Hyperlinked slides in Presenter

Jan 30, 2012

I am planning on using hyperlinked slides in my presentation to give the appearance of onClick(show) items. For instance, if I have 3 icons, when you click them, a description appears underneath. However, if I am using this type of navigation in the course, shouldn't any additional navigation provided by the player template be disabled?

Using the attached as an example, if the user selects the fish first, then selects the cat, then uses the Articulate next button, it goes back to the fish. Would you consider this confusing to the user?

16 Replies
James Brown

Let's talk about action buttons. In Power Point there is a thing called Action Buttons found under "shapes". You will simply use them n hyperlink back to the slides you want when you click on the Chicken, Cat or Fish.. (See Attached Document). Action buttons allow you to link to the various slides and when they appear you need to change the fill properties so that the fill color is 99% transparent. Set the line fill to no fill. Export it to Articulate and that should resolve the issue.

blair parkin

I would add instructions like "Click on each image for more info" or something similar and have that appear on all of the duplicate slides. For the Next button you can set the branching in the slide properties on the Articulate tab so that when they click next it goes past all of the images to the next slide, and repeat for all of the image slides.

James Brown

Idea.. add one more slide to the presentation with the three linked images so when you hit continue on the fish it goes back to the three images.

[beginning slide]  ->  link1  --> link2 --> Link3 -->[end slide (duplicate of first slide).

BTW - I could have swore action buttons were supported in Articulate. If they aren't than I'm obviously mistaken.

Dawn Ferullo

You can (1) use Articulate's Slide Properties to set the 3 hyperlinked slides to "hidden" in the navigation so that they do not appear in your menu.  You can then (2) set the Branching settings for the Next button to skip over these hidden slides.  So when the user clicks Next while on any of these slides (the initial state slide or the 3 hidden slides), it will branch directly to the next active slide in your course, not to any of the hidden slides.  You would set this branching up for each of your 4 slides (the initial state slide and the 3 hidden slides).

On your next active slide, you can also (3) set the Branching settings for the Previous button to branch back to your initial state slide that has the three buttons with no text underneath.  So for the learner, it looks like this interaction is all taking place on one slide instead of 4 and the navigation is seamless.

Dawn Ferullo

... 1 more thing... You would also set the Branching for the Previous button on the hidden slides to return the user to the slide that comes before your batch of hyperlinked slides (the slide before your initial state slide).

Let's assume that your course consists of 6 slides, like this:

Course Overview -- initial state slide -- dog slide -- cat slide -- fish slide -- Course Summary

If you click Next from the Course Overview slide, it goes to initial state slide.

If you click Next from initial state slide or dog slide or cat slide or fish slide, it goes to Course Summary.

If you click Previous from Course Summary slide, it goes to initial state slide.

If you click Previous from fish slide or cat slide or dog slide or initial state slide, it goes to Course Overview.

Chris Fletcher

Actually, what I do on most occasions, now that I think about it,  is build an as2 swf file that performs the function of the whole site, and inport it into the presentation. You can add a button, that takes you to the next slide, to the flash file then, which appears once all the areas have been viewed.

Do you have Flash as an option? I'd be happy to share the fla I use if so...

David Anderson

Hi James - I like how this is turning out. The only suggestion I'd offer is to echo Dawn's suggestion to use Slide Properties to hide the sub-slides (Slide 4, Slide 5) and set up branching to control the player's navigation buttons. Hiding the slides and enabling branching will create the illusion the interactivity is taking place on a single slide.

One production tip I'd offer would be to set up your slide layouts to include slide titles. I looks like you deleted your text placeholders on your slides--which is totally fine!-- but including titles makes labeling slides a lot easier. It also makes hyperlinking and branching easier because the slides are easier to identify.

Customizing slide layouts to add hidden slide titles

In your last Screenr, I like how you set up slide only view--that's a great use of it. But I noticed when you returned to outline view, the sub slides were also displaying in the menu. The learner can still click those and jump into the middle of your interaction. That's okay if you want that option, however, if you want to complete the effect, I'd  hide those slides from the menu like Dawn suggested:

Adding hidden slides and branching to customize course outline menu

James Starr

Dawn, your explanation was 100% spot on. I've included the branching and it is exactly what I was looking for.

Chris, I certainly appreciate your help and I am looking forward to trying your option when you have the extra free time.

David, thanks for additional info. I've added the slide titles and it does make branching easier.

Thank you everyone!

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