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.

Intro

Themes, Timelines and Shared actions are amongst my favourite topics, and I needed a long sample project, for this blog about combining two tweaks for Retake Quiz:

1. The quiz slides are not all in sequence, but distributed in the project in between content slides. How can the learner see only the quiz slides during Retake, not the content slides which are in between the quiz slides?
2. On the score slide on failure, how to offer the learner the choice between Retaking only the quiz, or retake the full course including all content slides?

Sample Project

In this example project design elements (not interactions) from the Quick Start Project “Wellbeing” have been used. You can watch the embedded version below or use this link to watch a scalable one.

• 5 advanced actions
• 6 shared actions, replacing 45 duplicate advanced actions

In this post I will only explain the actions for the two Retake Tweaks, not the actions for the multiple Forced view cocntent slides.

Workflow

Situations and events

1. First view: the tutorial will be followed as designed. It is not a linear course, because the slide with the 3 topics is a sort of dashboard, from which branching occurs. Each branch ends with a question slide. The return to the dashboard slide is configured using the Success and Last Attempt action of that last quiz slide.
2. Not first view with Retake Course: is a Retake but including all content and quiz slides. All quiz slides, and the dashboard (Topics) slide need to be reset to their initial state. Difference with 1: the number of attempts on quiz level.
3. Not first view with Retake Quiz (only): this is the default Retake situation, but needs actions to skip the content slides situations in between quiz slides.

This screenshot of the Advanced Interaction panel shows the relevant interactions and events needed to cope with those 3 situations; the relevant actions are marked with a colored highlight box:

There is one special Advanced action, invisible in this panel: On Enter event for the first question slide has an advanced action FirstQuestion. On Enter actions for question slides do not show up in this panel, because the Success column is linked with the Success action of the question slide.

Variables

There are several reusable variables (v_1, v_2…. and v_counter) needed for the multiple Forced View content slides, and the system variable (cpInReviewMode) for the custom Review message. For the Retake tweak workflow these variables are used:

• v_course: has a default value of 0. That value is valid for situations 1 and 2, where content slides need not to be skipped. The variable will be toggled to 1 for situation 3, where content slides need to be skipped.
• cpQuizInoPassFail and cpQuizInfoAttempts: both quizzing system variables
• v_theme, v_timeline, v_shared  are used to track the completion of the three topics, on the Topcis slide (3). I mention them because they will appear in the advanced action EnterTopics.

Actions

EnterTopics (Advanced action) triggered On Enter for slide ‘Topics’

There was no possibility to use the variables (v_1, ….v_6) on this slide. Since the action is only used once, it made no sense to use a shared action neither. For situation 2, this Topics slide needs to be reset. Reset is happening with the RetakeAct action (see further).

FirstQuestion (Advanced Action) triggered by On Enter  First question slide

Only the second decision (RetakeCourse) is relevan for the Retake tweak, first decision is for the custom Review message. That second decision is required for Situation 2. Since the Retake button is used in that situation, by default the learner will be sent to this slide, the first question slide. But in Situation 2 the learner wants to see the full course. For that reason learner is redirected from the first question slide to the Topics slide.

EndQuestion (Shared action) for Success and Last Attempt of last question in each sequence

Each decision corresponds with a situation (same sequence as situations).

This action skips the content slides in Situation 3 – ‘Decision SecondNormal’. In that situation the last question will be followed by the first question in the next sequence of questions. The two other decisions - situation 1 and 2 - navigate to the Topics slide.

EnterScore (Advanced Action) On Enter for score slide

As explained under Variables, the user variable v_course is tracking whether a normal Retake will be done, or a full course Retake. Of course the button to Retake full course is not needed when the quiz is passed. If the learner failed, the value of v_course is toggled to 1. That stands for a normal Retake (no content slides). The start value was 0, which meant that all slides were viewed the first time. That value will be reset to 0 by the RestartAct.

