Custom Next Button Invisible

Hi Brett

Hard to say but try changing the trigger order and have the 'change state of' before the 'jump to' trigger.

"When state of ... is" is not an action. SL should re-write it to be a true "When state of ... becomes"  Then it would be useful to us. As it is, it only works if you get lucky with the timing, especially if users are visiting other layers or slides. Your experience of it working sometimes, and not others bears out that it cannot be trusted to always work.  To rely on it, you need to change it to be initiated on an action.

Additionally, the visited state is reliable if the users visit layers on the same slide, but not so much if they visit other slides.

To be sure that this works, I usually take two steps:

1. use a custom state named something like "Completed" instead of the built-in state "Visited"

2. initiate the trigger to change the state of the next button by an action (When timeline starts, When user clicks, etc.) instead of a condition.

FYI, "When state of ... is" works very well in conditions, where it belongs.

Hi Wendy - this seems to have worked when I've made this change and uploaded to Scorm Cloud to test, but not in the local file. I'll now test in my own LMS but it seems unreliable. 

Hi Walt - thanks for your reply. You seem to be right about the unreliable nature of the "When the state of..." feature. I understand your point that the steps you've outlined will be more reliable, but I'm not sure how to implement them to change the state of my next button the way I want to. 

I'd like it to be revealed only after the user has clicked (visited) each menu item (which does take them to other scenes). Do you have a suggestion for how to achieve this with an action?

Perhaps if I have each clickable item add a value to a variable, then changed the state of the next button once the variable reached a number. I'm going to test this out now - but it's a pity the "When the state of... is" isn't working for me because it seems like the perfect solution. 

Brett,

If the items the user visits are other slides, you can set the menu slide to reset to initial state. That means that each time they return to it the timeline starts, and I use that to initiate my triggers.

I give each menu item a custom state and a T/F variable. When the timeline starts, I set the next button to hidden. I set each menu item to "Completed" state if its variable shows it to have been visited, I set Next to Normal if all menu items have been visited.

For each scene they visit, I use the mechanism that returns them to the menu slide to set the variable to the "Has been visited" state. Variables are persistent and stable. Some people set the variable when the user arrives at the scene, but I prefer to set it after they finish the scene.

The problem with adding to a variable is that it in inaccurate if the user visits one scene twice.

The  enclosed sample will illustrate how this all works. The user goes to other slides, rather than other scenes, and it uses a custom next button, but the principles are all there.

Walt! What an elegant solution with a simple example! Thanks mate! 

You're welcome. Pass it on when you can.