Lightbox

Hi Kris,

The lightbox trigger deals with another slide not a layer. You need to create another slide within the scene, and post whatever you want there. The way a lightbox works is that it appears over your base slide with an x in the corner by default for the user to close when they are done viewing it. This is done by a trigger on your base slide.

I will be doing a Screenr video later today showing how to do a lightbox slide and will post it here when it is done.

Hope this helps,

Adrian

A few folks have also created their own "quasi" lightbox-effect using layers.  Pretty cool. 

http://community.articulate.com/forums/t/13296.aspx

https://player.vimeo.com/video/149065332

Hi Kris,

Definitely take a look at Gerry's suggestions. Very cool.

Adrian

Good resources, thanks! I think what I'm trying to do though is much more basic. When the timeline starts I want a lightbox to open and tell the student what they need to do on the base slide. I put the lightbox slide after the base slide and added the lightbox trigger to it. It worked but I had to change the Next button trigger on the base slide so it skipped the lightbox slide. That worked, but I can't set a trigger on the Prev button to skip the lightbox slide when going back. 

Does that make sense?

Yes, it does.

Create a new variable and make it true-false and initially "false."

To your trigger that shows the lightbox slide initially, add a condition to only show the lightbox when the variable is "false."

Then add a second trigger that, after the lightbox shows, changes your variable to "true."

So your lightbox will only show the first time.  Any time you go back to it it will now show since the variable is now "true."

Would that work?

Hi Gerry, 

Your suggestion appears sound to me.

Here is the Screenr video I promised, even though it won't be any help now, with the twist this thread took.

Well, hopefully it will help someone when they see this thread.

Adrian

Adrian, I can't believe you made the screenshare and posted it that fast - so cool!

That's how I set up the triggers and now I'm going to try the variables that Gerry mentioned. 

Gerry, when you say, "so your lightbox will only show the first time" are you saying that the lightbox won't show again if the student goes back past the lightbox interaction and then forward again?

What should I call the variable? Does it matter what I name it? (I'm a little new to variables)

Hi, you can call the variable anything you want.  Something you will remember as one string of characters.

Yes, it won't come back automatically this way.  You can always add a button to have it come back for a learner if needs it. 

I did that a while back in a course I was working on. The lightbox was instructions on how to use the slide.  Once they saw it, I didn't want the instructions to appear automatically unless they needed it again by clicking the button.

Did you do anything special with the instructions button? Was it hidden on your base layer until the lightbox closed?

Nope.  Just had it there for reference.

Here's how the slide opened the first time with a lightbox slide shown:

And here's how it looks after if you exit the lightbox slide or if you re-visited the slide:

Wish I can show you the project but the client won't let me show it all.

Hi Gerry, 

Your screen shots look like what I'm trying to do, but I'm having a problem setting up the variables. I'm really not getting the hang of it. This is my basic setup:

Trigger on base slide - Action: Lightbox slide; Slide: 1.4 lightbox slide; When: when timeline starts; Object: base slide.

Is this original trigger correct? I created a variable and named it ShowLightBox and set it to False. You wrote add the condition to the original trigger and I don't see a trigger action to show slide. Am I in the wrong place?

Hi, Kris!  You're getting there.  Good work. 

I've attached a simple project to demo what I did.

Demo project

Download it.  The lighthouse slide is set to show on slide 2.  Here's the trigger.  Note the condition I added:  the lightbox slide will only show when the variable ShowLightBox is equal to "false."

On that slide, I also then added a button for the learner to recall the lighthouse slide if needed.  For convenience, I just labeled it "Review Lighthouse Slide."

That button has this trigger:

Then look at my lighthouse slide itself.  It's in a separate scene by itself.

Note the condition I added to that lightbox slide:  When the slide shows set the variable ShowLightBox equal to "true."

Does this help?

That's brilliant! My first mistake was not putting the lightbox slides in a separate scene. It makes perfect sense when I see it, I just can't seem to build a variable from scratch.

I like your interface, I bet the client was really happy.

Thanks Gerry!

You're welcome.

Actually the interface was one of the extra Storyline templates Articulate has created, free for download:  http://community.articulate.com/downloads/g/storyline/default.aspx

Guessing David Anderson of Articulate built it.  Whoever did, did a GREAT job!

Just download the templates and, if using Windows, unzip them to your C:\Users\[username]\Documents\My Articulate Projects\Storyline Templates folder.

Thank you - this was a helpful thread.

Thanks for the video Adrian, I found it very helpful.

HI Marcus,

Welcome to Heroes! I'm glad that it helped.

-Adrian

I am trying to do something similar in that I do not want the lightbox to appear again when the slide is revisited.  Where would the new variable be created?  I am new to variables and conditions.  Is a variable specific to an object, slide, layer, etc?

Hi Crystal! Great questions since variables can supercharge the functionality of your course. Variables remember values across the entire course. This tutorial goes in-depth on working with variables. Here's what you need to know:

• You can use any action to trigger a variable value to change. So, you can change a variable from true to false when a user clicks a button or when a timeline starts, for example. In your course, you can change your lightbox variable to false when the timeline of the slide ends.
• Use variable values to decide when a trigger will fire. In your course, you might have two triggers...
  • Lightbox slide x.x when the timeline starts on the slide IF lightboxvariable is True.
  • Adjust variable value of lightboxvariable to False when timeline ends on slide.

With that setup, the lightbox slide will only be shown if the variable is True. Once the slide's timeline ends, the variable changes to False. When you revisit the slide, the variable value of False is remembered, and the lightbox won't show.

Feel free to share what you've got so far for more specific help!