How do you add variables & triggers to the slides in an entire project efficiently?

Mar 22, 2015

Hi there,

I have a finished project that I now need to add a "Must finish audio before moving on" warning.What are the best variables & triggers? I have a variable setting to true when the timeline ends. The warning trigger is activated when the the variable is false and the next button trigger is when the variable is true.

How do you add variables & triggers to all the slides in an entire project efficiently?  I would to have to cut and paste 4 times to 41 slides!

 

9 Replies
Chris Cole

Depending on how you are using the triggers and variables, you may be able to put them all in a single object like a rectangle that you place "off-screen." That object can have the triggers that check variables et cetera and perform actions. You could then just copy and paste that object onto each screen.

It all depends though on the logic you are using. If you have different variables for each slide et cetera, then you may have to tweak the object's triggers on each slide.

Andrew Sellon

Hi, Lianne!  I'm going to make a simpler suggestion that doesn't involve variables at all.  If you're just looking to ensure that the learners don't click past each slide before all the content (including audio) has played, you could also just open your Player options, go to Menu, then click the Settings (gear) icon, and from the Navigation Restriction drop-down box, choose Restricted.  This means the "Next" button won't become active to allow the learner to proceed until the timeline ends on each slide.  The learner can still go back to revisit previously viewed slides, if desired (which they can't do with Locked navigation).  But that Restricted setting is the simplest way to keep the learner on the slide until your content is finished.  After clicking the "Next" button once or twice, the learner will get the idea without having to be presented with a warning box.  And it doesn't require making changes to multiple slides. (And if you're showing the seekbar, you can make it read-only in the Player options window, as well.) 

Chris Cole

Hi Eric -

Great point. It could get tricky though if you want the functionality on some slides and not on others. You could set up different layouts to account for that, but that could get complicated depending on the complexity of the project. So it would work for some projects, while the flexibility of a self-contained object that can be pasted around on different slides might work better for other projects.

Regards,

Chris

Chris Cole

Sure. In the image below you can see I have a trapezoid shape that I use as a "gate" to check that all buttons on a slide have been clicked before enabling the Next button. The trigger for the Gate checks the state of the buttons (actually rectangles that I am using as buttons - don't remember why I used rectangles instead of buttons, but I could have just as easily used regular buttons) and when all of the rectangles have been clicked (visited) then the Gate sets its own state to visited.

The Next button trigger on the slide is checking the state of the Gate to see if it can move the learner forward. If the state of the Gate is not Visited, it shows a layer with a message. If the state of the Gate is Visited, it moves the learner on.

When I want to set up a similar slide, I copy all of the buttons (rectangles) and the Gate and paste to the new slide. Then I simply delete / add buttons as needed, and tweak the Gate's trigger as needed. Takes about 10 seconds to set up the Gate for the new slide.

Oh... and copy/paste/tweak the Next trigger. This is the one thing that can't be simplified too much as the Next button is only controllable by a Player trigger, and so it is not as portable. But the good news is you only have to check the state of one object - the Gate - and point to the warning layer.

So in Lianne's case, I would have a gate that sets itself to Visited at the start of its timeline (when timeline starts) and position it at the end of the slide's timeline. That Gate can be copied to all 41 slides quickly. Then she just has to tweak the Next button trigger to check the state of the Gate, which is a pain but not much can be done there. Lianne's situation is relatively simple - she is just checking the value of a single variable - so the Gate method may or may not be faster.

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