Conditional Actions for 7 Movies

[helenafro]

Hi All,

I am creating a tutorial in which there are 7 movies.  The users have two options. They can either click on the play all button and view all 7 movies, one after the other, or they can select one of the movies from the main menu.  The main menu has 7 images and as they click on each one it directs them to a specific movie.  After viewing the movie, they are taken back to the main menu screen from which they have the opportunity of viewing another movie.

Could someone help me with the advanced actions (conditional actions) necessary for this kind of branching?  Thanks!

[Lilybiri]

This is what I understood:

• Do not use a default playbar
• On the first slide you need two (shape) buttons for the choices 'Play all' or 'Go to Menu'; those can be simple actions, no need for an advanced action because they'll just jump either to the first video, or to the Menu slide; personally I would put the Menu slide as slide 2 (label that slide), and the first video on slide 3 with the rest of the videos in sequence. I would create one user variable 'v_choice' to store the choice. Set its default value to 0. For the standard action on the button with Play all use:
  • Assign v_choice with  1      you can also use the literal All if you prefer, I like numbers
  • Jump to video1                    where video1 is the slide with the first video
• For the standard action on the button 'Go to Menu'
  • Assign v_choice with  2      you can also use the literal Menul if you prefer, I like numbers
  • Jump to menu                  where menu is the slide with the menu
• Create a shape button Bt_Next, put it on the slide with the first video, time it for the rest of the project, its simple action will be 'Go to Next Slide'
• Create a shape button Bt_Menu, put it on the slide with the first video, time it for the rest of the project, its simple action will be 'Jump to menu'
• Create a conditional advanced action to be triggered On Enter for the slide with the first video:
  • IF v_choice is equal to 1
    • Disable Bt_Menu
    • Hide Bt_Menu
    • Show Bt_Next
    • Enable Bt_Next
  • ELSE
    • Disable Bt_Next
    • Hide Bt_Next
    • Show Bt_Menu
    • Enable Bt_Menu

[helenafro]

Thank you Lilybiri for your response. I do appreciate it! I do understand your reply and will be implementing it.  However, what would happen if the first slide on the tutorial were the Main Menu slide, from which the user could click on the Play All button or select each individual movie from the 7 images on the screen?  What would be my variables and advanced actions then?

Also, I think these 7 movies will each take up an entire screen area. Does it still look okay to place the Go to Menu or Next buttons on the right corner of the same screen?

Thanks again!

[Lilybiri]

You can keep the standard action for the Play all button and the conditional action for the video slides.

If you want to enable the buttons on the main slide that navigate to the individual buttons only after that choice has been made, you could disable the buttons to start with, and add an Enable command for each button to the standard action for the second button. Question is: do you need a choice for the individual movies in that case, or do you just offer one button to choose 'All'?

As for the video slides, you need to provide space for the buttons, because I do not think they can be on top of the video.

[helenafro]

Hi Lilybiri,

I set Click_Box_PlayAll as equal to one in Advanced Actions.  In order for it to proceed from movie to movie, can I say under Actions that if equal to one, it should Jump to slide movie 1, Jump to slide movie 2, Jump to slide movie 3 and so on...Is this correct?  Will the movies play one-by-one?

[Lilybiri]

No, that is not possible. I talked about putting a Next button on each movie slide, that will only appear when the user did choose Play All. That was the conditional action On Enter for the first movie slide. Since that shape button is on top and timed for the rest of the project it will show up on each movie slide.

All commands in an advanced or shared action are always executed at once in sequence. If you put all those commands in one advanced action, you'll only see the last movie, since that is the last command. There is an exception for Captivate 9 where you can Delay a command for a certain time, there you could use such a delay for the duration of the first movie, then Go to next slide etc. But for all versions before 9 this is not possible.