Help with Hotspots

Aug 21, 2013

George Kotsanas
By George Kotsanas

Hi Support Community,

We are new to Storyline and have a query that we would appreciate help with.

We are creating an activity where students can test their knowledge of anatomy.

The scenario is (see image below):

1. Students are presented with a radiographic image with highlighted anatomical regions.
2. For each region we would like students to type in the name of the structure into the relevant labelled text input box.
3. After they have entered their answer they can mouse-over the highlighted area on the image and be shown the answer.  They do not see the answer until they have first entered a response.

Our initial approach was to use a marker for each region with two triggers.  The first to de-activate the marker when the timeline starts and the second to activate the marker once a response was entered into the relevant text input box.

This worked well, however the feedback we received was that the markers potentially obscured underlying structures, so we decided to use hotspots and layers.

In this approach each layer contains the correct answer, so there is one layer corresponding to each highlighted region.  All "answer" layers are hidden when the timeline starts and a trigger "unhides" the layer once a response is entered into the relevant text input box.  An example of this second trigger is shown below.


When we preview this, we notice that it works as expected for the first attempt, but layers do not display when subsequent entries are made into other text input boxes.

For example, if an answer is input into text box 1 then the label for highlighted region 1 displays when the mouse hovers over the hotspot, as expected.

If text is then entered into text box 2, the label for highlighted region 2 displays, but the the layer for text box 1 does not display, even though text box 1 already contains an entry.

We would be grateful for any help or advice or even suggestions of how to do this better.

George

7 Replies
Rebecca Fleisch Cordeiro
over 10 years ago08/21/13 at 6:26 am (UTC)

HI George,

Welcome to the community.

I'm probably all off here, since I only read through your post 1X and probably missed something! But my initial reaction is to ask if layers are set up to not hide other layers.

  • So on the bottom right of the screen each layer shows a little gear icon.
  • Clicking it displays properties for that layer.
  • Under visibility there's a checkbox called "hide other slide layers" that is checked by default.
  • Does it help if you uncheck it?
George Kotsanas
over 10 years ago08/22/13 at 3:28 am (UTC)

Hi Rebecca and Leslie,

Many thanks for your feedback.  Unfortunately following Rebecca's suggestion does not solve the problem.

What we've noticed is that if a entry is made in a text input box, the corresponding label (layer) is displayed when the mouse is hovered over the hotspot.  If the mouse is immediately moved away from the hotspot area and then moved over the hotspot again, the label (layer) is not displayed.

It appears as if it's state is changing after it is viewed once.

George

Michael Hinze
over 10 years ago01/21/14 at 9:20 am (UTC)

Darcy, you were very close. All you have to do is set the initial state of the rectangle and textblock to hidden. See attached the revised file. I also added an additional slide that shows one more possible option: Instead of a hotspot and two triggers, you could add a hover state to the red rectangle and then add the two 'rollover' items to the hover state. Note: For testing purposed, I extended the timing of the hotspot. Hope that makes sense.

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