hidden buttons still click

Report · Sep 18, 2015

Greetings all!

I have a project, Captivate 6, with a popup menu...I have the popup menu set to HIDE On Enter slide...but for some reason, when I click on a menu item and get to the destination slide, the popup menu IS HIDDEN, but the places where the buttons are IS STILL creating the click sound as if the popup menu is still up..but the clicks don't execute any type of action...just the click sounds on the areas where the buttons are...it's driving my client crazy and I've been trying different things and I just can't seem to get rid of it...

My popup menu is a group of Smart Shapes used as buttons...so they don't show up as an item that can be DISABLED in the Advanced Actions panel...even more peculiar however, is that the button I use to close the popup menu gets rid of the click sounds, i.e.- if I reopen the popup menu and close it with the close popup menu button, the clicking stops...what gives?

Isn't hiding an object virtually the same as disabling it? Any help on this would be just awesome! Thanks.

Report · Sep 18, 2015

Even if you HAVE grouped the buttons, they should still appear somewhere in the Advanced Actions dialog objects list by name. (Unless you placed them on a Master Slide.)

Try renaming these buttons to something that makes them sort to the top of the lists.

Also, if you have set this group of buttons on an earlier slide and timed it for REST OF PROJECT, then you will not see these buttons listed in the Actions panel drop down, but you should still see them in the Advanced Actions dialog. So you may need to be creating Standard, Conditional, or Shared actions to manipulate them.

Also, when you HIDE these buttons, you also need to DISABLE them as well, otherwise their hit areas could still be active, which might account for why you're still hearing clicks. Then when you SHOW each one, there needs to be an equivalent ENABLE action for each button. I would suggest since you need to be dynamically hiding and showing this group of buttons you may need to forget about the grouping strategy because although you can HIDE and SHOW a group of objects you cannot apply DISABLE and ENABLE actions to anything other than interactive objects, and a group is not an interactive object.

Report · Sep 19, 2015

Hello,

Hiding used to be disabling buttons in the past. For shape buttons it is not the case, you have to disable AND hide, or Show + Enable. It is very annoying, and I would appreciate if you logged a feature request to get back to the situation with normal buttons in previous versions (it is still not changed in CP9).

Another feature request, which I also logged a couple of times, is to be able to Disable a group of interactive objects, like you can Hide them. Not many users need this probably, or estimate it useful like I do. I understand Rod's arguments totally, he is a programmer. The easiest way would be if Hiding would automatically disable, and showing an interactive object would enable it.

Report · Sep 19, 2015

Lilybiri, Rod, thanks for the replies...and yes, disabling/enabling would be the answer...but my buttons however, as displayed by the image, DO NOT SHOW UP in the Advanced Actions dropdown when DISABLE is selected...so, disabling IS NOT an option that's available...which is why I sought help...

I was hoping there was something I was missing...I knew I had to disable as soon as I realized the popup was the problem...see, I have some YES and NO buttons in the training that kind of occupy the same location...and for days, I was convinced they were the problem and tried everything to fix the problem from that vantage point...of course when nothing worked and I removed the YES and NO buttons from the timeline and still had the problem, it didn't take much to realize the popup menu was the problem...which while hidden was still LIVE really kind of threw me.

I'm guessing, from you guys have said, I'm going to have to rebuild my menu using custom image buttons...this button type will show in the disable list...yes?...I used the Smart Shapes because they allowed me to actually use text for the labels...the image buttons are just so susceptible to distorting when viewed at less than 100% view size...

It guess if I could change the X and Y coords to something that was outside the viewport as the default state, that would keep me from having to rebuild it...there goes my weekend

Well, I'm going to Save As... and get to work on the rebuild...I'll still be checking email in case you guys put the light bulb over you head over my head...I think I said that right.

And yes, Lilybiri, GOOD feature requests...and cool would it be if I HAD THEM NOW...I'll log them as well, thanks!

