Changing States with the timeline

[lashondrac51319316]

Hello all! I was wondering if in Captivate an object's state can change at a certain point on the timeline? I saw that the option is available in Articulate Storyline and I was wondering how I could do this in my Captivate Projects.

[Lilybiri]

It depends. Do you have pausing points on that timeline or not? If not, you can use the 'Delay Next Commands'  in an advanced action.

[mdbabin]

Is it critical to change the state, or can you just show the image the way you want it to appear for a given length of the timeline, and then at the critical point on the timeline, stop showing that image and start showing the image in the new view that you want to show? For example, in Captivate, if I want a character to assume a new pose at a given point on the timeline, I just display pose 1 for a certain amount of time, say two seconds, and then at that point on the timeline, I stop showing pose 1 and start showing pose 2. Usually this corresponds to another action on the slide or to what the audio says at that moment.

If all you need is an image to change at a certain point on the timeline, handling it this way bypasses needing to use states altogether. Below is a screen cap from an eLearning that I'm currently working on.  Hope this helps!

[Lilybiri]

That solution with multiple images in the same location, staggered on the timeline is the workflow that has always worked. But do not forget that this is impossible in a responsive project developed with Fluid Boxes, because you cannot have objects in the same location even if they do not appear at the same time. Whereas multistate objects with the Delay command are possible.

[digitaly]

The (huge) problem with using the delay command to attempt to sync actions with points on the timeline is that if the movie is paused, the timer of the delay keeps going. So if you have something you want to happen at second 10 of the timeline and hit pause after 5 seconds, the thing will happen anyway 10 seconds after you originally started without waiting for you to hit play again. I think this is why Lilybiri was asking about pause points.

Adobe really should capitulate and add the ability to have timeline-based events, which I know has been a frequent feature request at least since version 6 and which all other major authoring tools have.

Sorry to hear that the tried-and-true timeline staggering of overlapping images is not possible with fluid boxes. That kind of takes that whole feature out of play for me.

[Lilybiri]

Indeed, that is one of the big limitations of Fluid Boxes (which are rarely mentioned).  You could use static fluid boxes, but that means loss of real fluidity.