Is there any way to bypass the "When" condition on triggers (or to insert a dummy condition that is always true)?

Jan 05, 2016

Hi All,

I'm fairly new to Articulate Storyline and was hoping you could give me a heads up for a project I'm working on.

The question in short form:

Is there any way to bypass the “when” condition on triggers? If not, is there any “when” condition that is always true (i.e. which would allow me to use the “when” condition as a dummy)?

Sample Trigger

The question in more detail:

  1. I’ve made the architecture for a little tool that advises Learners on what to do in specific “change” situations.
  2. Specifically, the Learner chooses a button value (0-7), which corresponds to a change phase. The value is stored in a variable called “Phase”.
  3. Additionally, the Learner can choose three additional parameters from three dropdown menus. Each of these is stored in a separate variable (“CountryDimension”, “CompanyDimension”, “PersonalityDimension”).
  4. Depending on what combination of phase and dimension the Learner has selected, a corresponding layer with feedback is shown.
  5. As you can see in the file, up to three layers can be shown at the same time (aside from the base layer).
  6. All this works well, but I’m not happy with the way I have to trigger the layers. At present, I loop the main layer so that it restarts at the end of the timeline. My triggers are all set to check whether the variables equal certain values at the end of this timeline (and –if so – to trigger the respective layer).
  7. The downside of this is that you often have to wait up to three seconds for a variable choice to trigger a corresponding layer. (For a separate reason, I can’t shorten the timeline to anything under three seconds).

What I’d like to achieve is a tool that immediately causes a layer to show allows variables to immediately trigger a “show layer check” once any of the four variables are altered. (The “When” “Variable Changes” option unfortunately doesn’t help me as I can only assign this to one variable, not four).

Thanks so much for any and all help and a Happy New Year to you all!

3 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Gerhard,

There isn't a way to bypass the "when" condition, as that is what tells Storyline the moment that the trigger should be executed. The "when variable changes" is also a tricky one, as it's looking for the variable to change at that exact moment and on that slide. I generally look to using the timeline starts or the state of an object, even if it's off stage and that'll help adjust it.

Perhaps you may also want to share this in the Building Better Courses sides of the forums and see if others can help in terms of the design elements. 

Gerhard Fenkart

Dear Ashley,

I am so incredibly sorry that I only saw your response now. Thanks so much for the reply. What I ended up doing is to loop the timeline (and then check whenever the timeline starts - as you also suggested). It's not perfect (for various reasons I had to make the timeline three seconds long, so there's always a short delay), but it works well enough.

Thanks again,
Gerhard

 

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