Help with pausing layers with audio?
Jun 23, 2017
Hi, I have a client who wants the seekbar to be visible at all times.
I have built the course in the following format: base slide with audio, and still graphical elements, and different layers which carry the animation elements.
I built it this way because I have some complex animations running, and visually it's just easier to design/work on them if I have them on separate layers.
SO, now the client wants the seekbar visible at all times. But I am seeing that the pause button behaves in insane ways if there are things happening on layers. I would expect the pause button on the player to pause the entire course when played.
By default, it pauses the base slide's audio, but the animations still play. If I set each slide layer to "Allow seeking: Yes", then the pause button pauses the layers but NOT the audio on the base slide. This seems really weird to me, is it a bug? Does anyone have any work arounds that don't involve me rebuilding my course to use without layers?
Thanks for reading this & for any advice.
2 Replies
Layers are part of the slide, but are semi-autonomous. The bad news is that you get two independent timelines, but only one seekbar.
If the layer pauses the slide (base) timeline when it opens, then you see a seekbar that reflects and controls the layer,( but only the last one to open if there are multiple layers).
If the layer doesn't pause the slide timeline, then you see a seekbar that reflects and controls only the slide.
Find out what the client really wants, as in what they want the seekbar to do. If all they want is a visual representation of progress, I would build one for the layer. If they want one seekbar that stops and scrubs both timelines; I don't see a way. Scrubbing with the slide seekbar doesn't work well with layers.
If you have to rebuild, I would perfect the design using your current workflow, then I see two possibilities.
If each slide has only one layer, view the layer, CTRL-A to select all, copy, paste on base, delete layer.
If you have multiple layers per slide, I'd suggest this workflow as being quickest:
Duplicate the slide, making a copy of it for each layer it has.
On each duplicate, delete all but the relevant layer.
On the layer, copy everything and paste on base, then delete layer.
Edit audio to match slide.
Above all, good luck; I think you're going to need it.
Walt, thanks so much for your reply and your condolences. Haha.
To be honest our client has made some really absurd requests lately, so I'm just trying my best to fulfill them. I am going with the rebuild option in order to maximize the functionality of the course.
I just wish the pause button would uniformly pause the entire course- I really don't see the logic behind having it only control the base slide while the layers do whatever they want. I've submitted so many feature requests since my short time using this software!
Anyway, thank you again for your insight.
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