Variables get kicked out of advanced action

[Reinhard Fröhlich-Steiner]

Hi!
I have a quite annoying issue concerning user variables and conditional advanced actions.

I want to show/hide an object (IB_Teamdynamik). I use a variable to track the status shown/hidden (IB_Teamdynamik). When I click on "Save advanced action", the variables are simply kicked out of the advanced action. I use the VERY same advanced actions with other objects where it works perfectly fine - deleting preferences didn't change anything.

Happy to hear from the pros out there what I am doing wrong.

Thank you

all the best
- Reinhard

[Lilybiri]

My suspicion is that you have duplicate use of the same name. That is mostly the cause of issues with advanced actions. Can you check all names: you cannot use the name attributed to a variable for an advanced action, or for any item in your course.

The screenshots are too fuzzy for me (I am on a very small screen) to identify if this could be the case.

It is one of the reasons why replacing duplicate advanced actions by shared actions is often a good choice.

[RodWard]

Do you have any objects or advanced actions in this project that have exactly the same name as the User Variable?  IF so, try changing the names of those objects or actions.  (Once created you cannot change the name of a Variable in Captivate.)

[Reinhard Fröhlich-Steiner]

Gosh you are SO QUICK in answering! Amazing - Thank you guys!!

Well yeah, I fear that's the problem - and thanks Rod for the clarification, that variables cannot be changed - so I will rename the objects and see if that helps. If so, I will mark this thread to be solved of course 🙂

[Reinhard Fröhlich-Steiner]

Ok - unfortunately it didn't work...

Here is my current name structure (not working):
Objectname: Infobox_Glaubenssatz

Action name: Show_IB_Glaubenssatz

(new) Variable name: IB_Glaubenssatz_var

(old) Variable name: IB_Glaubenssatz

Is it still too similar??

[RodWard]

It should only need to change slightly from other objects in order to work.  Even one digit different would be considered a different object in Captivate.

Are you certain that there are no text captions, highlit boxes, Smart Shapes or buttons that share exactly the same name as a variable in the project?

I am also wondering if this issue could be due to some kind of character in your language that causes a conflict.  I cannot see any variable in your screenshots that would do that, but I have seen such a problem happen with some languages.

One test you can try is to copy and paste one of the slides that uses this interaction into a new blank project and see if you get the same result there.  If you can reproduce the issue in another project, then you can start removing or renaming objects until you locate the offending item.

[Reinhard Fröhlich-Steiner]

Ok, Thank you! Will take a closer look. I already realized that ö ü and ä are not a good idea to use in naming "things" in captivate 🙂

Hope I can find the error quickly.

[Lilybiri]

Names are case sensitive, just replacing a low case by a capital should be sufficient. I am on a bigger monitor now, and could see that you were using the same name for an object and a variable. BTW, since those variables seem to be Booleans, would recommend to use 'Toggle' instead of 'Assign' (Zuweisen) for the conditional action. I don't know how Toggle is translated in German, sorry.

I referred to shared actions, but you didn't read my answer apparently.  The show/hide action your are using can be used for many toggle buttons. Look at:

Multiple Toggle buttons with ONE Shared Action - eLearning (adobe.com)

The big advantage is that you are using multiple instances of the same shared action, and only have to worry about the names of the variables and the objects.

[Reinhard Fröhlich-Steiner]

Hi!
I have to admit that the link you sent me confused me quite a bit, and I have no idea how to use this for my project. I tested the shared action approach now nevertheless, but for me it doesn't work because I use text links to toggle the show/hide of the object. The idea is to open an info box containing more detailed information concerning the specific expression/word the user clicked on (see example below). Will try the toggle instead of show hide now (called "umschalten" in german btw)

[Reinhard Fröhlich-Steiner]

What I forgot: There is no option to use shared actions for text links available, so this doesn't work for me.

[Lilybiri]

OK, that was not mentioned in the original questions. For some weird reason Shared actions are not possible when using the hybrid interactive objects which are hyperlinks. They are only available for normal interactive objects. BTW more actions are excludes from the dropdown list in hyperlinks.

http://blog.lilybiri.com/use-hyperlinks-as-interactive-object

However you can always use a shared action as template for an advanced action.... Here is an example:

http://blog.lilybiri.com/forced-view-for-tabs-interactions-shared-actions-as-template

My recommendation to use Toggle in this case is also valid for advanced actions. It has several advantages over Assign especially in shared actions as well.