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samamara
samamara
Known Participant
May 21, 2017
Question

Captivate: Advanced Actions help please

  • May 21, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 433 views

Hi there...

Fairly new to Captivate and have been watching instructional videos on Lynda - mostly great stuff. I'm stuck, though, on trying to execute a particular advanced action, which I was trying to copy from the video to practice. I've done it at least four times, rewatched the video and am *pretty* sure I'm doing all the steps but something seems to be going wrong. 

Three slides. On slide 2 there are two buttons - one is the correct answer and one is the wrong answer. On slide 3 there are two caption boxes - one says you are correct and the other says you are wrong (again, I'm just fiddling to make sure I got how to do this). The idea is to have the captions on slide 3 show or hide based on which button is clicked on slide 2. The problem is that BOTH of the buttons on slide 2 show/hide the same text on slide 3. 

Again, I've done this four times today and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. If you could have a look and let me know, I'd appreciate it. (I know I should be renaming my text caption boxes, and have been all day but this time I just gave up because I was in a hurry to get this last try out of the way )

If it matters, the video I'm watching is on Captivate 7 and I'm using Captivate 8.

 

Screen Shot 2017-05-21 at 5.51.17 PM Screen Shot 2017-05-21 at 5.51.26 PM Screen Shot 2017-05-21 at 5.51.37 PM

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2 replies

RodWard
Community Expert
RodWardCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 21, 2017

You may be unnecessarily complicating things. I am assuming that userAnswerSlide2 is a variable that you have set up, correct?  Having it assigned with that text string "You Are Wrong" is overkill.  All you really need is an boolean value (0/1, True/False, Yes/No) to indicate whether answer is correct or not.

The easiest way is just to set the default value of that variable to 0 and have it changed to 1 if the correct answer button is clicked.

Set the button that if clicked on slide 2 will be counted as a correct answer execute an Assign action that will change that variable's value to 1 when it is clicked.  By default, after performing this action, the timeline should continue to play and arrive at slide 3 shortly thereafter.

Use the On Slide Enter event of Slide 3 to execute the Conditional Action.  Both of the captions should be hidden by default (set Visible in Output setting to OFF).  The Conditional Action needs to check the value of the userAnswerSlide2 variable and if it is set to 1 (because the correct button was clicked) then SHOW the Correct text caption, and HIDE the Incorrect text caption ELSE do the opposite and SHOW the incorrect text caption and HIDE the correct text caption.

There are lots of ways to improve this particular interaction, but see if you can at least get that part to work first.

samamara
samamaraAuthor
Known Participant
May 21, 2017

Hi RodWard;

Thanks for your answer. I'm trying to understand what you're saying, lol, but I've been trying to wrap my head around what I've been doing for the last day and a half. As I said to Lilybiri, it does feel like this is more complicated than it should be, really. Could you have a look at the screen shots I posted and tell me how it could have been improved? I was just following the example set by the presenter of the tutorial video, along with the text on a button, but I'm sure it could be less confusing. Maybe

Lilybiri
Lilybiri
Legend
May 21, 2017

You have a user variable 'userAnswerSlide2', and you check its value. But how is that user variable populated? Can you post a screenshot of the actions of the buttons on slide 2, because it should happen there. I don't find this a good example for AA at all, why make it so complicated by having a sentence to be stored in a variable instead of a simple number. I would use 0 for the wrong answer and 1 for the correct answer. But that is off topic. Same for the labeling of the variable...

How is this conditional action triggered? By the On Enter action of slide 3?

You can check the Advanced Interaction panel (F9) to check for the events triggering the actions.

Events and (advanced) Actions - Captivate blog

samamara
samamaraAuthor
Known Participant
May 21, 2017

Hi Lilibiri;

Thanks for your answer. I'm going to try it *again* but I think your answer helped me find the problem. I believe I forgot to apply the action to button on slide 2 that *should* have shown the text on slide 3 to execute advanced action. 

Yes, the conditional action is triggered by 'on enter' of slide 3. 

I'm not sure what you mean by "I don't find this a good example for AA at all, why make it so complicated by having a sentence to be stored in a variable instead of a simple number. I would use 0 for the wrong answer and 1 for the correct answer." I have the buttons and captions labelled that way so I could remember which one was which, lol, but essentially I was following the example provided by the instructor. If there's an easier way, I'd appreciate knowing. I found this much more complicated that it seems it should be. This is what my variable looks like, if it's relevant. Below that is the screenshot for the actions of the button of slide 2. The red part is where I didn't have the action designated right for the second button (it was only set to 'go to next slide').

 

Screen Shot 2017-05-21 at 7.33.51 PM

Screen Shot 2017-05-21 at 7.52.04 PM

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