Participating Frequently

Question

Deleting Existing Advanced Actions

Forum|Forum|12 years ago
June 5, 2014
20 replies
2121 views

I've just started in captivate, but I've run across this issue a few times already.

I'm working in Captivate 7.0.1.237.

I start new projects by copying the basic formatting from another project that is already complete. This brings in the "Existing Actions" from my previous project under the drop down menu in the Advance Actions dialog box.

I delete all slides with these actions associated and then try to delete the action. It appears to work when I click the trash can in the upper right, BUT when I close out of Advanced Actions and come back in... the actions I just deleted appear again!

I've checked the usage of these unwanted actions and some say "Item is not currently in use", while others bring up the Usage screen and it's blank (just grey). Also, none of these actions have any directions to do anything anymore. It's not REALLY an issue, but it's cluttering up my drop down menus when I want to execute an advanced action, and my naming conventions are getting more complex and inconsistent across my projects.

Anyone seen this before? Any suggestions for a fix?

This topic is closed to new replies. Start a new post to keep the conversation going.

G

Gaanf

Inspiring

In addition to what the others here said...

I also noted that if I had an Advanced Action assigned to a SmartShape used as Button, and then unticked the 'Use as Button' checkbox for that SmartShape without assigning it some other action before, the Advanced Action still remained somewhat locked to that Shape, preventing deletion.

Lilybiri

Legend

@Gaanf Sure, that is another situation. I had something with Object actions in D&D as well, but cannot remember.

J

JudyWiessner

Known Participant

I ran into this issue today in Captivate 8, and while I realize this is an old thread, I'm still stymied.

I have a number of old advanced actions I want to get rid of. Some have no usage associated with them. A couple are linked to slides in the template - the slides have been removed, but the template is still there, out of reach. If I try to delete them, I get a warning that they will be reset to the defaults, which is fine with me, then the actions appear to be deleted, but they come back immediately.

Most of the actions have no usage. Others have no actions at all - I inadvertently created empty ones, and now can't get rid of them.

Has anything better come up that I'm missing?

Thanks.

M

multim51331552

Participant

nope. I still have this problem in Captivate 2017

Lilybiri

Legend

There are some rules to follow when clearing unused advanced actions. It is not just clicking the 'Usage' button. You probably deleted items which cause the advanced action to seem still active to Captivate. The ultimate workaround is to copy/paste slides to a new project set up with the same theme and resolution. I once had to do this with a project which had 800 advanced actions and about 600 variables.

May I offer a tip: use shared actions whenever possible to replace advanced actions. It will not only make the process of deleting unused actions much easier, but has many other advantages. After reworking that project mentioned before, I ended up with 20 shared actions, 30 advanced actions and less than 50 variables.

RodWard

Community Expert

Yes. You have to decouple the Advanced Actions from ALL slides and interactive objects BEFORE you delete those slides or objects.

So use the Usage button on the Advanced Actions screen to find out WHERE the actions are used, then go to those slides and change the properties of the slide or interactive objects so that they do NOT call the actions. Save changes. Once you can go into the AA dialog and find NO usage for each of the actions, THEN delete the slides or objects.

Not a great workflow I know, and feel free to log this as a bug, but now that Cp8 is out (where this might already be fixed for all I know) there is NO hope of a patch being released for Cp7.

Diarmaid

Inspiring

That is just a simply awful counter-intuitive and dumb, dumb, dumb methodology.

I'm not having a go at you Rod, at all, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the information, tips, tricks and techniques you point out in these fora and your own site, but I seriously cannot get over how shockingly awful Captivate is.

It beggars belief that the above methodology is what it takes to remove unwanted Variables and Actions. Do the folks who build this software EVER use it in the real world? Why have they not hired you (and other power users here) to beta-test the crap outta this programme? And also take on board all the suggestions from your wish-list site?

Sigh... apologies for the rant but I am finding Captivate 7 to be so incredibly buggy and flaky that I'm on this site daily trying to troubleshoot some problem that I think should be way easier to solve than it is and the above "solution" has just tipped me over the edge.

RodWard

Community Expert

For what it's worth, I agree that this is NOT a good workflow. I said this above.

However, I cannot in all good conscience agree with everything you've said about Captivate. I find it to be an excellent tool, if still somewhat limited in some areas and lacking entirely in others. But I use a lot of elearning tools in my professional life and I would still choose Captivate every time.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.