Slide Number - Several Groups of Numbers

[Bobby Jourdan]

Hi there,

I have a project with several parts. I would like to have the numbers of the slides showing on the slides so the user could track the progress of a particular part. Let me explain more.

To make it simple - I have two parts, the first with two slides and the second with three slides. What I want is to automate the following.

Part 1

On Slide 1

text caption showing: 1 out of 2

On Slide 2

text caption showing: 2 out of 2

Part 2

On Slide 3

text caption showing: 1 out of 3

On Slide 4

text caption showing: 2 out of 3

On Slide 5

text caption showing: 3 out of 3

Problem 1 (more important):

I can use the cpInfoCurrentSlide, but the numbers continue after the slide 2, so on Slide 3 I will have the number 3. I need to reset the value of cpInfoCurrentSlide to 1 on slide 3. Any ideas?

Problem 2 (less important):

The total number of slides should change on Slide 3. I need to have the total number of the particular part only - while the number of the total number of slides for the first part would be 2, for the second part it should be 3. This could be done manually, but still, for the sake of the example, would be good to hear ideas

Thank you in advance

Bobby

[RodWard · Accepted solution]

You cannot 'reset' the value of CpInfoCurentSlide because it's a READ ONLY system variable.

One way to do this is to set up a number of User Variables for yourself and then have Advanced Actions executed ON Side Enter of each slide to work out what the values of these variables need to be so that they can be displayed on that slide.

Variables would include:

• A separate variable to store the number of slides in each section.  E.g. var_Section1NumSlides, var_Section2NumSlides.
• A separate variable to store a number for each section that when subtracted from CpInfoCurrentSlide would show the correct slide number for that section. E.g. var_Section1SubtractNum, var_Section2SubtractNum.
• A value that will store the calculated value that gets the number to be displayed for the current slide.  E.g. var_ThisSlide (See below.)

In the Advanced Action on each slide you need to use the Expression action to get the current value of CpinfoCurrentSlide and subtract the appropriate number from it for the current section of your project to get the value you want displayed for the current slide in that section.  Then the second action assigs that calculated value to var_ThisSlideNum.

Then for Section 1 you would have text captions or Smart Shapes on each slide with inserted variables to display $$var_ThisSlideNum$$ of $$var_Section1NumSlides$$

Another more complex way to do all this would still involve several User Variables but instead of using a Standard Advanced Action (or Shared Action based on one) you would use Conditional Actions that are executed at the start of each slide to work out the values of the variables based on the number of CpInfoCurrentSlide.  You would have a different Decision Block in the Conditional Action for each separate section of your project.

The IF statement for section 1 would look something like IF CpInfoCurrentSlide is Greater Than 1 AND Less Than 10

The Actions would be to Assign the values of the variables to be displayed.

[Bobby Jourdan]

That is great. Thank you so much for that Rod.

I created a test project with 4 slides (2 sections with 2 slides each)

I used the variables that you suggested:

• A separate variable to store the number of slides in each section.  E.g. var_Section1NumSlides, var_Section2NumSlides.
• A separate variable to store a number for each section that when subtracted from CpInfoCurrentSlide would show the correct slide number for that section. E.g. var_Section1SubtractNum, var_Section2SubtractNum.
• A value that will store the calculated value that gets the number to be displayed for the current slide.  E.g. var_ThisSlide (See below.)

and created an Advanced Action with several decisions

Of course, for the first section in this case there is no need for the above since the 1st and 2nd slides of the section are the actual 1st and 2nd slide of the whole, but the idea is clear.

Thank you once again!

[Lilybiri]

Hmmm, why a combination of conditions?

First condition could simply have been:

IF cpInfoCurrentSlide is less or equal to 2

That variable has an index that starts with 1, can never be less than 1.

Second condition:

IF cpInfoCurrentSlide is greater than 2.

Sorry for the comment, I like the KISS principle.

Maybe download the full table with system variables from this post:

System variables in Captivate 8/9 - Captivate blog

[Bobby Jourdan]

Thank you Lieve, that makes sense. KISS is very important having in mind that it may become a heavy project ...

The second condition was created more with the idea of having a next section, so I wanted to delineate the upper limit.

I have your cheat sheet already, thank you !