Intro

Multistate objects did change my workflows in Captivate a lot when they were introduced. Use the tag 'multistate object' or 'states' in my blog to see this proved. However I often miss the possibility to follow up states. There is no system variable for that purpose. Partially due to some questions on the forums, I set up some use cases to see the usefulness of state tracking. In this introduction you'll find a Captivate published output of 4 use cases and a short summary of the basic setup I used.

Example 

Check the tutorial below. These are the four use cases:

1. Three identical multistate objects are used, and learner needs to reconstruct a physical formula by clicking through the states. Two solutions are correct:
   

   

2. Four identical multistate objects, and another formula (related with the previous one). A lot more combinations are possible here, both sides need to result in the same Force.
3. One multistate object, being a Carousel of 10 shapes (fSVG  text). Some requests (forum question):
      Flag number needs to be shown
      Back button only visible when in second state
      Forward button only hidden when in last state
      Next button on slide may appear only when all states have been visited
4. Slot machine with 3 identical multistate objects having 8 states.

You can reach the rescalable version of this example using this link, or watch the embedded one below.

For the design I used some slides from the Quick Start Project 'Diverse'.

Basics for  Setup

Tracking variable

For each multistate object a user variable is defined. It will store the tracking number. I choose to have numbers identifying the state, with Normal being state 1, or in programming language: index starts with 1. None of the multistate objects in the example project has an 'empty' Normal state. If that were the case, the index could have been 0 which is the common approach for most system variables. However the system variable cpInfoCurrentSlide also has an index starting with 1.

For the use cases the state commands 'Go to Next State' and/or 'Go to Previous State' are used. So, it is necessary to reset the variable when either the last state or the first state is reached, to get a correct value in all situations.

Example for the first formula: once the third state is reached, the variable needs to be rest to 1 for the next click.

Events

This is more of a general tip when using advanced/shared actions. It is easier to set up a workflow if you can spread the actions over multiple events.  

For the first two use cases (formula): the multistate objects are interactive which leads to the use of a shared action because the check of the answer is done by clicking a button. This is also more user friendly: control over submitting the answer is given to the learner.

For the Carousel the multistate object is not interactive. Only the success events of the Forward and Back button are used. You'll see in the videos that this makes the action more complicated because all situations need to be cared for.

The slot machine is using JS for a random number and a While command, and can be triggered by the multistate object which is interactive. I added a Check button, to avoid a very complicated action. It is also the only example where I provided a Reset button (see previous blog).

On Enter event is used to reset variables and the situation on a slide. This is necessary when you allow to revisit the slides, but also because I tend to reuse variables.

State Choice

In the specific use cases of the formulas, the state tracking variable is used with mathematical operators to check for the correct answer. In that case it is important to choose a correct sequence for the states.

Example for the first use case: 'Force' is in the third state, because the used check function is to create the sum of the tracking variables for the first and the second state (1+2) which needs to be equal to 3 (third state). 

How?

I will post workflows for the use cases, including (interactive) video in future posts.

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 

This short blog post is created to answer a question in the Adobe forum about clicking an interactive object with multiple attempts. After two wrong clicks, the Retry message should be replaced by a Hint message. There are multiple workflows possible, but I tried with this simple solution to use as much of the existing features as possible.  The Hint will be only text. A more elaborate solution could be a Hint where the text is accompanied with a highlight box and/or other graphical elements. If useful, could create such an example as well. This one is meant for relative new users of Captivate, hence the step-by-step workflow.

Example

Watch this published 3 slides project, using this link (for a scalable version).

On the second slide you'll see the results of the workflow: learner is asked to click the correct button. Number of attempts was set to Infinite but could also be lower. First two wrong clicks lead to a Retry message, on the third wrong click the Hint message replaces the Retry message.

Workflow

Slide setup

Have a look at this screenshot, where the slide (2) and its timeline are visible:

The six interactive objects are shape buttons (Alpha and Stroke both set to 0) over the buttons of the image. One of them deserves the correct click and the other ones are wrong choices. All buttons have the default pausing point at 1.5secs. They will all trigger an advanced action, which means the slide will remain paused. You see the Correct feedback message, using the Default Success Shape style (messages are no captions, but shapes).

