CP 9: Closing TOC automatically after navigation?

[nikolausm82011740]

Hi,

I have a question for a scalable project.
Our customer rightly asked us to see to it that the TOC should not be visible anymore after navigating to a specific slide.

Because as it is now, when you jump the video starts playing and you have to close the TOC manually after it covers 1/3 of the slide.

Alternatively the silde should pause until the TOC is closed.

I am very grateful for any suggestions.

[RodWard]

That's not the default behaviour of the Overlay TOC. If you want it to have the option to work differently in this particular respect you should probably log an enhancement request with Adobe.

But in the meantime, if you wanted the TOC to close automatically whenever you navigate to a new slide you could achieve this by adding a Shared Action executed On Slide Enter of all slides that will close the TOC.  The action just needs to Assign the System Variable cpCmndTOCVisible to 0.  Then the Overlay TOC will close as soon as you click an item and jump to that slide.

Is that what you wanted?

[nikolausm82011740]

Dear Rod,

thank you.

The only problem I have is that there are other AA on slide enter. Is there a way to have an action executed for all slides at one stroke?

Also, why should it be a shared action? Stupid question I know.

I guess I could just add assign variable cpCmndTOCVisible to 0 for all "enter" AA that I use already.

[RodWard · Accepted solution]

OK.  Well if you have AA's already being executed ON SLIDE ENTER for all slides then you're going to need to just add a line item to those AAs so that the TOC gets automatically closed as well.

I suggested a Shared Action because it would have been a good fit for a situation where you wanted the same action to be performed on all slides.  Out of the box Captivate doesn't really give you the option to just put an action in one place (e.g. a Master Slide) that will then be executed by all slides in the project.  However, this sort of thing would be possible if you have advanced JavaScript skills or you were using something like the CpExtra HTML5 widget, which can execute actions independent of the normal Captivate interactivity model.

[Lilybiri]

@Rod I still don't get why you proposed a shared action? The action to change the value of a parameter is not needing any parameter, why not use the same AA for all On Enter events? Is there any advantage in replacing the unique advanced action by a unique shared action? I am a big fan of shared actions and always reflect for any advanced action if it would be better replaced by a shared action? In this particular case, if there were no action On Enter as now is explained, even a simple action would have done the trick because both Show TOC and Hide TOC exist as simple actions. Only for a toggle button would I use the former approach with the Boolean system variable cpCmndTOCVisible. Is there any advantage in your aproach to always use the system variable? Just curious? For clients I try to make the actions 'readabl' and 'Show TOC' is easier to understand than 'Assign cpCmndTOCVisible with 1'.

[RodWard]

In my experience any kind of action that needs to be executed on all slides across a project is going to need more than ONE line item.  This particular user has already confirmed (as I thought they might) that there are OTHER actions already being executed ON SLIDE ENTER.  So I thought a Shared Action might be the way to go. It's supposed to require less processing power than equivalent Standard or Conditional Actions.

However, the final decision is going to be up to the developer after they try out each option.  If there are significant difference required for actions being executed on many different slides then a Shared Action would not likely be flexible enough to cope with those differences.

Using Show TOC or Assign cpCmndTOCVisible with 1 both do essentially the same thing.  I don't think it matters either way.  Use whatever you prefer and let everyone else do the same.

[Lilybiri]

@Rod must have explained in a confusing way.

I was asking if you only have to toggle the visibility of the TOC off/on, what the reason was to recommend a shared instead of an advanced action? And I have already used oneline advanced actions On Enter of a slide, depends on the setup if Continue has to be added or not.

[RodWard]

Yes it seems we are not understanding each other here.  It's not important.  Don't worry about it.

[Lilybiri]

No need for a shared action, just use the command 'Hide TOC' with the On Enter event of the slide.

[vladimir14818]

Hi, Colleagues!

We can switch the contents on/off during the project execution as it is discussed here.

And we can include items into the contents from the settings dialog box before the project is published.

What do you think is it possible to re-build the standard contents (not own buttons)

during project execution using advanced actions or java script or somehow?

[Lilybiri]

I don't understand your question well. What do you mean by 're-build standard contents'? 

[vladimir14818]

...add and delete items from the contents.

[Lilybiri]

Eveery item has to be in the Captivate file, but can be hidden until you use an action (simple, advanced, shared of JS) to show them.

[vladimir14818]

Is it possible to show some of items?

For example, at 1st slide I show contents with 5 items (a,b,c,d,e), at 2nd slide I show contents with 4 items (a,b,c,d), because item 'e' is disabled during some actions at the 1st slide.

[Lilybiri]

Still not very clear, sorry. Are those items displayed for the rest of the project or do you use duplicates on each slide? In both cases, use the On Enter event of the slide to hide/show the wanted items. The advantage of same object displayed for the rest of the project is that they'll keep the same name everywhere, duplicates will have another name on each slide.

[vladimir14818]

Thank you for your attention, Lilybiri!

My question is about the standard table of contents and about items inside of it.

It is common for all slides, but I would like to switch on and off items from the contents.

For example I have 5 slides with names:  Start, Theme1, Theme2, Theme3, End.

At the Start slide the contents contains: Theme1, Theme2, Theme3, End.

But at the End slide it contains: Start, Theme1, Theme2, Theme3.

So, the main idea is to adjust the table of contents during the course execution.

I know the solution about own table of contents with own buttons and navigation using advanced actions,

but the question is about the standard table of contents.

[Lilybiri]

No, you don't have that control over the inbuilt TOC, as you mentioned already: only a custom TOC will allow it. For the default one you can only collapse, expand, create different levels. Hiding/showing is not possible.

[vladimir14818]

Thank you!