Intro

Over 10 years ago I posted a blog 'Create/Use a Knockout Master slide'. At that moment SWF was the only way to publish a Captivate project, and in versions 5 and 5.5 Themes were not ‘grown up’ yet to their present power. Meanwhile I have pointed many users to that old article, and many claimed it was still useful. However time to clarify the slight differences and offer updated tips., Of course I will use a HTML example. 

Example Tutorial: 'Shared actions as Template'

This is a Captivate tutorial explaining how you can use a Shared action to create variables and as template for advanced actions. There are two versions. Here is a screenshot showing the difference in sim slides between version 1 (Full-size) and 2 (Embedded)

Version 1: Default software simulation

Personally I never use a software simulation in Demo mode, because it is better replaced by a Video Demo for its quality and advanced editor. I created a Training simulation, meant to learn about this Captivate topic. The UI of Captivate is rather complicated, hence my choice of a resolution 1600x900px. The ratio is important, here the common 16:9. In the limited space here, I don't want to embed the simulation because that would be almost useless. I published it as a HTML rescalable project. You can watch it using this link:

Full-size tutorial

Version 2: Embedded in a content slide

I used the workflow explained below to create a second version, where the software sim slides are rescaled and embedded in content slides (1280x720px). On those slides there is space for a logo and more. The narration was replaced by text instrutions on the same slide as the software sim. Published project is also rescalable HTML. Even a tablet will probably be impractial in this version. Use this link:

Embedded tutorial

Setup for Embedded sim slides

For this example the simulation slides need to be embedded in a project  with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels. The captured slides were created with a resolution of 1600x900pixels, which is larger than the final resolution.  

To embed the sim slides, they need to be rescaled. If the original simulation slides have the correct resolution ready for embedding, you can skip Step 0.

Step 0 in Captivate (only if captured resolution is not correct)

Rescaling the software simulation to 2/3, which leads to a resolution of 1066x600px. You choose the resolution needed for your project, but keep 'Maintain Aspect Ratio' and 'Rescale all objects'.  Those are the default settings.

Step 1 (in Photoshop or other app) – create the Knockout image

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

Many users wanting to take advantage of the Ready-to-go slides available through the Assets panel in 11.5, are blocked when trying to customize those slides. In a previous article I offered a step-by-step workflow to find texts or images you want to replace by your text or images. That was not so hard, and you learned to use several panels (Timeline, Master Slide, Object States, Library).

For Interactions the situation is more complicated. You will not find a complete 'How-to' in this blog. Some interactions are rather easy to understand and customize, other interactions however need an in-depth knowledge of Advanced actions and variables. Those slides never use Shared actions, which would be easily found in the Project Library. This blog will try to help you identify the components (actions) of the interactions, how to 'read' them and tips for customizing. The workflow will be explained using a Knowledge Check slide from the project 'Alliance'. The interaction can be told to be of intermediate level. Understanding this workflow will allow you to customize easy and intermediate level interactions. For more complicated interactions this may not be sufficient. Maybe find help from someone experienced in Advanced actions.

Step 1: Find Interaction components

Step 2: "Read" actions (components of interaction)

Let us continue with the same slide from the Alliance project. Select the object KC_1. Its Properties panel shows up, switch to the Actions tab. Open the Advanced action 'KnowledgeCheck_Select1' by clicking the Browser icon. It shows a list with 5 lines, which I will label as 'commands':

The first command line 'Assign.... true': gives a value 'true' to a user variable 'sales_knowledgeCheck_correct'. The name of this variable indicates that it needs to be true for a correct answer, 'false' for a wrong answer. You can check this by reading one of the actions on the three other objects (KC_2...KC_4), where you will read that the given value is 'false'. 

The other command lines are used to change states for the objects, to indicate which object has been selected (active). You can find more explanations about multi-state objects in the first part which I mentioned in the intro.

Open now the unique action 'KnowledgeCheck', linked to the unnamed Smartshape_337. In the Timeline you can see that it is the Submit shape button.  In the Advanced Actions dialog box you see that this is 'conditional' (marked in red). In that case "reading' will be easier if you switch to the Preview window, which you do with the arrow button top right, which I marked with a green box:

In the Preview window you see that the state of two multistate objects will be changed depending on the value of the user variable sales_knowledgeCheck_correct. Identifying those multistate objects allow you to edit the states as explained in the first blog.

Step 3: Customizing examples/tips

In the example the first answer is deemed to be correct.  You can move the shape buttons KC1-KC4 around, to put the correct answer in another location. No problem, the interaction will continue to work as expected.

Less answers

You can safely delete one of the wrong answers in this particular use case. That may not be the case for all interactions. Here however the final action (Submit button) is in no way checking or taking into account the number of answers. You only need at least one correct and one wrong answers.

