_DropDown, and pauses at 2,6 secs, after all effects have been accomplished. To mimick the behavior of a dropdown the Effect 'Stretch From Top' is applied to that shape. The effect starts at time 0 and has a duration of 1 sec. The arrow shape ArrowGoTo has some explanation and the effect EaseInFromLeft is applied. The second arrow ArrowDropDown has a similar effect, starting bit later, but that shape is not visible until the button SB_Menu is clicked.

One user variable was created: v_start. It will be used to store the frame number of the first frame of the slide with the dropdown menu. I learned from experience that effects are much more consistent when you use micronavigation instead of applying the effect by an advanced action. The content of the variable will be used to send the playhead back to the first frame of the slide, to have the time-based effect being played.

Events and Actions

1. On Enter (Dropdown menu slide): standard advanced action EnterDropDown

2. Success event of the shape button SB_Menu: standard advanced action DropAct

This action will hide the arrow shape ArrowGoTo, show the shape SS_DropDown and its arrow ArrowDropdown and return the playhead to the first frame of the slide with the system variable cpGotoFrameAndResume which has 'Continue' built in. That way the effects for the dropdown menu and the arrow with explanation will appear as they are timed from the start of the slide.

3. Hyperlink events

Contrary to the situation explained in the previous blog post where the hyperlink event was used as Close button, in this case it doesn't matter that the playhead is always released when executing a command by a hyperlink because of the navigation to another slide. The command Slide was used, which opens the dialog box slide. Here the LInk is set to point to the correct content slide. In this screenshot you see the hyperlink setting for the navigation with the item 'Decor':

HTML Update

A blog post about Hyperlinks in HTML output is published recently. Please check it out:

Intro

Example movie

Watch this two-slide example.

1. The title slide has a text hyperlink 'Next' to proceed to the next slide.
   
   
2. The second slide has six shape buttons, each opening a popup (it could have been a lightbox as well, work flow is identical). In the popup information you'll find  the text 'Close X' which is a hyperlink  to close the popup.
   
   Download CloseButton.swf

States and Hyperlink

It is not possible to add interactive objects to a custom state: button, click box, shape button, Text Entry Box, all are greyed out. However it is possible to have a hyperlink within a text container, that will be active for all states of that container. This can be a welcome workaround. It is however not possible to have different actions for the hyperlinks in different states. Since the goal here was to close the popup, I created a shape as text container with 7 states as you can see in this screenshot:

The 'Normal', or default state looks invisible: there is no text in the text container with the exception of the text hyperlink 'Close X'. This was achieved by giving the text hyperlink the color of the background, the text container a Fill with Alpha=0% and no stroke. The other states have a Fill (Alpha=100%), they have information text with a visible color (also for the Text Hyperlink) and an image.

Actions

1. Next Hyperlink - Title Slide

2. Shape buttons to open popup - Second slide 'ActionProcess'

Look at the timeline of the second slide: all shape buttons (name starts with SB_) pause the slide at the same time, 15,5 secs. When triggering an action, the playhead should not be released, to allow clicking as many times as wanted, in any sequence on those shape buttons. The number of attempts is left at Infinite.

The only command to be triggered is to change the state from the default 'Normal' state to one of the custom states. The choice is yours: 

• you can use a simple action (be sure to uncheck the option 'Continue Playing the Project'
• you can use a one-line advanced action, create duplicates for each button; playhead will not be released
• you can use a one-line shared action with two parameters (text container and state).

3. "Close X" hyperlink - in text container second slide

Beware: there is NO option to prevent 'Continue Playing the Project' when you assign a command to a hyperlink. That means that you cannot use a simple action, but have to use a standard advanced in this case.It is again the action 'Change state...to Normal.' 

Another difference for hyperlink events: the command Excecute Shared Action is missing. That is too bad, because if it had been available, one shared action would have been able to achieve both showing popup (with the 6 shape buttons) and close the popup (with the Hyperlink).

Conclusion

Hyperlink makes it possible to have an action in a state for an object, although it has to be the same action for each state of the object. You learned about the differences between hyperlink events and other events to trigger an action:

• There is no way to prevent the playhead from being released if you trigger a simple action; use a standard advanced action.
• You cannot trigger a shared action with a hyperlink.
• Some commands have a different look: example is the Slide command (see screenhot in this article).

