How to keep an object locked to the screen?

Aug 08, 2013

Hi. I have built a course that uses a lot of zoom boxes and its great. My only problem with with closed captioning. I used Steve Flowers excellent suggestion to have closed caption by using a text variable that feeds into a master slide setup. When the timeline gets to the zoom box however, the closed caption text box is lost at the bottom of the screen and I would like for that text box to move with the screen. Is there any way to do this?

10 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi David,

I am not certain I understand what you're describing, so I'll try to paraphrase, and if you'd like to share an image or your .story file here (or always with us privately) feel free to do that with your reply.

When you zoom in on part of your screen, the caption box that was included in the original then no longer appears in a visible location during the zoom in? You'd like the caption to stay with the section that is zoomed in, so that while the user is looking at a specific part of the screen they're still able to read the caption? 

It sounds like if that's what you're trying to do, you'd need to create a second copy of the caption that is hidden until they zoom in within that desired area. The original caption can be set to hidden once the zoom trigger begins. 

david mckisick

Thank you so much for the reply Ashley. Yes, that is exactly what I would like to do, that is, keep the closed caption box which I have setup on a master slide always visible on the screen no matter where the screen zooms or moves to. In other words, I want the closed caption box to always be on top and never move itself, even while other objects may move via zoom or panning. Since Storyline can't do this (yet), I would like it to be able to do this in a future release. However, for now I think your suggestion is excellent, but I do not understand how I can do what you describe. Do I use variables?

david mckisick

Oops, perhaps I was a big vague with that description in the first couple sentences. What I mean is the desired effect is a closed caption window that always follows the screen no matter where it moves to via zoom or panning effects. We wish to have this because we do not want to have the box dissapear and then reappear. We just want a caption box that is always visible, at all times and circumstances, without a break, so long as the CC box is toggled on.

Steve Flowers

Hey David - 

Unfortunately, the whole stage zooms so there's no way to "unzoom" just the Caption area. However, there might be a way to do this using some custom HTML in a JavaScript object. I haven't tested this but you might be able to write a DIV overlay for your caption that wouldn't receive the zoom. Won't have much time this weekend to play with the idea. Someone might be able to help you out.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Melissa,

I'm not sure if anyone here was able to figure out the workaround or if they're still subscribed. You may want to message them using the "contact me" button on their profiles to reach out and see if they're able to share any additional information with you since it's not a workaround I can offer assistance with. 

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