More answers

If you want an extra answer, you'll have to decrease the size of the answer shapes KC1-KC4. For the 5th answer you can duplicate one of the answers with the right-click menu or the shortcut key CTRL-D (Cmnd-D on Mac). Use the Align options (or toolbar) in the right-click menu to put everything in place. The name of the duplicate answer will probably start with KC_ as well, but not necessarily be 'KC_5'. You don't need to edit the name but I did so (Properties panel) just to clarify. That duplicate answer will have the same states as the source answer. You can check using the Object State panel.

It is however necessary:

1. To edit the existing action for the four older answers, because the state change for the new answer needs to be added.
2. To create and edit a duplicate advanced action for this new answer.

Editing actions KnowledgeCheck_Select1....

Open one of those actions using the Browser icon in the Actions tab (see Step 2 for a screenshot).

The first command line is fine. The Change State lines set the state for the selected answer to Active, the other answers get state Normal. For all those actions a sixth command is necessary to set the state of the new answer to Normal. Steps for KnowledgeCheck_Select1 are indicated in the screenshot below and you'll find the numbers in the explanation:

1. Select the last command line
2. Use the Copy button
3. Move to the next empty command line
4. Use the Paste button
5. Double-click the empty third field and type KC: only the items having KC in their name will appear. Remember: I named the new answer 'KC_5'
6. Choose 'KC_5'
7. Click the down arrow in the next field.
8. Choose the state 'Normal'.
9. Click the button 'Update action' at the bottom and the action is complete now, including the 5th answer.
10. To save time editing the three remaining actions, use the Copy button again on the last command line which sets the state to Normal for the last answer KC_5..

Switch to the action KnowledgeCheck_Select2 using the top right dropdown list:

Creation of KnowledgeCheck_Select5

1. Duplicate the action
2. Edit the name to KnowledgeCheck_Select5
3. Set the state of KC_4 to Normal instead of Active
4. Set the state of KC_5 to Active instead of Normal
5. Save the action and close the dialog box.

You still need to attach this new action to the answer KC_5 and you are ready for testing:

Tip: if you want to explore the Advanced Actions dialog box, you can read this blog.

More?

This is only one example of customizing a Ready-to-go slide. Some interactions are more complicated in those projects, some are easier. If you are in for a challenge, look for the Flipcard interactions, Glossary interaction or some Click/Reveal interactions. 

Do not hesitate to post questions, comments if you are stuck. If possible I will try to help.

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.

Intro

Last week I presented at the Adobe eLearning World 2020 “Deep dive into Captivate with Advanced and Shared actions’. I had prepared 3 different scenarios, to be ready for any audience. Due to the poll before the session I decided to go for the ‘newbie’ scenario because the majority was new to Shared actions, and a considerable amount of attendees even to Advanced actions. That means that intermediate and advanced users were perhaps disappointed. To remediate I plan some blogs and examples as illustration. This is the first one.

Javascript and Shared actions

It is possible to have the command ‘Execute Javascript’ embedded in a shared action. When talking about games, randomization is mostly used but not a ready-to-go feature in Captivate. In the session I showed a very simple board game where the tossing of a dice is simulated, and the board cursor advances based on the result of the dice toss. That was realized with one shared action.

This game uses random numbers as well. It is a memory game which can be used in many variations due to the flexibility of shared actions, variables and multistate objects.

Game

You will learn about the game rules in the game. There is an easy and a more complicated way to play the 3 games. Hope you don’t keep only the easy one if you are in for some memory training:

Play with the rescalable version using this link or with the embedded (fixed resolution) version:

Have fun!

Inttro

Looking back in my blog history, I remember very well the first Memory Game created 10 years ago (with version 5.5). It was quite an adventure, because I wanted to prove it to be possible without having to use ActionScript  (since only SWF output was available).

Now 10 years later, ActionScript has been replaced by JavaScript but  I still try to create games without having to use JS.  That is possible when randomness is not necessary as is the case for this game. However newer features like multistate objects, SVGs which can be used as buttons, and most important 'Shared Actions' make it a lot easier now. Kudos to the Captivate team!

Have fun with the embedded version (fixed size), or the rescalable version using this link

Extensions possible?

The structure of this game allows a lot of flexibility. The two challenges have a different total number of shapes. Shapes can be replaced by images to convert it into a kid's game. It is also possible to increment the number of pairs, or to make a search for trios instead of pairs.

SVGs  used as buttons have several advantages. You can limit the clickable area to the image, instead of to the bounding box. They remain crisp ion all devices, whatever the browser resolution.  Disadvantage is that they take a while to redraw, which you may have seen when the slide was reset. 

