Intro

This course offers a detailed (video) workflow how to create and use for Drag&Drop objects.

The video is also available as standalone on YouTube, can be skipped in the interactive Captivate tutorial. The tutorial has also a Table of Content in Overlay, to allow complete free navigation.

The mastered skills are used for two games, which also take advantage of the available InBuilt states for Drag&Drop objects. More detailed workflow for the games will appear as blog posts. I used Ready-to-go slides from the Quick Start Project 'Business', non-responsive version.  Some licensed images from Adobe Stock were used as well. 

You can watch the tutorial as scalable HTML output from this link (recommended- or watch the embedded fixed resolution output below:

Intro

Last week a similar question appeared here in the portal, about using Images in Matching questions. I posted an answer without having tested it out, because Matching questions are rather different. Today I found some time to double-check my answer, and want to post about the possible problems. You’ll get – as usual – an example project as result of the exploration.

Example

1. Default Matching Type question: images are in the first column.
2. Default Matching Type question: images are in the second column.
3. Drag&Drop custom question slide as alternative.

There is one attempt on question level, and 3 attempts on quiz level. Review Quiz is possible after passing the quiz or having exhausted the attempts. You can use a scalable version using this link, or watch the embedded version below:

Workflow for Matching Type with Images

Editing Master slide

Editing Quiz slide

Problems – limitations

You should not activate the Shuffle option, because that will not work if images are present.

Changing the vertical alignment for the numbering leads to problems. Often the numbering just gets lost.

As you may have experienced, it is not always easy to drag the item to the correct one in the second column, especially for the second slide.

Since the added images are custom objects, they are below the embedded objects on the quiz slides (z-order). That makes exact moving difficult, and editing the colors of the SVGs (second slide) as well. Some tips:

• Do not try to select the custom objects on the stage, select them in the Timeline.
• To resize a custom object, do not try to use the handles but use the Options tab of the object.
• To move a custom object use the shortcut keys (with arrows). SHIFT-arrow moves 10px, CTRL-arrow 16px
• To edit the colors of the SVGs move them to the scratch area. It will be very difficult to double-click while they are on stage. Of course you can use bitmap images.

Intro

Recently I published a blog about what seems to be 'hot' topic: how to replay a slide, how to reset a slide. That blog didn't include an example file.

When coaching a training I often use Captivate tutorials, more than videos. This particular topic needs such an interactive approach, to allow to experiment, to get a 'feeling' of the difference between Replay and Reset (with or without an On Enter action). For learners I provide the cptx-file. Here I will only share the HTML5 published output. 

You will see that I borrowed design elements from the Quick Start Project 'Safety'. The interactions were created from scratch.

Content and Tools

After a short rehearsal of terminology and the step-by-step workflows you'll be able to see 4 different examples:

• Slide 5  which is only based on the Timeline: staggered objects and effects. 
  The info button will show you the Timeline and a relevant part of the Advanced Interaction panel
  This slide is followed by a T/F quiz slide to check your observations.
• Slide 7: click/reveal slide, using multistate objects. The info button shows you the same information as for slide 5
  This slide is followed by a MCQ slide with multiple correct answers, to check what you learned.
  Both quiz slides are Knowledge Check slides. If you want to cheat you can go back to the previous slide. Navigation by TOC is also possible. The TOC is in overlay mode.
• Slide 9 : flipcard slide (with thanks to the QSP Alliance). Rather simple but worth seeing the difference between Replay and Reset.
• Slide 10: Drag&Drop slide set up as Knowledge Check slide.

You may detect several techniques like Forced view, which need using some user variables. Quiz slides do not use the default two-step Submit process, but show a Continue button when the Submit button has been clicked. 

Tutorial

You can watch the embedded version, or use this link to play a scalable version. I recommend to use the link. The embedded version seems to have long loading times. 

Animations?

You may have missed animations in the tutorial. There is a reason. While it used to be possible to Reset an animation, that feature is broken in the version 11.5.1. At least for the animated GIF which I created. I have already been searching since a couple of weeks for a workaround without success. I will create an OAM as well, to check if has the same issues. Too bad, it was a fun animation:

Update

For a hands-on experience, have a look at the recent post with a Captivate tutorial about this topic.

Replay/Reset Slide tutorial

Intro

Replay slide

Expression cpCmndGotoSlide = cpInfoCurrentSlide – 1
Continue

Whether you need the command Continue depends on the setup of the slide. If you leave it out, the play head will remain paused at at the first frame of the slide.

