Anyone ever used a free navigation AND the player next/prev buttons?

May 13, 2015

Lisa Anderson
By Lisa Anderson

Hi All,

I'm interested in using both a free navigation (custom menu) and using the next/prev player buttons for navigation in a course, giving the user the choice of which way to navigate.  Some people like linear navigation and others prefer to explore.

I have a course, with 5 sections (scenes), that has a custom menu freely letting users explore sections at their choice and upon returning to the menu, triggers and variables show the section complete. Fine.  Also, if someone wants to navigate linearly and not use the menu, they can do so, using the next/prev buttons and navigate in sequential order; same completion triggers and variables.  Fine.  I also have it set so that if the user started out using the free navigation menu and then , by accident (cause they're use to doing so),  or by design (because they wanted to), hit the next button on the menu slide, they would be directed to the next section (scene), either in the default slide numeric sequence assigned by SL or by the order I have the "jump to next scene" triggers listed in the trigger panel.  Meaning, if they first used the menu for free navigation to section 2 (scene 2.1), then section 4 (scene 4.1), when they hit next on the menu slide, they would be directed to scene 1 (scene 1.1), because it's the default numeric scene number and that's the order of my triggers in the trigger panel (jump to 1.1, jump to 2.1...etc.)  

I've been trying to figure the variable(s) that would, in the above scenario, after visiting  2 and 4, take them to scene 5 (5.1), when they selected the next button, because it's the next scene in the linear sequence that hasn't been visited, rather than to scene 1 (1.1) because it's the default sequence of scenes not visited.  I want it to remember that the last scene they were on was 4 and that it makes sense to go to 5, rather than go to 1.  Or, in another scenario, if the user started on scene 1 (1.1), then went to scene 3 (3.1) freely, then selected the next button it would take them to scene 4 (4.1), and not scene 2 (2.1), which is what it's doing now.

Any ideas?  Just trying to give everyone the option to use the navigation they prefer (even though most want free).  

I would appreciate any suggestions.  I'm probably over thinking it...which variables tend to make me do!

Cheers,

Lisa

 

 

2 Replies
Brett Rockwood
almost 9 years ago05/13/15 at 11:53 am (UTC)

Interesting question. What I've done in the past for similar situations was just have the last slide of each scene return to the main menu where the user can select where they'd like to go next. That's pretty simple.

Thinking about your variables idea that would avoid jumping back to the menu slide is the interesting part. It sounds like you already have T/F variables set up to track completion of each scene. So what you'd need to do would be set up a bunch of triggers on the Next button of the last slide of each scene. This could get pretty complex but essentially you'd need to cover all of the permutations. For example, if the user did scene 2 first you'd need to set up triggers on the last slide that check if any of the other scenes had been completed and then advance the user to the first one that hadn't. You'd need to do this for the last slide of every scene. It would be a mind bending experience (for me at least) to get all the possibilities entered for each final slide Next button but theoretically it should work.

The question is, is it worth the time and effort just to avoid simply going back to the Main Menu slide after each scene? I'd be curious to hear other ideas on how this could be done.

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