RestartAct (Advanced Action) for Success Event custom button (Bt_Restart)

If the learner fails, Bt_Restart will appear on the score slide. It is a shape button, having the same look (style) as the Quiz buttons. It will trigger this action:

It is a standard action, inviting the learner to click the Restart button.  At the same time it will reset the variables for the course situation (v_course) and for the items on the Topics slide, both variables and states. That slide was the only ‘forced’ slide where the ‘Retain State on Slide Revisit’ was checked, hence the need to reset the states.

The state change for the button is to pop up the explanation text, inviting to click the Retake button. As usual I did drag the Review button under the Retake button. Review button will only appear after the Quiz is Passed or all attempts on Quiz level are exhausted.

Possible extensions

It would have been possible to restrict the Force View on the content slides to the first view. That workflow is described in these two posts presenting yet another Shared action:

Force First View

Advanced to Shared action

Of course Narration could have been added as well. And that same shared action could also improve the second view of a content slide by skipping that narration with the same micro-navigation.

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:

Intro

More is in a hyperlink – Dropdown menu

More is in a hyperlink – Close button

Later on I used the Dropdown menu workflow in all the interactive videos which I posted here, to create a Bookmark menu. Here is one example: Custom Play/Pause button

Last week, a user asked questions about the same topic. That was the incentive to check out if the described workflows for SWF output were still valid for HTML5 output. 

Example file

• Navigation buttons
• Show/Hide workflow
• Close button for a popup
• Forced view

I did keep the typical Underline for the hyperlinks (but often edited the color). You will find tons of them. The design of the slides was taken from the Quick Start Project included with version 11.5, labeled ‘Rhapsody’. It always reminds me of the epoch of the Hippies…

No audio, sorry.  There is no playbar, nor TOC. Navigation is done with SVGs, which have a tooltip (added in the Rollover state) for those who use a desktop/laptop. It is a rescalable, non-responsive project. I  checked  out the workflows in a Fluid Boxes project as well, because they may be very interesting for that type of project.

Setup

Navigation menu

The list with commands which you can open when clicking the down arrow next to the field 'Web page' looks shorter than the Simple Actions list under the Actions tab for an interactive object:

Some commands are indeed missing, but most Slide commands can be found under the unique 'Slide' command. In this screenshot you see how to translate the Jump to Slide command, which you'll need to create navigation buttons (see Menu slide, second slide in the example project):

Comparing with interactive objects

The big advantage of using hyperlinks is that everything could be done with one text container, in which you mark several items as hyperlinks . Great way for a custom Table of Contents, which you can have sliding in/out. Especially for responsive projects: click box over text is not possible in a normal fluid box; limiting number of objects make setup much easier for Fluid Boxes workflow as well as for Breakpoint Views.

Alternative for buttons? Advantage is that you don't have shrinking of the text when pressed, you don't have to configure InBuilt states. Disadvantage: you miss the Visited state to indicate that an item has been visited.

Show/Hide

The slide with the hyperlinks in ellipses, was created as a 'dynamic' hyperlink (to be compared with Dynamic buttons). Text in the ellips are user variables, used as hyperlink. 

The user variables v_fx and v_KC  have a default value of 'Show', while the text shapes with the info are hidden with the On Enter action of the slide. A simple conditional action (similar for both) is used:

It would also be possible to have all the info boxes in one multistate object (which I use in the next two use cases).

Comparing with interactive objects

Similar to the navigation solution, if you don't like shrinking nor styling of InBuilt states this could be a solution. Again, since a Visited state is missing, that can be a drawback.

Another drawback is that you cannot use shared actions, which I would have done in this case. You need to use duplicate advanced actions.