The advanced/shared action is essentially a translation from a still older action. , where more system variables starting with ‘rd’ existed, allowing a simple action instead of the one shown above. Reason: besides the cpInfoCurrentSlide, there was a second system variable rdInfoCurrentSlide. The first one was meant only to show the slide number, and for that reason starts its index with 1. The rd variable, like most system variables, starts its index with 0. , The simple action was:

Assign cpCmndGotoSlide with rdInfoCurrentSlide

Common misunderstanding is that this action will also ‘reset’ the slide which is NOT the case unless for very simple slides. Main reason: the play head never ‘re-enters’ the slide. Re-entering the slide is necessary to restore the original situation, either automatically, and/or by having an On Enter action being done again.

Reset slide

Hope we use the same terminology. Reset slide to me is to restore the slide to the situation it had when you first entered the slide.  During the first visit of the slide lot can have been changed. Here is a not exhaustive list:

• Some object, originally hidden are now visible, or the reverse situation: originally visible, now hidden.
• Multi-state objects were changed to another state, both custom state or InBuilt state (think about the Visited state of a button).
• Effects have been applied to objects or groups, which can have those objects being in a different location if the effect included a motion path.
• Knowledge Check slides have been answered. I will not talk about regular question slides, because those cannot be reset on slide level, only on Quiz level
• Drag&Drop slides set up as Knowledge Check slides have been answered. Same restriction for D&D slides setup as scored questions (quiz level needed). I hear you! You can add a Reset button to a D&D slide, indeed, but that will not reset everything if you used Object Actions.
• …

Essential for resetting is to re-enter the slide, to have the playhead revisit the On Enter slide event. For some of the described items that will be sufficient, for others it will be necessary to add an action On Enter. I demonstrated this situation in the recent presentation at Adobe eLearning World. You can find the recording still online in this portal. I will explain how to re-enter the slide (2 workflows).

Re-enter Slide (workflows)

Two workflows are possible (explained only the second one in the old post, but it has failed at least in one of the more recent releases and pushed me at the first workflow):

Dummy slide

Easy workflow, step-by-step:

• Insert a duplicate of the present slide before the present slide
• Take out all interactive objects of that slide, it should not have pausing points.
• If there is an On Enter action, delete it and get back to ‘No action’ or ‘Continue’ (same result)
• Reduce its duration to 0.1 secs which is the shorted possible duration.
• Attach this  action to the Reset/Replay button:

Go to Previous slide

The play head will rewind to the dummy slide and since it is so short almost immediately (re)enters the present slide.

Drawback: you increase the number of slides. That may be annoying if you show the number of slides (cpInfoSlideCount) and/or if you use the TOC (where you’ll have to hide the dummy slides). I started using this approach in a version where micro-navigation had problems in HTML5 oiutput.

Tip: to avoid annoying flickering in case of low bandwidth, prefer a similar look for the dummy slide as for the present slide. I mostly use a duplicate, taking out all interactive objects and actions.

Micro-navigation

It is bit more complex but avoids adding slides. Workflow:

• Create a user variable v_start. It will be used to store the first frame of the slide.
• Use the On Enter slide event for this command (eventually to be combined with other commands) 
       Assign v_start with cpInfoCurrentFrame
• For the Replay button use this command:
       Expression cpCmndGotoFrameAndResume = v_start – 1
  The play head will rewind to the frame before the start frame of the slide, which is the last frame of the previous slide. Due to ‘Resume’ in this system variable of the Movie Control category, the play head will continue and re-enter the slide immediately.
  It may prove necessary to increase the '1' to 2 or 3 if you don't get the expected result. It is possible that the value of the first frame is one or two frames wrong. In most cases however it works fine.

The variable and the actions can be reused on all slides.

What is reset?

