Help with Custom Hotspots, Variables, and Advanced Actions

[charleyriddle]

Using Adobe Captivate 2019 Release, on Mac, version 11.5.4.613

Hi everyone! I'm working on a project that contains a slide where I have learners click on smartshapes that act like hotspots. I want to hide my "Continue" button until at least two of the three buttons are clicked. Currently, I have my smartshape "hotspots" incrementing a variable by 1 when they are clicked. Also, I have my Continue button hidden by default. I also have an If action that says "If ____ variable is greater than or equal to 2, then Show 'Continue button' ". I'll post some screenshots to help show more detail.

This project will also include some regular quiz questions (MC, T/F, etc.). I'm hoping to have this smartshape-clicking activity add points to the total Quiz score at the end.

The issues/questions I'm running into are:

1. My Continue button on the smartshape-clicking activity slide is either showing up only when all three smartshapes are clicked, or not at all.
2. How can I have the main variable (which controls the Continue button) reset if a learner revists the slide? As well, how can I have the continue button be hidden again upon revisiting the slide?

If I need to provide more information, please let me know.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[RodWard]

Using the method of incrementing a variable to track whether or not a user has clicked DIFFERENT interactive objects is not the best way to handle this type of interaction because there are too many ways the variable values can be off, leading to unexpected results.  The better way to set up the Conditional Action is to have a different variable to track each clickable object.  Then you can ensure the variable will ONLY be assigned when that object is clicked.

It's quite simple to reset all relevant variables by setting the On Slide Enter event to execute either a Standard Action or a Conditional Action that Assigns them all back to default values, as well as have action lines that HIDE objects that should be hidden again.

Have you tried viewing video tutorials or courses about Advanced Actions?  There is quite a bit of information available on the web about all of this: https://infosemantics.com.au/create-a-dynamic-menu-slide-in-adobe-captivate/

[Lilybiri]

Rod posted already an answer, can point you to several blogs on my site as well and to the webinar  I presented at the Adobe eLearning World Conference. You would see several ways for such a 'forced view', both with the Assign command (which I use in case of Advanced Actions) and the increment command which I use in Shared actions for a reason I also explain in another blog post. That reason is linked to make it available as shared action,  but would be excellent in your case as well because it includes a counter variable which is incremented only when the associated variable of a hotspot is 1.  More details in:

http://blog.lilybiri.com/tips-and-tricks-advanced-to-shared-action-intermediate

As for resetting variables, you do need to use the On Enter action, which is often used as a Reset action. I uploaded a blog to the eLearning Community explaining Reset slide actions, but it is waiting since weeks for moderation. I will try to create an alternative on my slide.

Warning: about your goal to have scored clicking on those hotspots, that will be another problem since you allow multiple clicks... Maybe another thread.

BTW can you EMBED the screenshots, I don't like to download, and store on my system...

[charleyriddle]

Thank you RodWard and Lilibiri! I really appreciate the help. I'll be watching those videos and looking more into the resources you provided.

One more (hopefully quick) question. Say I have five areas that can be clicked on my slide (each with its own variable that changes from 0 to 1 upon being clicked). How can I make it so that my Continue button appears once a minimum of three areas have been clicked?

Thank you!!

[Lilybiri]

That 'detail' was exactly the reason why I recommended the approach with Increment and an extra counter variable as I used in the Shared action example.  Will leave you to Rod's solution since he seems to prefer the toggle Boolean variables.  The blogs and the webinar are both very recent. 

[charleyriddle]

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[RodWard]

This is an old tutorial of mine that predates Object State functionality, but it should explain what you need to know:

https://infosemantics.com.au/create-a-dynamic-menu-slide-in-adobe-captivate/