Quiz Slides with Fluid Boxes

Goal

Today this question appeared on the forums:  "Easy way to give better feedback in Fluid boxes in the Quiz"

So for the second time in a couple of days a blog post based on such a question. If you missed my workflow to tweak Feedback messages for Drag&Drop, here is the link.

That question is related with a blog post I have been writing about the setup of Fluid Boxes in Quizzing Master slides. If you have read that post, it explained that all feedback messages on those master slides are stacked on top of each other, and for that reason that Fluid Box needed to be converted to a Static Fluid Box. I didn't mention in that post the workflow I am using to create individual feedback messages on the quiz slides which is the purpose of this short article. You can see it as a add-on for the article about fluid boxes in Quizzing master slides, and maybe also show some features of that static Fluid Box, which are not very well documented but which I discovered when trying to find the easiest workflow.

Workflow

Before starting the work flow described below, check the quizzing master slide. Make sure the used styles for the messages are correct and that all the message containers have the same size and are aligned. For the packaged themes that is not always the case.

You have to know that it is NOT necessary to unlock an object from a static fluid box before moving it! That is only the case for the normal, non-static fluid boxes. In static fluid boxes the objects are not glued to the fluid box in the same level. You can even move them out of the fluid box.

Remember: if you screw up something when trying out the workflow, you can always return to the normal situation by clicking the button 'Reset Master Slide' in the Properties panel of the slide.

Step 1

Select the top message. In the default stacking order it will be the Success message. Edit the text. If you are seeing the text of the other images below, check the opacity of the fill, and increase it. 
After editing keep the message selected and move it out of the way. I mostly use the shortcut key CTRL-UP in this case. With each use of that shortcut the message will move up 16px (which is the default size in the grid). Be careful: the message will be over the fluid box containing the answer area. It will not snap to that fluid box, but you'll not be able to select it anymore. That doesn't matter.

In the used theme shape for this message had an Opacity = 0. I changed it to 80% to be able to read and edit the text. No need to  reset the style, will be done in the last step.

Step 2

Edit the next message, in default setting it will be the Incorrect message. 

Step....

If you have more messages, move the second message up, edit the third etc..

Last Step

Pretty easy: reset the master slide as shown in the first screenshot.

Conclusion

It remain a cumbersome workflow, but at least you don't have to unlock from the fluid box as many tell, nor getting them back into the fluid box. If you looked at the thread you see those unnecessary steps mentioned by the Adobe chat and another user. Probably misunderstanding the differences between static and normal fluid boxes. It is still a new workflow, Fluid Boxes, and really quite different from designing a non-responsive project or even a responsive project with Breakpoints.

 

Feedback shapes in Captivate 2017

Why this short post?


If you have read my article about the 3 most important stumbling blocks for Captivate (newbie) users, you'll know that Themes are amongst them.  The components of themes are described in What's in a Theme/template. and in this post you'll learn about he use of Theme colors. Almost daily I see questions, comments on the forums like "I don't use a theme" which is  - sorry for the word - nonsense because every project is based on a theme. The theme with the least intrusive design is the Blank theme, which has no color palette and only offers the minimum set of 6 master slides. 

The themes packaged with Captivate 2017 have some issues with the feedback messages:
  1. Hint shape is using the Success Shape Style, should use the existing Hint Shape Style

  2. Failure shape is using the Success Shape style, should use the existing Failure Shape Style
Shapes are set as default for feedback messages, not captions 

The feedback captions use an appropriate style in the themes Easiest way to solve the problem would be to change Preferences, Defaults and choose for captions if that is not messing up your design.  Below you'll read how to ecit the themes.

Where are default Themes stored?

The original themes can be found under the installation folder, in the Gallery\Layouts for the language you used when installing. I am on Windows, installed the US version of Captivate and the path on my Win system is: 
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 2017 x64\Gallery\Layouts\10_0\en_US. 
You'll also find the ThemeColors folder in that location. The included themes are: (Blank), Blue, Clear, Clean, OldPaper, Poise, Suave, White (which is the default theme). All themes are responsive, but can be used for normal, blank projects.

However, while working with Captivate, you will use the themes from a copied folder. In Windows that copied folder can be found under 
Users\Public\Public Documents\Adobe\eLearning assets\\Layouts.  
Reasons for this work flow are possibly:
  •  you cannot mess up the original themes
  •  the Public folder is accessible for developers which do not have administration rights. 

If a theme seems corrupted or is too messed up, you can always restore it by copy/paste from the Gallery (need for administration rights). If you have both CP9 and CP2017 installed, you'll see both Layouts in the copied folder. But the layouts folder for CP2017 has a subfolder 'bpthemes' containing all the CP9 themes on my system (not sure if that is the case when you only have a CP2017 install).

TIP: don't put custom themes in the sames folder as the default themes (Public). If you have to restore all themes by deleting the Layouts folder you will not lose the custom themes. I store them mostly with the project(s) they are used for.


Editing Default Themes 

Restoring the correct object style for the Failure and Hint shapes is pretty easy: open the Object Style Manager (SHIFT-F7), and replace the Success style by the appropriate style (which does exist) as you can see in this screenshot
image

I suspect you will want to keep the correct object styles for the feedback messages for future projects as well. Use the menu Themes, option Save Theme.  The result will be that the theme is edited in the copied folder, in the Public documents To change the original theme in the Gallery, you'll need to do it outside of Captivate, using Explorer and needing administration rights. However a user yesterday reported that the option 'Save Theme' was dimmed(?).  Reason was that he was working in a blank, normal project. All default themes in CP2017 are responsive. To protect the responsiveness, you have to edit the theme from within a responsive project. The option 'Save theme' will be available in that case. You can always use a responsive theme in a normal project.