Trouble with reviewing content carousel slides upon return to slide

[shanee98076946]

Hello all,

I have a problem with a content carousel slide not "resetting" upon a return to the slide.

Here is the flow:

1. Slide A is a 3 item content carousel (content is placed on a smart shape with the following states: Normal, Notes01, Notes02, and Notes03). I have shared actions for forward and backward buttons. The smart shape button to go to next slide (which I have labeled as Continue) remains hidden until all the content in the carousel has been viewed. Users can go back and forward as much as they wish in the content before leaving the slide by hitting the "Continue" button (which I have set as "on succes" to take viewers to next slide). It works as intended on the initial visit.

2. Clicking Continue takes viewers to a knowledge check slide.  The knowledge check slide has submit and back buttons visible.

3. If a view opts to go back to review the content carousel from the KC slide, the fwd and back buttons are inactive, or they become inactive after a few clicks, depending on where the viewer "parked" the carousel before pressing the smart shape Continue button

I sense the problem might be with the variable not being reset upon return to slide. I set the slide to "Assign var_notes" to Zero upon exit, (because I am hiding the back button of the carousel navigation upon entry) but that didn't help. 

Does anyone have insights they could share?

Thanks, 

Shane Elder

[Lilybiri]

If you could answer some questions and add screenshots, I may be able to help.

• Did you activate the option 'Retain State' for the multistate object?
• What is the 'variable' you are pointing at? Maybe you can insert a screenshot of the shared/advanced actions ou are using? If you have multiple decisions, please use the Preview window of the action instead of multiple screenshots.
• To detect the used events, please add a screenshot of the Advanced Interaction panel (F9)
• Can you post a screenshot of the Timeline?

[shanee98076946]

Hi again Lilybiri,

I am so glad you responded, I was hoping you would!

No, I did not  click "Retain State" for the smart shape multi state object I'm using as a content container. Should I?

Screen shot of shared advanced action preview:

Screen shot of Advanced Interaction Panel (F9)

Screen shot of Timeline

[Lilybiri]

I don't know what the 5 Continue commands are doing there? It is the default command which appears when something is wrong with anoterh command. None of the other items have been expanded. I just see that a variable has been incremented. I cannot see which criterion has been used to show the Next button at all. That shared action is triggered by both the Back and the Fwd Images used as buttons, so I suppose there should be at least one parameter to make the difference. I suspect that those buttons are not stacked in the same location?

One thing is sure: when coming back to the slide, normally you should reset the variable v_notes... to its initial value. You will need an advanced action On Enter, assigning that default value and hiding the adv_back button. Or do you want another behavior on second visit of the slide? 

What are the parameters?

[shanee98076946]

Thank you for your prompt reply Lilybiri.

Here is a view of teh carousel iupon slide entry. The content container (the blue smart shape multi-state object in the center) is at normal because the variable is at 0.

I believe I sent a faulty Advanced action preview to youin the first response. Here instead is the shared action template used for the fwd button, with blank parameters for each increment up to variable =3.  The back button mirrors this shared action, with the difference that in decreases the variable by 1 on click.

And here is a screen shot of the actual parameterized SA used by the fwd button:

The only thing that I need to have done upon a re-entry to the slide is to hide an image of the back button and I presume to reset the variable to 0. I basically would like it to work like it did on the first visit to the slide (it worked as intended on the first pass).

[Lilybiri]

I wouldn't have used a shared action in this typical situation, too much parameters. Probably would have found another workflow that was easier. I always try to limit the number of parameters to maximum 6.  It could be possible to replace the multiple Change State by either Go to Next State or Go to Previous State. A video/tutorial about tracking states is wandering on my laptop since a couple of days. 

You certainly need to reset the variable if you want to keep the present workflow.

[shanee98076946]

I should have gotten help sooner, now I am facing a deployment on Monday of this content.  If possible I need to try to do this without rebuilding all the actions. After all, it did work beautifully the first time through. But now Im in a pinch and have to fix three of these types of slides!

I used a shared action because I have three of these 4 item carousel slides in the project;  each one has a unique variable assigned to it.  Of course, they are behaving the same way.

So, if I have it reset the variable "On Enter" and not "On Exit" will that make a difference? I currently have it set for "On Exit," as seen in the following shot, but it didn't solve the problem.

[Lilybiri · Accepted solution]

The On Exit event is never to be trusted, especially not in your case where you have interactive objects pausing the timeline. That means that the On Exit event which occurs after the last frame of the slide, will never be done. The inactive part of the Continue button is never visited. Always use the On Enter event whenever possible. Creating a simple two-line advanced action cannot be that difficult. You don't need even to add Continue, just the Assign and Hide action.

[shanee98076946]

Hi again ,

I created the simple Advanced Action to assign the variable with zero and to hide the back button, but still, upon re-entry, the screen looks as if the variable is set to zero, but the forward button is inert. Something is "turning off" the forward button... "might it be the presence of the Next Slide button? " I thought?

So  I tried to add "Hide the Next Slide button in the On Enter Advanced Actioni (the one that assigns the variable back to zero) but still the Forward button was inert and the slide had a 3 second default duration and continued to next slide.

I re-wrote the shared actions as advanced actions so I could screen shot a preview, would you be able to look at that, maybe I'm missing an obvious step in the script?  

Here is the preview for the forward button

Here is the advanced action preview for the Back button

And finally the simple Advanced Action for resetting the variable to zero on entry

So my hope here is that maybe you can see something that was in the Advanced Action on which the shared actions that I was using are based. Again, they were perfectly on the first pass through but on re-entry, even with a variable being assigned zero, the navigation buttons are inert.

I know you've already spent some time on this, but anything you can do to help would be appreciated... the clock  is ticking and I can't figure this out.

Thank you!

[Lilybiri · Accepted solution]

What happens at the end with the decision which is showing the Continue button?

For a quick solution, extend the Advanced action On Enter, and add the Enable... for the button you want to activate immediately, I suppose it is the Next image, which may have been disabled at the last action before the Continue button was shown. It seems like you don't have any button enabled when re-entering the slide, and that means there is no pausing point neither.

BTWI will close now, it is 11pm here.

[shanee98076946]

Thank you so much, that last suggestion was it.  I added Enable tthe Fwd Button and it worked perfectly no matter where I had parked the carousel before leaving and no matter how many times I revisted. Thank you, thank you, thank you  Lilybiri! 

I feel good about it because my intuitions were right I just didn't think it all the way through; I needed the expert perspective!  Thanks again, this community has saved my bacon a few times now.

[shanee98076946]

This is good advice. Where is this kind of information in Captivate's learning guide?

[Lilybiri]

Why did I start blogging in 2009? Because too much is missing in the "Captivate's learning guide". It costs me a lot of money, because it results in no one wanting to pay me for my advice, they expect for free.  I am the wordst marketing gal in this world. Watch out for a future blog I will write about tracking states, because I will include your Carousel idea but with a much easier workflow.