How to change state of button from hidden

Jun 26, 2012

I am trying to change the state of a button from hidden to normal based on two other buttons being clicked, and thus changing two variables. I think my logic is correct, I can get the states to work if I use something like 'disabled' but when I try to change a button from 'hidden' to 'normal' it is not showing up, I didn't see anything about 'visible'. I have the variables displayed on the stage so I know they are working correctly. Any help appreciated. Below are the triggers I have set up.

Thanks.

36 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Sue,

Thanks for sharing your file here and there are two things you'll want to look into.

The first is the order of your triggers - you'll want the trigger to change the state to appear before the trigger to jump to the slide or else it doesn't have time to happen.

The second issue is that you're additional scenes have a duplicate of the "menu" slide at the end of each scene. This does not act as the original slide, but a separate slide so there is no reason the state of the checkmark would have changed there. Instead of using that menu slide you'll want to add a trigger to the end of each scene on the last slide to jump to your slide 1.3 for the menu and you'll see the checkmarks reset. 

Hope that helps! 

Rebecca Fleisch Cordeiro

Hi Sue,

Regarding the text on the menu slides changing, take a look at the attached. I only adjusted for the first "tab", but you should be able to follow this example for the others.

As Ashley suggested, I deleted the repeated menu slide.

I copied the "this concludes the Gen'l  info" onto the Menu slide (Placed the text in a shape and eliminated the text box) and set its initial state to hidden.

Added triggers to

  • change state of Text Box 1, Text Box 2, and "Click each tab" text box to hidden when Learners click the Gen'l Information...Rectangle
  • change the state of the Concludes box to normal when Learners click the Gen'l Information...Rectangle

It looks like you're wanting Learners to move sequentially through these, so you'll need to accommodate for that as well, making sure they don't click Tab 2 or Tab 3 before they click Tab 1 (you could do this by disabling these tabs initially).

Rebecca Fleisch Cordeiro

Hi Sue and Ashley,

I see what you mean also, and can't explain it, aside from what Ashley is suggesting.

I played around with assorted ways to make this not as "jumpy" and ended up with the attached. It may not be to your liking, but I at least wanted to post it...and maybe someone will have a better solution.This doesn't change the delay, just makes an (arguably) smoother transition.


Transition Rectangle
I added a black rectangle with a 15% transparency to the start of the timeline. It's on for 1 second and has a fade in medium, fade out very slow animation. All of these you would of course adjust to your liking.

The default state is hidden. I added a Blank state to the rectangle (added the state and deleted the rectangle from the state). More on that further down.

The normal state for the rectangle is triggered when Learners click the TRIGGER Overall FullBody object..making the transition a bit smoother (again, arguably!).

I added a Slide Trigger that changes the rectangle to blank when the timeline starts. I tried to change it to hidden, but that didn't work. That hidden/unhidden state can be tricky sometimes (at least I find that to be the case.

I only worked on the Full-body transition, so you'll need to play with the others. And you may decide it's not worth the effort!

Combine Things

One other thought: I wonder if the transition might be smoother if you removed what could, again arguably, be considered "extra objects" on your slide.

For example, for the Pre-Recovery ...Process you have

  • The TRIGGER PreRec rectangle
  • A Connect shape that's transparent
  • A Connect  Rectangle
  • And then a separate checkmark

One way to combine all of these might be to simply have a Rectangle with the text as part of the rectangle and the checkmark in one of the Rectangles states.

So, just a thought. I haven't been through the entire thing, and I may entirely be missing the reason these are all there!

Also, apologies, but I added back in the next button to all slides so I could move through quickly and check out all my trials! You can remove this by going to Story View and pressing Ctrl+A to select all slides, then uncheck the next button.

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