Variables

The workflow needs setting up two user variables using the Project menu, option Variables:

• v_attempts will track how many times a click has been done. Its default (start) value is set to 0. Its value will always be numerical.
• v_failure: will have a text message. In the screenshot of the variables dialog box you see the default value. However it is not really necessary to define that default value if you use the Reset action described below and triggered by the On Enter slide event. 

The first variable is easy to understand. The variable v_failure will be used as placeholder in a default feedback message. That makes the message 'dynamic': by changing the value of the variable, message text will change. This is the only way to achieve such a change, because those default feedback messages do not support multiple states (although the States button is active, you cannot add states). You'll learn which message to use in the next part.

Events and Advanced Actions

As mentioned before, I did set up the 6 shape buttons with Infinite Attempts. This means that they are left with only the Success event, which occurs on clicking the button. Only the Success message will be necessary. That may seem illogical, is linked with the Captivate meaning of Success and Failure. Success means the button has been clicked, Failure means the click happens outside of the button. You understand that clicking outside of a button is useless here.

Setup SBCorrect

Clicking the Correct button should result in navigation to the next slide with the simple action 'Go to Next Slide' (happens to be the default simple action). That navigation will not happen immediately after clicking the button because the option 'Pause for Success/Failure Captions' is activated. Display time for those messages (because they often are not in a caption, but in a shape) is 3 seconds, can be changed in the Timing Properties. See the full setup in this screenshot:

The correct feedback message can be edited on the stage, uses the Default Success Shape style.

Setup 5 SB_Wrongx 

Dynamic Message

Clicking the Wrong buttons will also show the Success feedback message, and you'll get 5 of them. For the learner they should look like Retry (or Hint) messages, so I choose another Shape style for these messages (see screenshot Slide setup). Since they are linked to their buttons and all appear in a different location I also used the Align, Align and Resize to the same size from the right-click menu after selecting the 5 messages.

The trick here is to fill those messages with the same user variable v_failure to replace the normal success text. Do this by using the X-button in the Character part of the Properties panel of the message while in editing mode:

That X-button will show the 'Insert Variable' dialog box. User variable is the default choice, you just need to choose v_failure from the dropdown list. Important: the default 'length' is set to 50 characters, if you expect a longer text increase that amount. In this screenshot I increase it to 100:

Advanced Action FailureAct

This is a screenshot of the Preview window of that action:

You see that this action has two decisions:

Decision 'Tracking' is non conditional. It consist of one Increment action for the variable v_attempts.

Decision 'Message' is conditional, has only the THEN part, not an Else part. When the attempts are greater or equal to 2, the text in the variable v_failure is changed to the Hint text. Of course it is possible to change that amount of attempts if wanted.

EnterSlide Action

If you allow the learner to revisit the slide, and want to have the identical situation of the first visit, it will be necessary to Reset the variables. You'll need this non-conditional advanced action, to be triggered by the On Enter slide event:

Both variables v_attempts and v_failure are reset to their original values. Because an advanced action is not releasing the play head, I added Continue. In this example it is not really necessary, but it would mean that the play head remains in the first frame and is not advancing to the pausing point at 1.5 secs. It is possible with other setups, like having an effect or animation that you need that release of the play head.

Intro

That interaction is meant in the first place to show the learner the exact time he spent on a course. In that situation the interaction is often timed for the rest of the project. However it can be used in other situations. This blog is due to a user request on the Adobe forums, have a look at this link. Summarized: the course should be exited automatically when a slide is displayed longer than a certain time, because it means that the learner probably disappeared without closing the course. That caused issues due to the LMS when retaking a new session for that course. 

Example file

I used one of my previous projects to show the result of the proposed workflow. In this case the course will be exited on each slide if it is displayed for more than 3 minutes. Of course it is perfectly possible to edit that duration, or even have a different duration for each slide as you'll see in the described setup workflow. Try to be patient on at least one slide to let the 3 minutes elapse and see the course automatic exit. You can open this course in a scalable version using this link, or you can watch the embedded non-scalable one below.

