Animated .gif Playing on One Slide Only...?

[sam_amara]

Good moring, all; 

I have a colleague who is trying to add a .gif to several slides in a Captivate project. The idea is that when someone clicks a button a little .gif showing confetti plays. The advanced action she is using is very simple: on success of the button click, a shape disappears, a bit of text disappears and the confetti .gif plays. It works beautifully on the first slide, but then the .gif won't play on success of the button click on the second slide. We've tried everything we can think of (and were able to get it to work in a different program) so we're wondering if this is a glitch or if there is some reason Captivate won't let this happen or, of course, if we're missing something.

Here are some shots of a very small test I've done, recreating her issue, to try very simply to get the .gif to play on the second instance, but to no avail. and attached is a small clip of what happens on the first and second slides (the .gif should appear on the second slide too).

Any ideas?

TIA!

samamara

. 

[Lilybiri · Accepted solution]

I have somewhere a blog post about a similar problem, but I just tested a solution out for you in a short project.

Reason is that the animation is synchronized with the timeline, and it starts on the first frame. It astonishes me more that it works the first time, because the playhead will probably already be after the end of the GIF timeline. But if you take the test further and click that Submit button on the same slide a second time the animation will not play at all. This is what you see on the second slide, since the animation has already played once, it will not play again. You need an advanced action like this (sorry I didn't add the Hide commands, just focused on the animation):

For the second slide act you need to refer to the second instance of the animation.

BTW: this solution is only valid for Captivate Classic, is not possible in the new version because the category Movie control of the system variables has been deprecated. Even an alternative with using the first frame of the slide is impossible for the same reason.

[sam_amara]

First of all, thanks once again @Lilybiri - I seriously don't know what the Captivate forum would do without you. You're always first in the pool with your support 🤩.

What you're saying makes complete sense, but I tried to follow your lead here but I still can't get it to work. It still works fine on the first slide (and you're right, a second click on the same button produces nothing) but still no luck on the second. The video I included in my first post is still what happens. Here are the updates I made to the advanced actions...is there something I missed? Did you try it with two slides?

 

Thanks!

[Lilybiri]

Yes, I tried with two slides although I was sure it worked. The expression command is meant to Replay the slide, so that the playhead gets back to the first frame of the slide, where the animation timeline starts. Proof to you: my second submit action:

Is the Timeline of the second slide identical to the first one?.

BTW not everyone appreciates me like you apparently do. Some hate me literally

[sam_amara]

I can't imagine anyone hating you - honestly, I don't know how I would have been able to learn so much without your support. Even when I work on other projects I remember things I learned from you in this forum and am able to go forward on my own and learn more. That is beyond invaluable; anyone who doesn't appreciate your efforts doesn't deserve them (and is too ignorant to know the value neither of you are offering nor the time you invest in our community support) 🤷🏻.

So yes, my timelines for both slides are identical: 

The only two things I haven't mentioned are that the .gif has been modified in Photoshop to play only once, not loop. I tried to use one that loops eternal when this first didn't work, and Captivate wouldn't even play that. And each slide has its own file so I don't know if that would even be an issue (especially with the Expression added)...?

The second thing is that the animation is set to not visible in output (which I'm sure you guessed given the Show command we are using). 

I just tried it again, with two new slides in a new project and it still doesn't work for me. I'm not sure what I am missing 😟.

[Lilybiri]

You should know where I have been banned already because I am too honest, Marketing people don't like that. And still many male users don't appreciate expertise from a woman, but that has been a frustration in all the decades of my professional life as engineer and project manageR.

Photoshop animated GIF. Looping can be controlled in Captivate. Since quite some versions I also have issues with animated GIFs created in PS which I used all the time in the past. For that reason I try to replace them whenever possible by an OAM, created in Animate.

I did hide the animation with the On Enter action of each slide, not with the eye icon in the Properties panel, but I doubt that this could be important. The animation I used was plucked from the web. Can you try the workflow with this animation, which I uploaded to the Creative Cloud files for you:

Fireworks 

[sam_amara]

So sad in 2023, no? Still, people should really appreciate your efforts. I can't imagine anyone being negative toward you here 😕. 

Ok, I was not able to get the file you sent (I have two accounts, one personal and one for work) that despite all attempts by Adobe to rectify the situation still have issues when I am trying to receive a share file. 

The good news is that when I tried your 'expression' solution again with the eternally looping .gif it worked! But if I can press you just a bit more, you said "looping can be controllsed in Captivate". Can you tell me how? The reason we'd tried to limit the looping in PS was because it will be discombobulating for the learner to see that over and over (thatnks for the info about your issues with .gifs in PS, by the way!). Is controlling it as easy as shortening the length of the .gif in the timeline?

Thanks again!

[samamara]

On the first slide the loop doesn't continue - it's a loop and a half kind of - but on the second slide it just keeps looping eternal, even if I try to adjust the length of the .gif in the timelime, so I assume that's not it. 

[sam_amara]

Ok, this is not true - I was not going to the second slide. So both slides work and there's like a loop and a half on each. If there is a way to stop it at one loop in Captivate that would be great. Sorry!

[Lilybiri]

In Timing Properties you can set the animation to loop. But I kept it at one cycle in PS. You can also use the While loop to have it replay a number of times. That is what I meant by controlling the loop.

Since you have it on looping now originally, you need to shorten the duration of the animation timeline. Use Play slide to see where the first cycle ends, pause the playhead and delete the part after that frame.

[sam_amara]

Thanks so much @Lilybiri - much appreciated as always! I shall continue to play on with this and leave you to your day. Saved again 😃!