Can someone explain why this doesn't work?

Feb 25, 2014

Mike Mohr
By Mike Mohr

Ran into an issue and am hoping someone can explain why this doesn't work. I attached a a file to show what's not happening.

There is a slide with a base layer and 3 layers. On the base layer there is 2 shapes. Each shape has a normal and visited state. When you click on shape one, it shows layer 1. When you click on shape 2 it shows layer 2.

The layers hide the base layer. Each layer has a hide layer button to take you back to the base layer.

The base layer has a trigger to show layer 3 when both shapes on the base layer have been visited. Layer 3 has an exit button. The base layer should not be hidden.

The problem is layer 3 won't show up unless I include a button trigger (which is not in the attached file) on each layer to make the state of the shape on the base layer visited. But when you click on the shape, it goes to it's visited state.

So why does this not work without the added trigger?

6 Replies
Mike Mohr
10 years ago02/25/14 at 12:06 pm (UTC)

Jill,

Thanks for the reply. I understand your logic. I was able to get it to work too by also including an extra trigger on the layer button that says to change the state of the button on the base layer to visited. My question is... Why do you need to have those extra triggers?

If I click on a button that has a visited state, is the button not visited?  Will the button not be defined as visitied until it is defined as visited through a trigger?

Jerson Campos
10 years ago02/25/14 at 12:40 pm (UTC)

My guess is that the reason layer 3 won't show up is because the trigger is never really being triggered. I usually like to tie my triggers to actions in the slide. Either when the timeline of something starts/ends or when a user clicks on something. The only other trigger that works for me with no user action is when a variable changes.

I removed your trigger on the base layer and added a trigger on layer 1 and 2.  These are conditional triggers. When the user clicks the button to hide layer 1 it will first attempt to show layer 3 ONLY IF rectangle 2 (from base layer) is visited. If it isn't then it just hides the layer. Same thing for Layer 2.

Let me know if you have any other questions.  Attached is my fix.

Chris Wall
10 years ago02/25/14 at 1:10 pm (UTC)

here's what I did:

  • First, I created two T/F variables (Layer1Visited and Layer2Visited). The default state for each of these variables is False.
  • Then, on the base layer, I'm only using two triggers: the triggers on each of the shapes (I''d recommend using buttons instead of shapes) that jump you to the corresponding layers
  • On Untitled Layer 1, I added a trigger that sets the value of the T/F variable Layer1Visited to True as soon as the timeline starts. I added a similar trigger to Untitled Layer2.
  • Next, I added two more triggers to the button on Untitled Layer 1 so that the layer has the following 3 triggers:
  1. The first trigger on this button is the same one that you put there (hides the layer)
  2. The second trigger shows Layer 3 IF both Layer1Visited AND Layer2Visited = True
  3. The third trigger Jumps to Slide 1 IF either Layer1Visited OR Layer2Visited = False
  • Then I did the same to the button on Untitled Layer 2. 

Works like a champ!

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