Setup

Basics Timer interaction

When you insert a Timer interaction, you'll have to define the properties in this dialog box:

You need to define the amount of time (here 3 minutes 0 seconds) for the timer, and whether you want to count down or up. In a normal situation you can have a message popping up after the end of the counting, but in this case it was not needed. I marked three fields in this screenshot:

• Background: I unchecked this option which would show the image of a clock. Since the timer should not be visible for the present use case I preferred a transparent background. 
• Variable: is an optional field, but was needed in this case(see below). That variable is a Boolean with only two possible values (0/1). You need to define that variable in Project, Variables. It was labeled v_timer in this use case. Its default value will be 0, and toggled to 1 when Timeout occurs.
• Jump to Slide on Timeout: which slide is not important, but you can use the On Enter event of that slide to trigger an advanced or shared action. As you'll see in the setup, I used a very short dummy slide in this case.

Even after closing the dialog box, you can always reopen it using the pencil icon in its Properties panel:

Setup workflow

Variable: Although each slide will have an instance of the Timer Interaction, the created user variable v_timer (see screenshot under Basics) can be used for all instances. The value will automatically be reset to 0 on a slide with a new instance of the interaction. It will be toggled to 1 only when the Timeout occurs on a slide, and then the course will exit. Variables do not keep their value when closing a session.

Timing Interaction instances: insert an interaction on the first slide where you want to enable the timeout, and resize it and set up the properties as indicated in the screenshot under Basics. Since its visibility is not wanted, there are two ways to make this possible. Remember that the background already has been made transparent (see screenshot of the dialog box):

• If the slide background is a solid color, you can use that color for the Text in the interaction:
  

  
• It is not necessary to have the complete interaction on the slide, you can move it partially to the scratch area so that the numbers (text) is not visible on the stage. That will be necessary if the slide background is not a solid color:
  

  

You can copy/paste the interaction to the other slides without any problem. All fields  will be the same. Only two possible exceptions which can need editing: the text color field (if using the first method above) and the time duration if you don't like to have the same timeout settings for each slide.

Dummy slide: in this case I used a very short slide at the beginning of the project, duration = 0.1second. It is not really necessary to use such a slide, you can choose any slide of the project. These are the reasons for my choice:

• The On Enter event of this slide will be used to trigger an advanced action. For most slides in my projects I already have a dedicated On Enter action to reset situations. If you need to add another decision to those actions, it will be different for each project where you want to use this workflow. The Dummy slide can be copied to any project, including its advanced conditional action.
• The first slide will already be rendered in the project whatever the slide used to navigate back to this slide. That may speed up the navigation process. However: if you have quiz slides, you need to enable Backwards navigation in the Quiz Preferences. 

Advanced action

The On Enter event of the Dummy slide triggers this advanced action:

Since this is the first slide, it has to continue to the next slide on first visit. That is the reason for the conditional action, because on first visit the timer variable v_timer will have its default value (0). Only when the slide is visited from another slide where timeout has occurred, that variable will be set to 1. 

Before exiting the navigation is returned to the "last visited slide" in order not to mess up bookmarking by LMS: last visited slide (bookmarked) will be the slide where timeout occurred. If you don't want bookmarking by LMS, you can delete that command.

Reusing workflow

User insisted on a workflow that was easily to be reproduced in multiple projects, both responsive and non-responsive. 

For another non-responsive project:

• Copy/paste the dummy slide and use it as first slide.  An extra advantage will be that the used variable v_timer will be created in the new project.
• Copy/paste the learning interaction. You may need to edit the timeout duration and eventually the text color to adapt to the colors of the new project.
• Now you can proceed as described: just copy/paste the interaction to all the slides. Do not forget to check Quiz Preferences to allow Backwards movement.

For a fluid boxes project:

• Copy/paste the dummy slide, do not bother about fluid boxes on that slide.
• You'll need to create a fluid box for the Timer interaction, it is not possible to copy it from a non-responsive project. Edit the interaction as needed, the user variable has been created from the dummy slide.
• It is recommended to create the fluid box on the used master slide(s), because you'll need to copy/paste the first instance to the same fluid box on each slide. 

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.