Simulation and Branching

Hello Emre,

To test the hyperlinks you'll need to publish the course rather than previewing. Hyperlinks typically don't function as intended during preview. Try publishing your content and uploading it to the environment you published for (i.e., if you published for Web, upload it to your web location & test from there, etc.). If you aren’t ready to upload your content, you can test the functionality of your hyperlinks by publishing for CD and then view your course locally by clicking the Launch_Presentation.exe file in the published output.

Hope that helps!

This will most likely occur if you are using the Pyramid smartobject item.

You will either need to:

1. Save the smartobject as a picture then re-import. After which you can create transparent shapes that link over each part of the object.
2. Copy the parts of the pyramid, click outside the smart object, paste that part back in, then create the links to each part.
3. Leave the smartobject, and create transparent buttons over that. this however might be awkward as smartobjects sometimes move during the publishing process,so your buttons might be off a bit.

I usually go with option 2, keeping the smartobject as an off-screen component in case I need to update.

i think somewhere in the documentation it mentions that smartobjects might not behave as advertised.

HTH

I tried the links in publish mode for my test, and they did not work.

I don't even preview anymore except for timing audio/animations.

Hi Dwayne & thanks for posting. That's true, if Emre's hyperlinks are applied to smart art objects (rather than to regular shapes drawn in PowerPoint, or to images), then there are some known issues with hyperlinks not working correctly. Here's a knowledgebase article which describes a couple workarounds: http://www.articulate.com/support/presenter09/kb/?p=3176

Thank you

Hi Jeanette,

I am doing something very similar, as far as the branching to different slides using hyperlinks.  I am not using Smart Objects.  I'm curious, is there anything special I need to do in the Slide Properties to make sure the slide that starts the branching points to the right slides?  For example, let's say on slide 10 if you click on box A, it goes to slide 11 (and the next buttons from there should go from 12 - 20).  But if you clicked box B, it would take you to slides 21 to the end of the presentation.  I'm just curious about the following:

1. Should I set the Branching Property (in Slide Properties) for slide 10 in a specific way?  I can't make them both forward to slide 11, that would not make sense for box B.  Perhaps I do nothing and just leave it alone?  (Just want to make sure because I recall playing with this before and when I had two hyperlinks on a slide, it worked great.  When I had three, it got confused like in Emre's example.  I want to make sure I didn't just get lucky with one of hte scenarios.)
2. Along the same thought, what about my back button (Previous button branches to?  Do I need to branch that a special way? Seems like that should be easy.  10 points to 9. 11 points to 10. 21 points to 10.  Right?
3. I can still set it to "Advance By User," right?  Doesn't seem like it would matter.
4. Do I need to lock any slides?

Thanks for your help.

Hello h mun, Here are some answers that I hope will help you out:

On the slides where you have hyperlinked choices (such as slide 10 in the example you described), I'd recommend locking the slides in Slide Properties. This way, the learner can only navigate by choosing the hyperlinked items on the slide, since all other controls on the player, including the sidebar menu, will be locked.This helps give you more control over their learning experience while still allowing them to make choices via the hyperlinks.

Another approach, if you prefer to keep the sidebar menu clickable, would be to leave the slide unlocked, but in the branching settings in Slide Properties, set both the forward and back behavior to the same slide. This way, if the learner clicks the player controls at the bottom of the player, they won't actually leave the slide (since the branching takes them to the same slide they're currently on)... however, they could still click the sidebar menu to jump to some other slide if they wanted to.

And yes, Advance By User is the best choice for any slides on which you want learners to navigate via hyperlinks.

Here's a series of tutorials you might want to review - it walks through some recommendations for setting up a branched scenario:

Part 1: Adding hyperlinks to your slides

Part 2: Locking player controls on selected slides

Part 3: Adding branched navigation and changing the slide-advance behavior

Part 4: Hiding selected slides from the outline tab

Hi Jeanette,

I don't always know what to do with the Slide Properties so that was very helpful! Thanks so much.  I will try them and let you know if I have any troubles.  I will also check out the tutorials you suggested.

On a different note, I am seeing some strange things in my presentation after I publish it.  I have images of my "host" person and callout boxes next to him as he's talking about the course.  On certain slides, I see that the text for the callout box is positioned where I originally placed that callout box (say center of screen).  However, the callout box shape itself is somewhere else on the slide (say bottom right corner).  This is the strangest thing.  Have you ever seen this? 

Thanks,

H

Any chance that the callout boxes have been rotated? Sometimes that can cause issues with things publishing in odd places. Here's a knowledgebase article that describes more about that: http://www.articulate.com/support/presenter09/kb/?p=3568

If that doesn't seem to be the issue, maybe you could attach the file, or a screenshot, to this thread and we can help troubleshoot.

I will explore a bit more and let you know.  Thanks again!

I had this same problem (this week!) with some callouts moving from their original slide location, to the bottom-right of the screen (and off the screen entirely, depending on the original location) when publishing or previewing. This happened in both PowerPoint 2007 and 2010.

There was no rotation on the callouts, however I followed the tutorial instructions mentioned above, for changing the Z-rotation axis from 0 to 359.9 - however,  the callouts still slid downhill to the right, while the text boxes they were grouped with, stayed in their correct locations.

On a whim, I ungrouped the callouts from the text boxes and voila! Everything stayed in the right place. I re-grouped, and the callouts slid away....so it does seem that the problem is associated somehow with the grouping of the callouts to a text box...

JL

Thanks Joanne, for sharing your solution!