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

Forcing First View with micro-navigation (shared action)

Intro

Problem

Example movie

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

Events and Variables

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

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

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

Advanced/Shared Actions

Advanced Action "NextAction"

Shared Action "Show_Next"

Conclusion

Intro

This post is for Captivate versions before 9. In version 9 real knowledge slides are introduced. In this post the workaround to use normal question slides as knowledge check slides is treated.

Not a shared actions post this time (still busy with the third post), but a quick tip describing a work flow that I already posted multiple times on the Captivate forums. It is an answer to this question:  "How can I reset a question slide immediately, if it is a pure knowledge check, no scoring". 

Principles

You are probably aware of the fact that the function 'Reset' in Captivate is only possible for the whole quiz, and has to be triggered by using the Retake button on the score slide. There is no simple way to reset one question, once it has been submitted. Before submitting it is possible to Clear the answer by the Clear button. For more details about question slides and score slide, check some of my previous posts:

Question Question Slides - part 1

Question Question Slides - part 2

For knowledge slides, where scores don't have to be saved, you will not want to insert a score slide. But if you can cope with the fact that all answers will be cleared also for other knowledge slides in the file, you can create a 'Reset' button for a slide, without having to show the Score slide. 

The Retake button will appear on the score slide if the attempts on quiz level are not exhausted. The attempts are tracked with a system variable cpQuizInfoAttempts.  That variable is incremented when a new attempt is started. 

The idea for the Reset action is simple: navigate the user to the score slide, and immediately back to the slide where he was answer in knowledge question. And that slide will be reset!

Example Movie

Watch this movie, to see the functionality of the Reset button. On each question slide you can use the two-step Submit work flow. Nothing will happen, you'll be able to Reset the answers as many times as you want. You need to click the Next button to go to the next Question. 

Setup Step-by-step

• Edit the Quiz Preferences, set the number of Attempts to Infinite (or to a high number), it is not really necessary to show the Retake button. Be sure to hide the playbar, to check 'Show Score slide...' although you'll never show that score slide to the user, you need it. Do not allow Backward Movement. Check the two images below.
  

  

• With the setup used in the example, you'll need to have the Next button visible. Do not drag it under the Clear button as I often advice to avoid confusion with the Submit button. 
  
  
• You can use any type of questions, with one exception: Hotspot. Problem with Hotspot is that when the user clicks on the Reset button, it will be considered as a click on a hotspot (and the animation will appear). You see in the example that I even used partial scoring for some MCQ-multiple answer questions.
  
  
• The setup for the question slides: I kept the attempts to 1, but changed the actions both for Success and for Failure to 'No Action', hence the need for a Next button. If you want, you can keep the 'Go to Next Slide' as Success Action, but if you have have partial scored slides, you have to know that partial correct answers will trigger the Success action, which means that the user will not be able to reset and correct his answer.
  

  
  
  
• Create a shape button as Reset button. In the example movie I used one of the images from the theme as Fill for a rectangle shape with no stroke, to have a look that is similar to the embedded quiz buttons. To have this button on all the question slides, you can either put it on the Quiz Master slides, or put it on the slide before the first question slide, make it invisible (Properties panel), time it for the rest of the project. I choose for the second work flow, because the shape button gets an ID, can be shown/hidden as wanted. It is not possible to put it on the first question slide, but I made it visible with the On Enter action of the first question slide. More information about buttons on question slide is to be found in a previous blog post: http://blog.lilybiri.com/want-a-button-on-question-slide-in-captivate.
  
  

  
• The advanced action triggered by the On Success event of the button Bt_Reset is pretty simple:
• jumps to the Score slide, which will increment the variable cpQuizInfoAttempts, start a new attempt, clears all answers
• returns to the original slide, using the system variable cpInfoLastVisitedSlide
  

  
• To avoid the user seeing the score slide, you'll need at least one slide before the score slide, and prevent navigation to the last slide. In this case I added one slide, that has no navigation button. Because the Reset button is still visible, I use the On Enter action of this slide to hide it.
  

  
  
  

Tips

• If you plan to use this action in multiple files, create a shared instead of an advanced action. It is easier to reuse a shared action because it is in the library which you can use as an external library.
  
  
• This type of knowledge questions will probably be between content slides. You have to be aware that all answers are reset with each Reset button on one question slide. Maybe better warn the user if you allow free navigation with a playbar, a TOC or custom buttons.