Thoughts about an interactive animation?

[Klaas_TVE]

I have a scenario where I want to hold a button down (with my mouse and also with a finger on mobile) and want an animation to play as long as I push on the button. When the user is releasing the button the interactive animation should stop where it is at that moment. When the button is pressed again, the animation should go further where it left. So with two buttons the user can move the animation further or move it back from the point it was left.

The animation can be a video or a lot of images. With images and perhaps states the scenario can be moved further or back by changing the states or otherwise I could use a variable. With a video perhaps I can use bookmarks to jump to. The way to act once on the press of a button is easy but how to continually act when the button is down and you want e.g. every 0.5 sec. to trigger an event? How can this be done in Captivate?

[Lilybiri · Accepted solution]

You will need an experienced JS programmer to achieve this. No event it slinked by default with keeping a button pressed, and honestly why this would increase learning efficiency is bit of a mystery to me. You would need to create a lot of events by using eventhandler.

Be careful with terminology. An animation in Captivate is normall an external file, which can be imported: an animated GIF, HTML animation like OAM or previously a SWF. The way animations react to pausing points and pauses is not the same as the reaction  of an object to which you applied an effect (which can be a motion effect). You mention a video, which is NOT an animation in Captivate's terminology. It can be inserted as ane vent video (totally independent from Captivate), as a slide video, or even as a web object. All totally different situations. Series of images? Again totally different: do you play them as states in a Loop generated in Captivate? Again pausing points and pauses will control them in another way.

Maybe you don't want to develop an eLearning course?

Some information about pausing in Captivate in this blog:

Pausing Captivate's Timeline - Captivate blog

Or watch this interactive movie:

Captivate's Timeline

[Klaas_TVE]

Hi Lilybiri,

Thank you for making clear that 'out of the box' Captivate functionality is not solving my problem ;-).

I have been thinking of JS but I do not want to dive into it and have no network for it, also it's too much hassle for this use case. I know I was not really carefull in terminology because I wanted readers to have an open mind for the use case, but sure I need to be careful there. Also the explanation you do for animations, video, etc. is clear to me.

The use case is a simulation of operating a machine and I wanted to be as close as possible to the live situation. Perhaps I should keep it more simple as the users will also get live instructions. Again thanks for the help.

[Lilybiri]

Lot is possible with Captivate's Advanced/shared actions without JS, but the number of available events to trigger such an action are limited. Have a blog about those events as well.

I warened about the terminology and posted the link to a blog about the Tiemlein, because ther result of pausing the timeline is not the same for a started animation, or a started effect on an object, etc.  Have published quite a lot of blogs about Captivate's Timeline

PS Nederlandstalig? Klaas klinkt heel erg Nederlands (of Vlaams).