How do you prevent auto slide progression?

[joshd80]

Hi All,

I'm fairly new to Captivate and am looking to use it to develop a learner-paced e-learning module consisting of a number of slides. However, I am finding that when using Captivate's playback bar, the slides automatically progress, where in fact what I want is the project to stop at each slide, allowing the learner to press 'back' or 'forward' when they have finished reading the slide.

I am sure I am missing something very obvious here, surely! If not, is there a way round it?

Regards

Josh

[Ashwin_Bharghav]

Hi,

Welcome to the Community

It is possible to change the slide exit and entry events from the Slide Properties dialog box. This can be invoked by double clicking on the slide.

".............I want is the project to stop at each slide, allowing the learner to press 'back' or 'forward' when they have finished reading the slide."

This can be accomplished by adding buttons on each slide

To Insert back button

On the Objects toolbar click on the button. This invokes Button Properties.

In the Button Text enter "Back" or select an image button which suits your needs.

Set the "On success" to "Go to Previous Slide". Click ok - Now a button will be added on stage named "Back"

To insert Forward button

On the Objects toolbar click on the button. This invokes Button Properties.

In the Button Text enter "Forward" or select an image button which suits your needs.

Set the "On Success" to "Go to Next slide". Click ok - Now a button will be added on stage named "Forward"

Now Place these buttons at the bottom of your slide and preview your project. This will pause the slide and wait for ou to click on the buttons.

Hope this helps.

- Ashwin

[joshd80]

Thanks Ashwin,

I am trying to achieve it without the use of custom 'back' and 'forward' buttons as for some reason they become unresponsive if they are clicked in close succession (not sure if this is a bug), and also I would like to have the convenience of the TOC button being present (actually if you know a way to form a button action to do this that would also be helpful!).

Ideally what I would like to do is use the Captivate navigation bar to progress through the slides without them automatically advancing. Oh and I have tried the slide onslideenter and onslideexit properties but they seem to be ineffective..

Any further ideas??

Thanks again

Josh

[P_SJ]

I tend to add a click area interaction with no feedback but with a pause.  I make the click area tiny and just put it in a corner hidden away where no one will click on it..

So when I get to the end of a slide it just hangs waiting for the user to click 'next' on the toolbar (Skin).

[Captiv8r · Accepted solution]

Hi there

P_SJ's advice is spot on. However I see where some confusion could arise. What was referred to was a "Click area". In fact, in Captivate it's an object we know as a "Click Box". In Captivate 4 you click Insert > Standard Objects > Click Box. In earlier versions you click Insert > Click Box.

Note that once you insert a single Click Box on a slide and configure it as needed, you may copy it to the Windows clipboard. Then select the remaining slides and paste it into all of them at once to save time.

Cheers... Rick

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[Guest]

I'm glad to find this post as I'm trying to address the same issue - how do I stop slides from Autoplaying, in Captivate 5. Is there a better solution in cp5?  I tried the suggestion here and inserted small clickboxes, but for some reason that messes up slides that I have later in the presentation with Quiz questions on them - the quiz questions do not show up when the clickboxes are on earlier slides and as soon as I remove the clickboxes, the quiz questions reappear.  I also considered just setting a really long display time for each non-quiz slide (the quiz ones do not advance automatically.) It would be great if I could insert the solution via master slides, templates, or the skin, rather than on each individual slide, but I'll do whatever it takes.

I find it odd that there's a way to set this option if you import slides from powerpoint, but not if you create them directly in captivate.  I suppose I could create a large ppt file with more blank slides than I'll need, import that with the correct setting to require mouseclick to advance, and build my project on those, but that seems an odd solution.

Please advise me which direction to go, or if there's a better solution.

(Today is my first day using Captivate, and over all I'm THRILLED - it fits the bill like no other for an important project I'm working on, assuming I can resolve this issue.)

Thanks!

Sheryl

[Captiv8r]

Welcome to our community, Sheryl

If you are talking about pausing between slides when you move from perhaps slide 1 to 2 to 3 and so on, the way it is normally done is by using Click Boxes or Buttons on each slide. With Captivate 4 or 5 you could accomplish it using a Widget. There is one included that is named "Perpetual Buttons".

If you simply want the project to open and remain paused until the user clicks to proceed, you may configure the Auto Play option found in Edit > Preferences > Project > Start and End.

Cheers... Rick

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[Guest]

Thanks for clarifying my question, Rick.  It's the former - I do not want any slides to advance unless the user clicks to

advance them.  I already unchecked the "Autoplay" hoping that would do the trick throughout the presentation, but no such luck.

I will check out the "Perpetual Buttons" widget.  Do you know anything about the apparent conflict between click boxes on slides that preceed quiz questions?  Many thanks, I'm happy to be here!

[Captiv8r]

Hello again

Sorry, any conflict with Click Boxes and Question slides is a new one on me. And it may well be you are seeing an oddness with Captivate 5. After all, this beast has only recenly been released into the wild.

I would definitely encourage you to report to Adobe any behavior you find that seems odd. You do this via the Wish Form (link is in my sig).

