Buttons Are Forcing Slides to Advance When Viewing External PDF and URL

[Alex.Fox]

I have a slide with audio narration, three "View PDF" buttons that link to a new browser tab for each button, and a "Continue" button set to appear at the end of the narration that has the advance to next slide action set to it. The Slide itself has the Pause action set to it On Exit because I want the user to hear the naration, view and read the external PDFs in the new browser tabs, then return to the captivate tab and advance to the next slide. However, when the user views the external PDFs and returns to the Captivate project that slide advances automatically. I noticed that the buttons had the "Continue Playing the Project" box selected in the properties panel, so I deselected that for all three. I was able to preview the project and succesfully view all three external PDFs without the slide automatically advancing when I returned to it. However, after clicking the fist "View PDF" button, although the narration was still playing, the slide itself became paused and thus meant that the continue to next slide button I had intending to apear at the end of narration never showed up until I pressed play on the Captivate progess bar at the bottom and the time left in the slide progressed with no narration. I cannot figure out what is causing this issue as there doesn't seem to be any other options in the properties panel to toggle pausing and playing on and off for the buttons or slide, and why the narration would keep playing but the project slide would pause after deselecting "Continue Palying Project" for the PDF buttons. This is what the properties panel currently looks like for each button:

[jacquelineh87565035]

What happens when you "resume state"? in my mind, if the slide pauses when you leave to view the pdfs, when you return it should resume where it left off if that function is selected... Of course, that is pulling from other Rapid tools like Lectora and Articulate, I've not tried it in Captivate. 

[Alex.Fox]

So the slide is 50 seconds long with the "Continue to next slide" button set to appear at 49 seconds and the slide set to paise on exit when it ends at 50 seconds. When I click on the first button to the external link, say at the 10 second mark, even though the narration still plays, the slide is then paused there. The narration will play all the way through even through the slide has been paused and I have to click on the play button at the bottom in the built-in progress bar for the slide to coninue progressing through the remaining 39 seconds before the "Continue to next slide" button will appear.

[Lilybiri]

If you are prepared to read a blog, this is where you find information about pausing Captivate's Timeline.

http://blog.lilybiri.com/pausing-captivates-timeline

Using the On Exit event to pause the slide can be dangerous, because that event is not to be trusted at all. It happens right after visiting the last frame. Why would you use a Pause on end when you have a Next button which can pause the slide with its pausing point?

Slide audio is not automatically paused by a pausing point, but you can use the checkbox in the Options tab of the button like this.

Understanding the timeline is for me always top priority in any basic Captivate training.  Reason is that problems like you mentioned appear almost daily in the forums, and are due to lack of understanding pauses and pausing point.

[Alex.Fox]

That was a very helpful link you shared, thank you. So I removed the pause on exit action from the slide and set a pause directly to the continue button at the end. However, after the narration plays through and I click on the external link buttons and I then return back ino the Captivate file tab in my browser it advances to the next slide automatically. The goal from the client is to have their viewer listen to the full narration, and be able to read everything on the slide before advancing to the next on at their own pace. I can't seem to figure ot why Captivate would auto advance the slide after visiting an external link.

[Lilybiri]

Did you uncheck the option 'Continue Playing the Project' for the button? I would also not set the pausing point at the end of the slide.

[Alex.Fox]

Yeah but the problem with unchecking that option was that it paused the animation for the continue button to appear at the end of the narration and end of the slide. A quick fix, well more of a baindaid at this point is that I set the continue button to appear at the same point in the slide as the "view pdf" buttons then to have the "continue playing the project" boxes unchecked as well as putting a pause on all buttons to freeze the slide. I am just curious as to why the program would autoadvance. I can't seem to locate an action or function within Captivate where that is a possible option to toggle on/off. 

[Lilybiri]

You really need training on the Timeline, because there is a clear lack of understanding the design of that core panel.

When Captivate's playhead reaches the end of a slide (last frame) and nothing has been done to pause the slide, the playhead will continue to the next frame, which is the first frame of the next slide. That is what you call 'auto-advance'. That is a very powerful feature, because it allows to split content over multiple slides - easier to manage - without the learner needing to see that they are on multiple slides. Captivate is not a presentation tool like PPT, and you seem to have still that other tool in your mind. Pausing the slide can be done with the 'absolute' Pause command, or by inserting an interactive object with a pausing point. The result is not completely the sa tme, the second scenario allows to create the majority of interactions, the Pause command is needed very rarely and can cause weird results, especially when you use it with the On Exit slide event, because that event happens after the last frame.

[Alex.Fox]

I have used other Adobe programs with more complicated timelines before and it doesn't seem to be an issue with that but the program itself. Understanding that Captivate is a rather wonky program that has many quirks, I can't seem to figure out why it overwrites all of the pause features when buttons with external links are involved. I have tried those different options you listed above along with other combinations of pausing to try and figure it out but have only come up with the solution of creating an absolute pause to the slide from a button when "Continue Playing Project" is unchecked. However, that also pauses any further actions on the slide from happening which defeates the purpose of having the ability to do such animations or have more options on the slide. I know it's not a presenation program, but it is intended for eLearning and with features like a navigatable Table of Contents and being able to link grading and instructor reporting to online LMS platforms we should not have to try and do a smoke and mirrors show to move the user from one slide to the next especially they are supposed to rely on the different slides as markers or chapters in a learning platform. 

[RodWard]

Captivate's timeline works somewhat differently to other apps in the Adobe stable.  But that just makes it 'different' not 'wonky' or 'quirky'.

I have to agree with Lieve.  Your main problem at the moment is that you still haven't become accustomed to the way Captivate works.