Captions Linger in Software TryIts

Hi Amy,

I'm not sure I understand what's happening - are you saying the caption for say slide 1, remains on the screen, after the user has answered and moved on to slide 2 for the next item? Are you able to share a copy of your .story file here for us to take a look at? 

The captions remain when the screen recording plays (that was triggered by, mostly, clicking something). They eventually go away, but there is a time when captions are pointing to items no longer on the screen.

I think perhaps the main time it happens is when a button-click closes a pop-up window. The pop-up disappears, but the caption lingers a bit until the next slide arrives.

Image attached. Before on top, after click on bottom.

Hi Amy,

Thanks for the image. Did you make any changes to the overall timing of the screen recording or cut parts out of the actual recording, but the caption is lingering? Have you looked at the timeline to see if you could adjust when the captions disappear? Could you share a copy of the .story file here with us? 

Ha! I was just searching for this issue again and found my own post. I'll attach two slides that both have the problem, but pretty much every slide in the software simulation as lingering captions. The screen recording plays faster than the captions can disappear. I haven't changed any timing at all. Maybe I should move the screen recording out, but that would be odd to have software not respond with normal timing.

I have triggers in place to hide the captions (both on base layer and everything on the Try Again layer). The second doesn't.

Hi Amy,

Can you tell us which captions you're referring to? I didn't see the base layer caption such as the "Click receive" or the orange version of that on the try again layer disappear until the slide moved to the next slide. It seems that they are both set to stay on the slide until the end of the timeline and I don't see them disappearing while previewing even if I wait a long time to click on anything. If you could share a bit more information about what you'd like to see or how it's behaving for you that would be helpful for troubleshooting purposes. 

I left out a key detail above: I have triggers in place on the first slide to hide the captions (both on base layer and everything on the Try Again layer) . The second doesn't.

So you should see the delayed disappearing of captions on the second slide. If you delete my manual triggers to hide captions on both layers of the first slide, you will see the delay there too.

They eventually disappear--just not soon enough for it to not look weird.

Are you saying that, for all software simulations with captions, designers need to adjust the end time for every captIon? I guess I expected they would default to the desired behavior--which is to disappear when the screen recording begins.

Hi Amy,

I didn't see them disappear at all? I waited for the timeline to end on slide 2 and then clicked outside the hotspot to see the try again layer, and again waited - finally clicking on the ok button, and then that part of the screen recording disappeared but the caption remained. 

I looked at reinserting your screen recording to see how it was initially set up, but it was more slides than I'm seeing here - could you  let me know what specific slides those are? The captions are designed to be included as a part of the screen recording, and since it begins at the start of the slide, I'm not sure how you'd want them to disappear prior to it starting? You may want to also review the information here in regards to how screen recordings work and what elements are automatically included. 

I want the captions to disappear once the screen recording plays (once whatever the trigger is for playing the media). If I click a File menu and then the File menu displays, I should no longer see the caption that told me to click the File menu.

The issue is on every slide. I just re-ran that full Try It and didn't format or change anything, just to make sure I'm getting the default behavior. And it's still the same: I click a button or hotspot, the screen recording plays, and caption remains "over" the recording. Basically the recording plays while the slide is still there (which makes sense), but the captions show to the end of the slide. So the captions always linger after the screen has changed. You can move it around some to minimize the overlap (i.e. move it to a part of the screen that isn't effected by the screen recording/change).

I think the issue is that I wasn't expecting to need to use triggers or other interventions to make the captions disappear after the correct item is clicked, and before (or simulaneous) with the screen change. After the screen changes, I don't want the caption to still be there. It doesn't make sense. It eventually  goes away once the course moves to the next slide, but there is the period where the recording plays and the caption for playing that recording are both visible on the screen. Essentially, it feels like the video plays faster than the caption can go away.

So the only fix I see is, for example: if it's a click hotspot slide, I add a trigger on the hotspot to hide the caption and the Try Again layer when the hotspot is clicked. Then it's perfect.

Hi Amy,

Thanks again for including that explanation. I recorded what I'm seeing when viewing your two slides so that we could ensure we're seeing the same stuff. The first slide all acts normally, and the second slide based on that the layer isn't hiding and there is no new slide to jump to looks ok as well. 

In regards to how it should work, you can choose that the hint captions are displayed "always" as a part of a recording or just when a user "hovers" and that option is chosen when you insert the screen recording. If you choose always it will be on the slide until the user clicks and is no longer on that particular slide. 

Also, another thing you may want to investigate is if what you're seeing is based on this particular software set up - as what Storyline captures is dependent on what is being transmitted from the software through the recording. I like to look at just testing in a web browser to see what is captured and turned into individual slides as a good base line.