Close button

Normally it is not possible to add an interactive object to a state in a multi-state object. You cannot create a hyperlink neither. However it is possible to have the same hyperlink available in all states, with the same triggered action. On the Close Box - slide, The info multi-state object is a shape with 6 states. Here is a screenshot:

Just FYI, the second state (QSP) looks different in the Object State panel, but that is just a  glitch. It is exactly the same on the state. To create this multistate object you need to follow carefully this workflow:

• Create the shape (Tx_Info is the label I used) with a close hyperlink (big X), which I aligned to the bottom, centered. That will become the Normal state. You need to choose a command, but will have to edit that command later on. 
• Go into the Object State panel and duplicate the state, the X hyperlink will be included in this second state.
• Close the Object State panel and edit the hyperlink. It need to be 'Change state of Tx_Info to Normal'. 
• Change the color of the X character to a color from the background, so that it will be invisible; if there is a Fill and/or a stroke, set Alpha and Stroke both to 0. The Normal state will now seem 'invisible'.
• Return to the Object State panel.
• Select the second state, style the X hyoerlink to a visible color. Add the necessary text and/or background fill.  Double check by previewing if the hyperlink action is functional.
• Duplicate the second state, and edit the text/fill
• Continue the duplication until you have all needed states.

I have tried with Hide for the hyperlink, but had lot of issues, seemed not to be functional. That is the reason why I switched to an invisible Normal state.

In the ellipses you find more hyperlinks. They change the multi-state object to the appropriate state. Here is an example for the first category 'QSP':

Comparing with interactive objects

As far as I know this is the only way to have an action propagating to other states in a multi-state object. Shared actions are not possible nor are Visited States (although with a more complicated advanced action possible).

The action triggered by the hyperlink can be rather complicated. A not so complicated example follows

Forced View

Setup of the multi-state object is quite the same as in the previous slide. In this case the change of state is triggered by real 'buttons', which seemed logical with this content. That also allowed me to use a Shared action. To track the clicks, a user variable is needed for each of the buttons. The shared action is visible in these two screenshots:

The X hyperlink, which was propagated to all states, triggers an advanced action with two decisions. The Back to Menu button is hidden with the On Enter event of the slide, and made visible when all variables have been toggled to 1. That meant that they all have been clicked:

Intro

“I have groups of slides. Each group consists of a handful of slides that has event video on each slide and nothing else. The videos autoplay. The user can enter these groups at any point and must watch each video before being redirected back to a main menu. “

After I had gotten all details, I created this example file. The assets panel in 11.5 was very useful as you can see. Only Chapter 1 has been worked out with 4 slides containing event videos. For Chapter 2 and 3 only one slide is available with a back to menu button. Try it out: you can start with any video, but then the sequence will be linear: 1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-1, 3-4-1-2 and 4-1-2-3 are all possible. You can use the Chapter 1 button on the main menu as many times as you wish. It should be foolproof. However… you have to watch the videos from start till end.

The embedded movie is at a fixed resolution. The project is published as Scalable HTML and you can also play it directly in any resolution from this link.

Setup

Variables

Events and actions

Enter event of video slides 1-2-3-4

This event is used to trigger an advanced action which will check the value of the 4 variables. If they have all the value 1, the learner will be navigated back to the menu slide. Have a look at  the Preview of this action:

Exit event of video slides 1-2-3

For the first three video slides this event is used to trigger a simple action, similar to this one for the first slide:

Assign v_one with 1

Exit event of video slide 4

1. All video slides are viewed (learner started with first video)
2. Not all video slides are viewed (learner did not start with first video)

The first situation means that the learner will be navigated to the main menu slide, the second that he still has to view video 1 and maybe more. This means we need a conditional advanced action. Here is the screenshot:

Since the exit event has also to toggle the variable v_four, I used two decisions. The first one ‘Always’ is toggling that variable. The second decision is the conditional one described above.

Success event of the Video buttons (Chapter 1 slide)

Since both remaining chapters will have a similar group of video slides, this approach can be used there as well, to reuse the same variables. The advanced actions described before, can be duplicated and edited. The shared action can be used as it is without any change.