As you could read I used:

• 3 shared actions.  one of them was used 30 times!  If you are not yet convinced about the value of Shared actions over Advanced actions, I will present about both on 24th of June in the  Adobe eLearnng World 2020 conference.
• 2 advanced actions for the Reset action On Enter for the challenge slides
• 4 variables

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

You prefer step-by-step workflow for this second lesson over a video. Great. Let us start with this second lesson,  explaining how to use the shared actions from the first project in your project. Believe me: it is as intuitive as the first lesson.

Workflow: (re)Use shared actions in your projects

Step 1: Preparation

To follow this workflow, you need a project with at least two slides:

1. Content on the first slide is not important, it is meant to allow you to test the project.
2. Second slide needs to have these objects:
   • Two multi-state objects. Content is not important: audio, video, graphics, text or combinations in the states. Only requirement: same number of states in both objects (although you can have some identical states). They are labeled Container1/SVGContainer in the Timeline below.
   •  A shape or caption which will be used to insert the variable v_counter. You will insert the variable later on. Labeled SS_Counter in the Timeline.
   • Two navigation buttons: Next and Back. They are labeled SB_Back and SB_Next in my project (shape buttons)
   • A button to jump back to slide 1, with the action ‘Jump to slide 1’ or ‘Go to Previous Slide’. I used a SVG as button, labeled SVB_Home.

Here is an example of the Timeline of the project I use, the names are mentioned above::

If you are eager to start but do not have time to create a custom project, you can download this one:
Lesson2Start

Please do not use the SVGs from SVGContainer in your projects. They were extracted from a licensed AI file.

Step 2: Variables

Have a look at the variables, using menu Project, Variables.  The default view will show you the two user variables which are added to each project:

Step 3: Open External Library

Use the File menu, option Import, External Library. You have to point to the original project which has the shared actions on board.  In this case that will be the start project which you used in the previous practice; “SlideShow”.

The project will not open, but its library appears as a floating window in the left top corner of your screen. You will probably need to increase its height, and collapse the Images folder to see the Shared Actions folder clearly. 

You can use any object directly from this external Library in your project. I used the Home button (SVG). However for the Shared Actions, it is better to not use this method. It can be done if there is only one independent shared action, but in this example the three actions are somehow linked due to the used variables.

Step 4: Drag shared actions to project Library

Select the three shared actions in the external Library, and drag them to the project library. They will appear in that library with the Usage set to 0. Be sure to drag all the actions  at once. Reason:  they share some variables. which could lead to the creation of multiple instances of the variables. You will check this in step 5.

Step 5: Check variables

Use Project, Variables and… surprise! The variables used in the shared actions have appeared, including their default value and description

You can now insert the variable v_counter  in the text (see Timeline) SS_Counter, using the X button in the Properties panel, Character part.

The text will look like this:

…. $$v_counter$$

Beware: if you see more than one instance of a variable, it means that you didn’t drag ALL the shared actions at once. In that case, please delete the shared actions, delete the variables and retry Step 4.

Step….

You can now repeat what you learned in the previous lesson: drag the shared actions to the slide and to the navigation buttons, and choose a ‘value’ for the parameters.

Do not forget to test if everything is working as expected. Use F11, Preview HTML I Browser for the best preview.

More?

The step-by-step workflows described in this and the previous blog (or in the video and the next video to be published soon)) can be used for all the interactions in the Demo project, provide you have the shared actions. Not only for those rather simple interactions! It is also possible for more complicated projects like the Matchstick game, which I published recently, and for many more use cases.

I sincerely hope that at least some Captivate users will realize possibilities.  Ask an expert to design shared actions which can be used by any Captivate developer,  without having to dive into advanced actions, variables etc. .

I may post an 'epilogue' to this short crash course, listing up some Q&A. If you have a question to contribute, do not hesitate to post it in a comment.

Preparation

In Lesson 1 you started from an existing project, which had created objects for the Slide show AND shared actions in the project Library. Topic of the lesson: workflow to attach the shared actions to a slide event (On Enter) and to buttons (Success event). Lesson ended with the proposal to create a personal project with two slides. First slide is a title slide with only a Start button (Go to Next slide). Second slide needs two multistate objects. Number of states is not important but has to be the same for both objects (you can have identical states if wished).  Two navigation buttons (Back and Forward) and a button to get back to the first slide and your homework is done.

For this video lesson you need:

• The original project, which I provided in Lesson 1. If you lost it, here is another link (dropbox)
  SlideShow
  
  
• Your project. If you are really lazy, you download my project as used in the video. Please, do not reuse the SVGs, they are created from a licensed Adobe Stock file. You can use them only for practice the video workflow.
  StartLesson2

Video

You will transfer the shared actions to your custom project, and reuse them.

After finishing the workflow, you can compare your result with 'Lesson2'