Using Advanced Actions alongside Drag and Drop (specifically Apply Effect)

Report · Apr 02, 2023

Hi Everyone,

I'm creating a project in Captivate 2019 and using the drag and drop function.

In the object actions I have assigned an advanced action to the accepted drag source. This advneced action includes an applied effect (in my case a rotate to effect).

When I preview the course the rest of the action seems to work when the drag and drop action is carried out but the applied effect does not.

This is my advanced action:

And this is how I am applying these actions:

My version of Captive is 11.8.0.

Is this something that just can't be done using the combination of advanced actions and drag and drop?

Any advice is hugely appreciated.

Report · Apr 02, 2023

I often use shared or advanced actions as Object Action in drag&Drop, so your statement that this is not possible is not correct.

Which part of the action is not happening? Is it the Effect? What are the parametters of the Rotation effect? I never use a default effect in an advanced action, but always a custom effect.

Is the object hidden and the state change happening?

Are you on a Mac? I am just asking because you have not upgraded to 11.8.1.

Report · Apr 02, 2023

Hi,

I didn't make a statement that it was not possible, just to be clear here, I said "Is this something that just can't be done?" which is a question.

I think I was very clear in my post that the part that is not working is the "Apply Effect" part as shown in the Advanced Action I have screenshotted in the post.

These are the pararmeters of the rotation effect:

I will try a custom effect to see if that makes any difference here but I am not sure why a custom effect would be different from a default effect; surely either the effects work for this or they don't?

Everything else from the advanced action is working when I drag and drop the object: Hide, Delay, Change State are all functioning as expected. It is ONLY the Apply Effect part that does not happen.
I am working on a Windows machine and I have not updated to 11.8.1 but I can ask my IT dept to do that tomorrow if that is likely to make a difference. Sadly I am not able to apply the update myself.

Report · Apr 02, 2023

OK, understood.

I cannot test at this moment, which I will when my license is extended. I really want to test it, suspect it is linked with the fact that the drag source is moved during the drag action. Hope to be able to access Captivate tomorrow, I would first of all try to add another Delay before the effect, which you want to happen after the drag source is dropped.

Difference between default and custom? Cannot give you a logical answer but had bad experiences with effects in advanced/shared actions when those were default effects.

Report · Apr 02, 2023

I think I was going on the assumption that the advanced action only kicks in once the drag source is linked to the drop target: similarly to how the action would kick in when a button is clicked.

I just tried your suggestion of adding a delay at the start (I tried 1, 2 and 3 seconds) and sadly it just delays the other actions but still does not apply the rotation effect.

I have created a custom effect but can't see a way to upload that from within the Advanced Actions tab. Am I missing something?

Thank you so much for all the help.

Report · Apr 02, 2023

Just as an addition, I also deleted the "hide" part of the advanced action so I could see everything that happens to the drag target and unfortunately it just confirms what I knew: the apply effect part of the advanced action doesnt seem to initiate.

Report · Apr 02, 2023

It is rather cumbersome, the workflow:

https://blog.lilybiri.com/how-to-use-custom-effect-in-actions

However it may indeed be a bug, will for sure try to explore this.

Report · Apr 02, 2023

Thank you!

In this case I was being dumb and hadn't uploaded the custom effect before trying to find it in the advanced actions window. Doh. I'll try out the custom effect and see if that makes a difference here.

I will keep working on this and will speak to IT about the update but hopefully you will be able to figure something out when you have a chance to explore it.

Thank you for all the advice!