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Eulon
Eulon
Participating Frequently
July 19, 2017
Question

Can't control when mouse becomes visible

  • July 19, 2017
  • 4 replies
  • 1054 views

I'm using Captivate 2017. I want to control when the mouse cursor becomes visible on a slide so that it doesn't obscure something I'm explaining on the slide. One would think that control would be the Appear After setting in the Timing Properties, but that seems to have no effect--the mouse is there from the beginning of the slide, even though I've set the Appear After setting to 4 secs. I've resorted to copying the background of the slide and pasting it back into the slide as a separate object, then setting it to fade a few tenths of a second after the mouse begins on the Timeline. What am I missing?

Thanks.

This topic has been closed for replies.

4 replies

N
neatsweller
Inspiring
June 27, 2018

We handle this a couple of ways...

Option 1: Make a copy of the background. Cut a small mouse sized piece of it, and paste that onto the timeline until the point we want the mouse to be visible again.

Option 2: Insert a blank slide between each slide. That slide has the mouse in the top left corner, just off the screen, and runs an advanced action to move to the next screen. works fine with swf output. The blank slide is visible sometimes in HTML5 when it goes a bit slow. In this case, I copy the background from the next screen to the blank screen...

All painful, but it does the job.

S
sdwarwick
Participating Frequently
July 26, 2017

It is also possible to provide fine grain control of the cursor using JavaScript.  Before diving into solutions, I'd ask if either of the following would work :

A) cursor simply is invisible inside  a certain shape for the whole slide 

B.)   cursor is semi transparent inside  a certain shape for the whole slide 

Or is it absolutely required for the mouse to be invisible from the beginning of the slide and then reappear after a fixed time from the beginning of the slide? 

Eulon
EulonAuthor
Participating Frequently
July 27, 2017

Hi, Sdwarwick.

For my needs, it's the final case you stated--I want it to be total invisible until a particular time (i.e., enough time for other events to occur before it becomes visible and obscures these events). It would be a bonus to have it fade in at a particular time rather than just appearing.

Can this be done with JavaScript? If so, do you know how reliably it would function in both Flash and HTML5 environments (especially if either/both versions are loaded to a 3rd party LMS)?

Thanks.

TinkerTrainer
TinkerTrainer
Known Participant
July 20, 2017

Rod Ward explained this a couple of years ago:

https://forums.adobe.com/message/8005611#8005611

Lilybiri
Lilybiri
Legend
July 20, 2017

The explanation of Rod is for a cptx-project, I still wait for an answer, because it could be a cpvc-project as well.

Eulon
EulonAuthor
Participating Frequently
July 20, 2017

Mine is a cptx project. I read Rod Ward's explanation (thanks, TinkerTrainer) and understand his point as to why it functions this way. However, I do agree with the person to whom he was responding in 2016 that instructional designers should have more control over when the mouse cursor appears in a slide. As I said, in a number of my slides, the cursor is sitting either partially or completely on top of a screen area that I am explaining (exacerbated by having doubled the cursor size). I think it would be efficient and economical to get the cleaner (and more professional) effect I want in one slide rather than either inserting a separate slide before the slide with the mouse cursor creating an overlay to hide the cursor. Anyway, it is what it is. Good luck with your question.

Lilybiri
Lilybiri
Legend
July 19, 2017

You are talking about a cpvc project (Video Demo) or a software simulation (cptx) in Demo mode?

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