Report · Sep 19, 2015

OMG, what a list! You never heard about labeling and filtering in a list based on a sequence of characters? With grouping, those are labeled TopTools in my cookbook about Actions that I'm preparing at this moment.

I suspect the sequence is wrong in your advanced action: you first have to disable before hiding. Same for Show before Enable.

Report · Sep 19, 2015

Lilybiri,

I totally understand your "calling me out on the list"...but Captivate creates it...I only name the items that I want to use Variables / Advanced Actions on...are you saying you name every single item in all or your projects?

And I do use a naming convention...if you look at the list, all of the items I use ARE grouped by a prefix and or underscore and or dash...the rest are items Captivate included that are just items on the slides.

But I just got through trying to rebuild the menu with image buttons...it seems I can only use buttons PER SLIDE -- NOT FOR THE REST OF THE PROJECT...even in the popup menu group, they will not display AFTER I leave the initial slide...I am perplexed...hiding the Smart Shape buttons will not disable them, and I cannot disable them via Advanced Actions because they don't show up when Disabled is selected...and I can't copy and paste the popup on all of the slides because Captivate wants to rename every element in the group AND the group itself...at a loss for the moment.

I will check the SEQUENCE of my Advanced Actions...thanks.

Report · Sep 19, 2015

Yes, mostly I will label everything, except objects that remain in a named group and never have to be addressed on their own.

I was talking about 'filtering'. Just an example: if you add Sl2 to all objects on slide 2, and you type Sl2 in the list from which you have to choose in the Advanced Actions dialog box, you'll see only the objects that have Sl2 in their name, wherever this sequence is. No case sensitivity. It makes selecting a lot easier. It works also in Shared actions dialog box for parameters, but you are still on CP6 I believe.

You must have missed some of my blog posts Only shape buttons can be timed for the rest of the project, used on master slides, on question slides and on the score slide. The OLD interactive objects cannot be used that way. Those articles were all written when CP6 was released with those shape buttons. There is even an Adobe webinar recorded 'Lilybiri's favorite: shape buttons'.

Why I like Shape Buttons - Captivate 6! - Captivate blog

Toggle Shape buttons - Captivate 6 - Captivate blog

Buttons on Question/Score Slides in Captivate 6? - Captivate blog

Try changing your sequence in the Advanced action.

Report · Sep 17, 2016

I have what I consider to be a similar problem. I have a "Help" screen (group of objects) that opens on top of everything (it's on the top layer of the slide) via a button click to "Show" that group. The background of this group is a smart shape, used as a button, so that when a user clicks anywhere on the screen, the Help screen "Hides".

Behind this Help screen, I have a Web Object, that pulls in a video. The video utilizes the native browser HTML5 video controls, but these are being blocked by the Help screen group. Even when it is "hidden" (closed) by the user, it still appears as a div in HTML5 output on top of the video, preventing the user from interacting with the video controls.

Is there a way to actually hide/remove this group, not just visually? In CSS this would be the equivalent of "display:none" (which will actually remove the div) as opposed to "visibility:hidden" (which leaves it there, just not displaying anything).

I tried "disabling" the background smart shape button with an advanced action, and that didn't work. I was hoping there'd be a way to have an empty state for that shape button, that I could toggle to upon close, but apparently that's not possible. My other thought was to attempt to change layer order (z-index) with some actions, but I have not yet found a way to do that, if it is even possible (thinking not).

At this time I am out of ideas, so hoping someone can enlighten me!

Thanks,

J

Report · Sep 17, 2016

Put your help topics on a totally different slide and just have your button jump to that slide with the option on the slide of jumping back to the previous slide (whatever it was).

Sometimes Captivate's power encourages you to attempt too much and a simpler solution is the way to go.

Report · Sep 18, 2016

Thanks RodWard, for your elegant solution. This was not an option for me, as the design required the Help screen to overlay the slide content. I solved the problem using javascript to manipulate z-index.