Scrolling Text Interaction to replace Text Entry Box

Intro

Although I have already posted about one Submit button for multiple TEB’s, recently users tried to apply that blog to non-validated TEB’s, which was not the goal of that original post. Moreover giving another attempt to a TEB where the Submit has been done has become less easy with HTML5 output. SWF output had so many advantages (rewinding the playhead a couple of frames was simple), but that is the past.

Instead of writing long answers to the most recent thread, to explain why choosing Scrolling Text Interactions was a better choice for non-validated fields, I created a short example file. The workflow explanation will be in this article..

This example was created with version 11.5.0.476, the most recent version of Captivate. I uses some image and button assets from the new Assets panel. However, nothing has changed for interactions in this major update to version 11. I am confident that the solution will work for every version since 8, meant for HTML output.

Example

File has two slides. Only the first slide is relevant for the workflow, the second is meant to test the Continue button (with action "Go to Next Slide").

The first slide has three fields to fill.  If any field remains empty, a textual warning will appear and you can retry. The Continue button appears when all fields have an entry. Project has no poster image, just the default play button. It is not rescalable. Here is the link


Setup

Variables

For three fields you need 3+1=4 user variables, none of them needs a default value in its definition:
  • v_one, v_two and v_three will be used witl be associated with the Interactions
  • v_null is needed for the advanced conditional action to test if the field is blank; more info in ‘Where is Null’‘

Scrolling Text Interactions

Next to each Text container (used a shape) an instance of the Scrolling Text interaction. Here is a screenshot of the setup of the first of them. Important is to link one of the variables and to uncheck the option ‘Read only’:

You see in the dialog box that I edited the font (used an Adobe font), the font size and attribute.  Just a reminder: it is not sufficient to type in a variable name to define it, you need to define it in the Variables dialog box. 

Although I resized the interactions to the same height as the Text containers with the questions, the height is decreased in the output file. Be careful with copy/paste to duplicate an interaction, prefer the Duplicate functionality within Captivate (CTRL-D).

Advanced Action

This action is triggered by the Submit button. I used the On Enter event of the slide to hide the warning that will pop up if at least one field is empty. This is the Preview dialog box. The operator 'is equal to' is replaced by the JS equivalent needed '=='. The logical operator OR is replaced also by its JS equivalent |  As you perhaps know, an advanced action will be converted to JavaScript on Runtime.

The replacement of the grayscale image by the color image, disappearing items on the slide: all is achieved using  the timeline. For those interested, here is a screenshot of that timeline, I didn't group any items, but their label clearly shows what they are.

Conclusion

As usual I appreciate any comment, whether to add an alternative or to ask questions. You are welcome on my website as well.