Cheers... Rick

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[pdq6500]

I actually have the opposite problem.  I have "Previous Slide" and "Next Slide" buttons in my project, but I don't really want the presentation to pause.  I want it to flow smoothly unless someone decides to navigate through parts of it using these buttons.  It's driving me nuts, lol.  I feel like there has to be a really easy solution I'm just missing, but it appears like getting rid of the buttons is the only thing that works.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

In that case what you need to do is to remove the pause from the buttons, then configure the action to either Go to the next slide or Go to the previous slide. When clicked by the user, the next or previous slide should be immediately visited.

Cheers... Rick

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[pdq6500]

Hi Rick,

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to edit any of the properties on those buttons.  I guess they aren't really buttons, I was using that Perpetual Button widget.  However, based off your advice I was able to just place transparent buttons over arrow images to achieve the intended effect.

Thanks you very much!  I have one short follow up question, if you don't mind - is there a way to get rid of the border showing around a transparent button?  I was able to change the "Stroke" color to match the background for most slides, but a few slides have background images with multiple colors where the buttons are, so it looks a bit strange.

Thanks again!

Patrick

[pdq6500]

Nevermind!  Dumb question, the default width was 1 and it looked like the slider was all the way down, but apparently you can bring it down to 0.  That solved that minor problem.

Thanks for everything!

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Just a heads up. I see many folks that opt to use a Transparent Button. Instead of a Transparent Button, consider using a Click Box. These are simpler to use and are always transparent.

Cheers... Rick

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[RhondaKiser]

Use a skin instead of buttons.

Rhonda Kiser

Manager, ITD Training

Message was edited by: Captiv8r - Removed SPAM bait.

[Captiv8r]

Hi Rhonda

Certainly ensuring the playback controls are visible is one possible solution. However, some folks don't like to see the playback controls or otherwise have specific needs that don't include using the playback controls.

Technically, the skin consists of much more than simply the playback controls.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links Begin learning Captivate 5 moments from now! $29.95 Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Adobe Certified Captivate Training SorcererStone Blog Captivate eBooks

[strummers]

Hi,

I'm sure there's a simple way of doing this, but it's Friday and I can't seem to figure it out!

I have a slide with 2 click boxes (to display and hide text) and one 'continue' button.

My problem is that if the slide is left to idle until the the end and the click box is clicked the project moves on to the next slide.  I need it to only move to the next slide if the 'continue' button is clicked and remain on the current slide if any of the click boxes are clicked.

Am I missing something simple to make this happen??

Cheers

[RodWard]

You need to set the On Success action of the buttons to execute Advanced Actions that contain your show/hide clauses but also have an additional clause that sets the go to frame as the current frame, which effectively prevents the playhead from moving forward.  See the screenshot below to see an example of this type of clause.

[strummers]

Hi Rod,

Thank you for the response! I should have mentioned the project is in Captivate 4 and I am currently using Multiple Actions to show/hide the text.  Does this mean the only way to do it is to go through advanced actions for everything rather than using the Multiple Actions option (which is a lot simpler )?

Cheers

[RodWard]

The interface in Captivate 4 for Advanced Actions is a little different to Cp5 but the principle is basically the same.  If you want to prevent your playbar cursor from advancing when user's click certain interactive objects, you need to have one of the actions set this variable as shown in the previous screen graphic.

[strummers]

Thanks Rod!

The slide has 2 click boxes and 2 text captions, when one of the boxes is clicked it is supposed to hide one text caption and shows the other.

I've made the change and it works fine if one of the click boxes are clicked before the end of the slide.  Hoever if the slide is left to idle until the actual timed end of the slide before one of the click boxes is hit something seems to go wrong.  In this instance when the first click box is hit the first text box appears (as it should), however when the other click box is hit the slide goes completely blank and nothing is shown (this is the same no matter which click box is clicked first).

Any ideas??

Thanks again for your help,

[RodWard]

Once the slide's playhead reaches the pause point of the final Continue click box or button, then any click from then on will cause the playhead to continue on to the end of the slide and thence to the next slide.

So your other clickboxes or buttons MUST pause the movie at some point prior to the button that you intend learners to use to jump to the next slide, AND those other Show/Hide clickboxes must be set up to keep that playhead cursor at all times from moving past their own pause points.

So make sure both of your click boxes are set to pause on exactly the same point and that each has the statement to set the GoTo frame as the Current Frame so that they're permanently stuck there.

Is that the way yours is set up?

[strummers]

Thank you, yes that's the way it's set up.

As part of the testing I was trying to account for all possibilities (including leaving each slide until it has stopped 'playing' before hitting any of the buttons/click boxes), but it sounds like there is no way around the automatic advancement if the slide reaches the end of the slide before one of the click boxes is hit by the user.

Thank you for your help!

[RodWard]

Why not just have another click box (tucked away somewhere on the slide where nobody will click) to pause the movie just prior to the pause points of the two clickboxes that toggle the visibility of the captions?

That way, the movie will pause until the user clicks something.  It will either be one of your obvious click boxes to toggle the captions or else the continue button that jumps them to the next slide.

Would this work for you?

[strummers]

Good idea, thanks Rod that works perfectly!