Ideas on how to create a text rollover that can move with the text

Sep 05, 2012

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to create a rollover on a word or words inside of a text frame? I'd like to have some terms within a body of text be able to pop up their definitions if the user mouses over them; something you often see on webpages. I know I could create transparent hot spots and place them over the words but that can get tedious trying to keep track of hot spots as text is repositioned by being edited or layouts are adjusted.

What I'd like is to have certain terms underlined so the viewer can see that there is a link and mouse over that would flow with any text edits or reformating of page.

Any clever suggestions?

6 Replies
Kevin Thorn

Hi Brett,

The first thing that comes to mind is Text Box Hover States. 

Here's an example:

Text Box Hover States Demo

Here's the .story file.

Managing these still requires a bit of work but at least you know what hover state belongs to which text box.

Keep in mind, because these are hover actions, they won't work on mobile devices.

Hope this helps.

Kevin

Annie Jean

Hi Brett,

Something else often misunderstood is the use of hyperlinks in Storyline.

You can add any trigger to an hyperlink in Storyline which allows you to add the link to specific words and define an action through a trigger for each hyperlinks.

Hope it helps (hope the information is clear...), don't hesitate to post back if you need further information.

Annie

Brett Rockwood

Thanks Kevin for jumping in. This is cool but not exactly what I'm looking for. I'd like to have one text box with a paragraph of text in that has maybe 3-4 terms that pop up definitions. So a hover state on the whole text box doesn't work. I need a hover state for individual words within a text box. For example the following would be in a single text box with roll overs for each of the underlined words:

"Restrictions aren’t limited to just the client’s wishes or the governing documents, the IMA, prospectus, and SAI. They may also come from government regulations such as the 1940 Act, ERISA, and UCITS..."

I imagine most of the target audience will know what these mean so I don't want to clutter up the presentation with definitions but others may need it.

Brett Rockwood

Annie,

Very interesting. In this case it wouldn't be a hover; the user would have to click the link to pop a definition layer but that's not a bad solution. I wonder if there would be a way for the link to always pop up as a caption adjacent to the term, i.e. the definition bubble would move if the text formatting caused the term to move... Probably simpler to just have the definitions always pop up in the same place on the screen.

Thanks for the idea.

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