How to pause project?

[kristinkittyko]

Hi. I made a US map with the 4 regions outlined as separate smart shapes. I've selected them to act as buttons. When the user clicks a smart shape, it displays a text caption (which is at first hidden until the shape is clicked). However, the slide advances before all regions can be clicked (unless I change the timing to something ridiculously long). I have the slide to pause on enter; that doesn't do it. I even put a click box over the entire slide with the action of the click box to be pause. That doesn't work. How in the world do I get it to just STOP?? Thanks for any help.

[Lilybiri · Accepted solution]

You do not tell which version you are using, which is important for your use case. If you are on Captivate 9, check if the shape buttons are pausing, and if they pause at the same moment (look at the timeline or in the Timing Properties). I suspect you are using a 'simple' action from the dropdown list in the Actions tab, but forgot to uncheck the option 'Continue Playing the Project' which is the reason why the playhead is released when the action is executed.

If you are on a version before 9, that check box (Continue....) is not available. To prevent the playhead of being released you have to replace the simple action by a a one line standard advanced action. More details in this blog post, which has also a link to a YouTube video:

Why choose Standard over Simple action? - Captivate blog

If you ever want to turn that slide in a full-blown custom hotspot slide, this post (maybe bit too complicated, if you are not used to advanced actions) shows how to take full control:

Custom Hotspot questions in Captivate 8 - Captivate blog

[kristinkittyko]

Lilybiri, you are a Captivate heroine! Thank you for your guidance. I am using Cap. 8 and have used it some for grad school (which is what I'm doing now--final project), but my experience is very limited. Knowing which tutorial video of the ones that are out there was a huge help, and your explanation solved the problem. Thanks so much!

[kristinkittyko]

I suppose I should add what I actually did for those just skimming--I originally had the smart shape programmed (through what you've described as a "simple" action) to show a text caption (which is hidden) when the shape is clicked..but the playhead just kept going until it switched to the next slide, which would be too soon for the user. So I assigned "execute advanced action" to the smart shape and choose a standard advanced action to show the text caption. That one simple change stopped the playhead, as you said.

[Lilybiri]

Glad this solved your problem