As mentioned before, some items will reset automatically when re-entering the slide by one of the described workflows. Here a non-exhaustive list from my experience:

• Multistate objects: if you keep the default setup where ‘Retain state on slide revisit’ remains unchecked. The normal state will re-appear as in the first visit of the slide. I have some blogs around which use that as an alternative for a Show/Hide scenario.  Drawback: if you use the InBuilt state ‘Visited’ it will also disappear in this situation.
• Knowledge Check slides:  will be completely reset, ready for a new attempt. 
• Drag&Drop slides: are completely reset, including eventually changes to objects due to Object actions. That is not the case with the generic Reset button which can be added to such a slide.
• Effects: as you know they can be added with three types of triggers. The easiest one, based on timeline will not need a Reset action, will be reset with a simple Replay action. However both the button triggered Effects and Effects triggered by an advanced or shared action need to re-enter the slide to have them reset to their original situation.
• Text Entry Boxes:  if you change the value of the associated variable, that change is never visible right away but will now be correct after re-entering. Same for the variables of learning interactions like checkbox and radiobuttons. Not really ‘reset’, more of a ‘refresh’.
• Web objects: they will be reset to the first web page, which opens with indicated URL. If you use Replay that will not happen.
• Animations like OAMs
  

What is NOT reset?

• Multistate objects: if you check the option ‘Retain state on slide revisit’ for the object.
• Hide/Show: items that have been shown or hidden during the Play head travel in the first visit will remain in that status.
• Enable/Disable: if this command has been used for interactive objects, they will remain in that state. I showed this in the presentation ‘Deep dive with Shared and Advanced Actions’ at the Adobe eLearning world conference: if you disable all interactive objects, the pausing points disappear and nothing will stop the play head.
• Variable values: they will not be reset to their original value.
• Score: if you have scored objects on the slide, the total score including this score will not be decreased.

How do you reset these items: by creating or editing the On Enter action. That is beyond the scope of this shorter blog. You can see multiple examples in some slides of the Quick Start Projects, or on my blog including the sample project I added to the mentioned presentation. I include that project here as well. Check the On Enter actions (and the consequence of missing such an action on the first slide).

Look out for a Captivate tutorial to illustrate the difference for several of the mentioned items. It will be published soon on this blog.

If you have watched my course about Using Shared Actions, you'll already know that this is one of my favorite features. It makes it possible for newbies to create rather complicated tutorials without need of programming skills. 

I already uploaded a game recently, here is another one. You can use this link or play with the embedded one:

Intro

Recently I presented a webinar about Interactivity in Captivate. It was not a public webinar, but composed of Adobe Community Professionals. Lot of the attendees were new to Captivate but well versed in other Adobe applications. However there were also some CP-experts. As usual I don’t present with Powerpoint, but with a Captivate presentation.  That makes it possible to publish later as an interactive tutorial, which you'll be able to view. It needed some editing of course to allow full control to the learner. Narration was added as well.

The design is based on the Quick Start Project 'Wired' included in the Assets panel of 11.5.1.499. Based on it I  created a personalized Theme, since that project in its non-responsive version has no master slides. The original fonts were replaced by two Adobe fonts (Termina and Filson Soft family). The interactions were recreated with workflows which I prefer over the embedded ones. 

The goal was to show popular workflows to create interactivity. You will see: Branching (menu), Forced viewing,  Progress bars, Click&Reveal, Drag&Drop, Knowledge Check slides, Games. In the webinar the presentation was used along demonstrations of the used workflows in simple examples, with lot of good practice tips. Lot of multi-state objects were used, Guides, import of source Photoshop files, shared/advanced actions and variables.

The menu slide after the start slide is the pillar. When you see a Back to Menu button appear, you'll be navigated back to this slide. The tooltip for this back button is part of the Rollover state.

Click to see the presentation in a rescalable version or watch the embedded version (fixed resolution) below:

Feedback

Did you like this presentation? Would you like more 'back to basics' blogs, or tutorials? Do you have questions? Are you able to recreate the demonstrated workflows? Lot of questions where I would like to see some answers.

Intro

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

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

Example file

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

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

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

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

Step-by-step Delaying Submit button

1. Pause the timeline before the default pausing point

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

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

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

Step 2: Drag Submit button off the slide

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

Step 3: Timebased motion effect to Submit

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

Step 4: Create User variable 'v_drag'

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

Step 5: Advanced (conditional) action 'ObjectAct'

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

Step 6: Attach 'ObjectAct' to all Object actions

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

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

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

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

Workflow: adding second step to Submit Process

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

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

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

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

Intro

If you are a fan of my blog, you know that usually I will not talk about a new release on the day it is released (although I have explored it in a beta test group). This time however I am so excited about this intermediate release. It has 'Voor elk wat wils' (interesting features for each developer whatever her/his level) to use a Flemish proverb. Do not expect a full review here, want to talk only about some of my preferred features which do appeal to my level of expertise. My apologies if you don't like that 'egocentric' approach. Be sure I will write more in the future, need some time to explore in-depth. As in the past, I may overlook some little gems which I couldn't dig out yet, will continue the search. You'll find three small gems at the end.

