Can't change object state in master slide?

Sep 19, 2013

Hi all,

I encountered a problem with SL where in a master slide, I tried to create an object trigger to change the state of another object (hidden to normal), but the trigger does not work. Is this something that can't be done in master slide? I believe it used to be doable.

Any idea what's going on?

Cheng

27 Replies
Justin Grenier

Good Afternoon, Cheng.

Articulate Storyline doesn't currently support changing the state of an object that's located on a layer in your slide master. To interact with objects on a layer, you'll need to add them to the actual content slide rather than the slide master.

If you'd like to request this feature, click here. We welcome your suggestions!

Rutwin Geuverink

Hi Justin,

Justin Grenier said:

  • Articulate Storyline doesn't currently support changing the state of an object that's located on a layer in your slide master
  • To interact with objects on a layer, you'll need to add them to the actual content slide rather than the slide master.

I'm a bit confused about the terminology used in your answer, and not sure if I understand it correctly:

  • Articulate Storyline doesn't currently support changing the state of an object that's located on a layer in your slide master

Am I correct that you are referring to an issue pertaining to triggers placed on slide master layers......actual layers created within the slide master.  -- you are here NOT talking about layouts or slide master slides in general...right?--

  • To interact with objects on a layer, you'll need to add them to the actual content slide rather than the slide master.

--The confusing bit--

Am I correct that you are now talking about a complete different, but extremely important issue whereby slide master triggers (in general...or just the ones residing on a slide master layer??)  are not working correctly for objects placed a regular slide layer??

I hope you can clarify my obvious confusion here. Any further information about slide master trigger issues would be highly appreciated.

Regards,

Rutwin

Justin Grenier

Good Afternoon, Rutwin.

Storyline supports change state triggers on...

  • ...objects that are located on the base layer of a content slide
  • ...objects that are located on a layer (other than the base layer) within a content slide
  • ...objects that are located on the base layer of a master slide.

Storyline does not support change state triggers on...

  • ...objects that are located on a layer (other than the base layer) within a master slide.

If you have a .story project file that doesn't seem to match up with the above, please let us know and we'll be happy to take a closer look.  Thanks!

Rutwin Geuverink

Hi Justin,

Thanks for your explanation and making things more clear!

I'm experiencing some erratic and quite annoying issues with triggers on master slides. I can't quite figure out the reasons for things behaving the way they do.

Can anyone provide some more details on the issue described here:

http://www.articulate.com/support/storyline/triggers-on-slide-feedback-master-dont-work-in-html5-output

eg.

What kind of triggers won't work?

Under which circumstances do they occur, and why do they occur in the first place?

Thanks in advance,

Noelle T

Hi everyone,

I have a similar question that doesn't seem to have been covered in this thread.

In my master slide I have 5 blue circles with navigation triggers on them. I have set hover, selected and visited states for each of the circles. For example, if you hover over the first circle, it show the menu item it will take you to if you click on it and the circle turns yellow. When you click on that circle, it takes you to that topic and the selected state should show (it doesn't) as well, the visited state should then be shown when you click on another of the circles (it doesn't).

I have made the 5 circles a button set. Created the different states and created the navigational triggers for each one. All of this on the master slide. The jump to slide trigger works and the hover states work-- but not the other states.

Any ideas?

Marko Stojkovski

Cheng, you cannot directly change states, but you can adjust a variable from a master slide and put a condition to change the state if variable is adjusted on the slide.

Noelle, it does not work because Master Slide is resetting every time you move away from a slide and come back (for example: you are clicking the first circle and the state should be selected, but the menu slide opens and automatically the master slide is restarted and starts from the beginning so thats why only triggers and hover state is working, for hover you are not going on another slide) , you can fix this wth variables. Example, create a variable called menu and create it as number and add a trigger on the first circle to adjust variable to value 1 when user clicks the circle and put this trigger before jumping to slide. And add trigger change state of circle to selected when timeline starts if variable menu is equal to 1. This way should work.

Yang Yang

Hi Marko and all

Thanks for your recommendations. I still have problem of changing the state of an object on the master slide by using variable. What I did was:

1 Create an object A and a hover state of A on master slide.

2 Create a variable called "ChangeToHover" and assign value to 0.

3 In master slide, add trigger "change state of A to hover when timeline starts and if ChangeToHover = 1".

4 On the first slide, add trigger "adjust variable ChangeToHover" to 1.

My issue is the Object A remains as normal state even when ChangeToHover is1.

I repeated the step 3 by assigning ChangeToHover to 1 on master slide but the state of A remains as it's normal state.

is it because the change of state is not supported on master slide suggested by Justin?

Steve Flowers

Hi Yang - 

The problem is likely the use of the built-in state hover. Even when trying to switch to that state, behavior of the built-in hover will return it to the normal (or visited / selected) state if the mouse isn't over the top of the object. To get around this, create a duplicate of that state and call it something other than a built-in state name. 

Karen Loomis

I am running into this same issue.

STEPS:

On the master slide I have text boxes with the names of every section in my course. Each textbox has two states. 1 - to be bolded when the user is "in" that section. 2- to have a checkmark after reaching the last slide in the section.

VARIABLE 1 = SECTION _Complete - set to true when we reach the last page of each section

VARIABLE 2 - LESSON_NAME is a text value set to the name of each section.

On the master slide, I have a trigger to change the state of the text box to the Complete State (custom state) when SECTION_Complete = True. I have another trigger to change the state of the textbox to InLesson (Custom State) when LESSON_NAME =  the name of applicable lesson.

 

Seems ot be "All or nothing" with the master slide so far...

 

Karen Loomis

Thanks Ashley, I uploaded my story file.

I can get the state of an object to change when a variable changes. It works on one screen, but then when I progress in the course, that state reverts back to normal. I'm wondering if the "Variable Changes" condition is not being met? The variable changes to true on the last screen of each section, but I'm guessing the condition is not being met on other screens since i technically am not changing it on each other screen.

My requirement is to put a check mark next to each section name when I get to the last screen of each section. Is there a better way to do this?

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Thanks Karen for letting  me know you submitted it as a Support case. I see you're working with Jayem and I see he most recently shared:

I tested the project you sent and was able to reproduce the issue. Everything in your project is set up correctly, except for the default value of the INTRO_COMPLETE variable. In your project, the variable's default value is already TRUE. This is the reason why the text box is not changing it's state.

To correct this, simply change the default value of the variable to FALSE. Please see the attached screenshot for the steps. I've also attached a modified version of your project for your reference.

So it may be best to continue troubleshooting this with Jayem, but I'm happy to follow along as well. 

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