changing the color of a question link after it's been selected

Sep 13, 2012

I created a Jeopardy-type game in PowerPoint, then imported it into Storyline.  In PowerPoint, after the learner selected the question link (represented as a point value), it changed colors.  He could answer it again, if he wanted to, but the feature I liked is that it showed which questions had been answered on the game board without changing anything else.  In Storyline, the game works perfectly, but the question links don't change color after they've been selected.  Is there an easy way to do this?  (or any way to do this)  

Also, is there a way to tally the points as the learners answer the questions?  This may sound ridiculous, but I imagine I'd have to link each question link on the game board as a separate quiz question (rather than just linking to a slide as I did in PowerPoint).  If I did this, would it give a running tally or just the points for that question?  I'm new with Storyline, so I'm just feeling my way around.

Thank you.

8 Replies
Kristin Savko

You can change the color of a clicked object by editing states. You could either change the color of the link or even the color of the button that they click.

If you use question slides, I'd think you'd be able to do some sort of points tally on the results slide. It would be better to actually see the score on the board as they progress though...for that you would need to use variables. It's not something I'm real versed in, but I would start here.

Nina  Weinstein

I loaded the rough draft of the Storyline game file.  It's the first thing I've done in Storyline, and it's intended to be a beginning level reinforcement for part of an English course for internationals on food.

I must be doing something wrong because I can't seem to change the link colors after someone chooses them.  Also, I'd love to have a simple way for the points to be tallied.

Thank you!

Jeanette Brooks

Hi Nina, and thanks for attaching your file! What you're asking is pretty easy to do by creating a visited state for each of your choices. However, I did notice an issue with the triggers on your choice slide (slide 1.2). Here is a quick look at how to correct the triggers and also how to create the visited state on the text: https://jeanette.viewscreencasts.com/9392a526abda121b3dfd79aed1e54e05

Nina  Weinstein

Hi, Jeannette.  Thank you so much for the Screenr on changing the link colors.  It worked fine, except when I tried to delete the "text" trigger, it would inactivate the link each time.  In any event, for this purpose, it's okay to have them either click on the correct answer box or the correct link.

Next, I tried to set up points for just the "Start" question (to see how it works).  It should be worth 100 points. On the Screenr, it said to add a "Submit" button.  I want to avoid that, if possible.  Is it possible to have them click on "Bacon" (in this case) and get the 100 points? Is there a running tally?  Do they see it at the end on Slide 1.14? How can I set this up?

Thank you very much for your help! 

Jeanette Brooks

Hey Nina - in your case, you really don't need to add a Submit button unless you plan to connect your questions to a result slide that you then report to an LMS for tracking purposes. I'm guessing you don't need LMS reporting capabilities, so what I would do instead is the following. (And here's another screencast you can follow along with

https://jeanette.viewscreencasts.com/8ee534c9d44a4f7e734047e2c917956d )


  1.  Create a number variable called PointTally to keep track of the score. Set its initial value to zero.

  2. On each question slide, create a trigger that adds (x) points to the PointTally variable, but make the trigger conditional: you ONLY want the point tally to increase IF the user has not yet visited (clicked on) that choice. Also, make sure to move the trigger in the trigger panel so that happens BEFORE the "jump to" trigger. You'll then need to create a Visited state for the correct answer choice, to enable Storyline to monitor this. The conditional part of the trigger is important, because in this interaction, it would be easy for a learner to return to the menu slide and continually answer the same question correctly, which would cause points to rack up every time the learner repeatedly answers the question.  

  3. On the slide properties of the question slide, set the "when revisiting" to "resume saved state." That way Storyline remembers whether the learner has been there and answered the slide previously.

  4. Now go to the slide where you want to display the point tally to your learner. Create a textbox and within that textbox, you can insert a reference to your variable (on the Insert tab, choose Reference, and then select the variable called PointTally). Storyline adds a placeholder to your textbox where it will display the actual value when the learner interacts with your course.

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