SVG as Button

It has been possible to fill a shape with an image since version 6. Converting the shape to a button was a much easier way to create nice buttons than the older workflow with Image buttons where you needed a graphics application (and had to create several images) Shape buttons also can have custom states besides the InBuilt states which they share with the old button types (Normal, Rolllover, Down, Visitedà. I never use those legacy types anymore, except for Quiz/Score slides where they cannot be used as embedded buttons.

However, those shape buttons have two lmitations:

• You can only fill with Bitmap images, the much sleeker vector images like SVG were not possible.
• The clickable area of the shape button is the bounding box, not the image itself.

WIth 11.5 it is possible to use SVG's directly as buttons without the need for a shape. And you can limit the clickable area to the image itself! This is a big step forward. File size of SVG's tends to be small compared with bitmap images, and moreover they are excellent for responsive project due to its vector nature.  The SVG has all the features of a shape button: can be used on master slides, can be timed for the rest of the project (not in Fluid Boxes), can be added to quiz and score slides as extra button. A setup with 3 buttons like this screenshot was not possible in previous versions, because the bounding boxes are overlapping: The screenshot may look blurry (has been converted to bitmap here) but the original SVG's in Captivate are really crisp. Size of the SVG: about 75Kb.

In the default setup, the clickable area is still the bounding box, you have to uncheck that option:

Bitmap images as Buttons

Similar to SVG's, they can now directly be used as button, no need to fill a shape button. Same for the clickable area: can be limited to the image. Depending on the type of images this extends the functionality which I explained in the first point. I dream of custom hotspot questions with partial scoring as described in this older post. Watch out for use cases in future blog posts. Not only are you now rid of the cumbersome workflow which I described here, but if you use a bitmap format which supports transparency (GIF, PNG24) you can uncheck the same feature to reduce the clickable area as for SVG'S.

Themes 

Interactive video

One of the new features in the first release of CP2019 which I really like a lot. Not so much changes after this patch. It is interesting that you now are not only limited to videos on your system or from YouTube, but that you can also use Vimeo videos.

Another improvement is the possibility to insert a sequence of overlay slides (content or KC slides) on a frame of the video. 

VR project/360 slides

Several enhancements:

• To the actions which can be triggered by hotspots the much asked for 'Play Video' was added.
• The hotspots are now very customisable, black and white (minstrels?) are over and out: edit the colors as much as you want.
  Double click on the hotspot when inserted, select one of the paths and choose a color.
  

  
• If you trigger Text, you will like the new formatting possibilities. Just a pity that Typekit fonts cannot be used....
  

  
• No need to guess a duration for the popups anymore. Default setting is now a close button in the top right corner as you can see in the previous screenshot.

Small gems

Theme colors: in the screenshot of the new Themes panel inserted earlier, you see that the main theme colors are now named 'Color1.... Color10. This fits better the use of the colors, because in previous versions there was a Title color, which was not always used for titles, a Subtitle colors which was rarely used for subtitles etc...

Drag&Drop:  when selecting Infinite attempts in the Actions tab, the 'Failure action' will disappear, very logical since it will never happen in that situation. Regret however that the wording 'Failure' is still not replace by 'Last Attempt'. The action doesn't occur On Failure, but only at the last attempt, same as for quiz slides.

Preview menu: for non-responsive projects, the option 'Preview HTML5 in Browser (F11)' is now the first option which is great! The death of Flash player for all browsers will soon be a fact, every developer has to switch to HTML5 output. The other Preview methods are all still based on a temporary SWF output (except Play Slide, which is NOT a preview method). To check the future output only the mentioned Preview HTML5 in Browser should be used.

...sure will find more of those.

More...

This was not a complete overview at all. As I explained, need more time for features like the new Assets panel, use of Quick Start Projects, Branching setup, multiple themes, copy/paste appearance etc... 

Why?

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

Example movie

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

Workflow

Hint = multistate object

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

On Enter Shared Action

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

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

Advanced Action ArrowAct

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

Advanced Action DragAct

Intro

Yesterday an interesting question appeared on the forum concerning Drag&Drop

The second question is answered in that thread, was about setting up the Accept for the drop target as I have already explained in previous blog posts. The first question however is at the base of this short article. I quote:

"Is it possible to show separate messages for cases such that the user not selecting the answer (Choose an answer msg) and selecting the wrong answer (Incorrect answer msg).  It currently shows 'Incorrect Answer' msg for both cases."

I asked for some details about the setup: 

• Several drag sources, only one was correct
• One drop target, based on my answer to the other question, it accepted all drag sources but only one by one. When dragging another source it would replace the first one.
• Infinite Attempts

Drag&Drop confusions

Drag&Drop slide have some limitations such as: all drag sources and drop targets have to be on the slide from the first frame.  You can define it as a score slide or as a KC slide (see Drag&Drop Tips).  It has a lot of the behavior of a quiz slide, but it is not a full-blown quiz slide or KC side. Here are some points in its UI that I find really confusing and would love to see changed (logged feature requests about that since version 6):

1. D&D slides are automatically pausing at 1.5secs but that is NOT visible on the Timeline, only in the Timing properties, whereas for quiz slides the pausing point is visible on the Timeline but NOT in the Timing Properties. This is confusing.
2. D&D slides have an On Enter event and an On Exit event, whereas quiz slides only have an On Enter event. That is OK.
3. Submit button both for D&D slides and for Quiz slides have one or two events, depending on the number of allowed attempts. For quiz slides, the actions triggered by those events will happen after the first step of the Submit process (where feedback messages appear), for D&D slides there is only one step in Submit process. That is OK, you just have to realize that.
4. I talked about one or two events:
   1. If the number of attempts is limited you have two events: you allwasy have the Success event. That event and its linked action occur when the answer is validated and correct. That is fine, works the same for quiz and D&D slides. If you want to give the learner the time to read a Success message, which can appear automatically you have to leave some time to the learner by choosing the correct action On Success. Example: if you set the Success action to 'Go to Next Slide', learner will not be able to see a Success message. Change to 'Continue', and eventually increase the duration of the slide. Works fine, just that slight difference.
   2. If the number of attempts is limited, the second event is the Last Attempt event. That is indeed the indication in the Actions part of  the Quiz Properties.  The Failure message will always pop up with every Failure attempt, but the event that triggers an action only occurs when all attempts are exhausted. However in the Actions tab of a D&D slide it is wrongly labeled as Failure event. Many users  believe that the specified Failure action will occur for each Failure attempt which is NOT the case. This is confusing 
   3. If the number of attempts is unlimited you have only one event, the Success event. It is logical because you are supposed to try until you get the correct answer. For quiz/KC slides this is very clear because the Last Attempt event is dimmed when you choose for unlimited attempts. However for D&D slides the (alreadly wrongly labeled) Failure event is not dimmed, although it will never happend. This is very confusing IMO.

Sorry for this long explanation, needed to understand the workflow I explored to answer the question mentioned in the intro. I hope some of you, readers, will support my feature requests to 'repair' the UI and avoid confusion.

Workflow for  messages

User wanted to see a different message popping up:

1. When the submit button is clicked but no drag action has been done
2. When the submit button is clicked and the drag action was wrong

Both situations are considered Failures, but Failure doesn't generate an event until the last attempt. Since it is set to Unlimited Attempts, there will never be a Failure event. No way to replace the messages by custom text containers, if you cannot trigger advanced/shared  action on Failure.

The popup messages (Success, Failure) cannot be controlled, they don't have an ID.  You can create states for such a message, but since you cannot address the message, you cannot change the state by an action.

A possible solution is to replace the text in the Failure message by a variable, in this case I labeled it v_failure. It is possible to change the value of a variable. This is the screenshot in editing phaes of an example slide:

As default value on defining the variable I used the text to show when the learner has clicked the Submit button without doing any drag action:

The value of the variable has to change when at least one drag action has happened, which was not the correct action. Besides the events occurring after clicking the Submit button, D&D slides have also Object Actions. I will use those actions to assign another value to the variable v_failure. Open the dialog box in the Format tab for the selected drop target. In this very simple example, I used an Assign command as you see in this screenshot. I only needed it for the two wrong drag sources. For the correct source, no need to change the Failure message, since the Success message will appear. Since I used a simple action, needed to uncheck the box 'Continue Playing the Project'.

If you need to change a lot of those actions, and it is OK to have always the same Failure message, please create an advanced (oneline) action, will save you time when applying in the Object Actions. If you want a different feedback message for each wrong source, use either the Assign command (as above) or use a shared action.