Marker, State and Label Problem

Aug 23, 2019

I am working on a course that uses marker extensively. And I have had a lot of problems because this thing doesn't work the way it seems.

My newest problem is regarding the displaying of labels.

My marker is set to show all on hover, and if the marker is visible (normal) from the beginning then everything works.

However, many of my markers are hidden  at first and set to normal later by trigger. When this is the case, they would only display all on hover when they are first enabled. When you go to another slide and come back (I use resume saved state) it will not show the label window anymore.

Is there a way to work around this?

6 Replies
David Schwartz

Looks like a bug to me, and I was able to duplicate the issue.

I found a workaround that might help. I left the initial state of a marker as normal, but set a trigger to hide it when the timeline starts. Then I added a T/F variable that gets set to true when the marker is revealed. And I added a trigger to set that marker to visible when the timeline starts if the variable is set to true, so when you return, it is made visible, and the hover works. Might be a lot of triggers for you to have to create, but it does work.

 

Dong Liang

I think this is a solution! Thanks SO MUCH David for this genius idea.

I did an initial test and it seemed to be working. Some thoughts here: 

1. In this solution each marker needs 2 triggers to turn them on and off. I also use a "completed" state. So for the 40 markers I have there there will be 120 triggers!

2. The order of triggers are important. I need to use the following sequence for it to work: first "hidden", second "normal", third "completed". It basically executes all of them and I suspect it might result some delay in terms of responsiveness. 

Now I'm thinking if there is a way to simply and perfect the solution.

Again, to reiterate the problem: it seems the label window is tied to a marker's initial state. And it is not accessible through trigger state changes.

Finally, a note on trigger setup. Currently the UI would be awkward dealing situations like this. A trigger is created at the bottom and you have to move it to where it is. In my case it is a lot of clicks. Captivate has its own problems but it can nicely tuck a chunk of triggers into one file, which makes managing triggers a little easier.

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Dong,

We do have a current issue we are investigating specific to revisiting a slide with a marker when the initial state of the marker is hidden.

It sounds like David shard a workable solution and you were able to make this work as well. For you or anyone following along, we show the following workarounds:

  • Do not set the initial state of the marker to Hidden.
  • Or set the slide to Reset to initial state when revisiting

I've added this conversation to our report as we track user impact and so that we can pop in and share updates with you as well.

Dong Liang

Thank you David and Leslie for your wonderful help!

I ended up revamping my triggers into about 30 layers, each of which will run a bunch of triggers so now the situation is somewhat manageable.

There is also something else very irrational I encountered along the way. I spent several hours on this problem so I am sharing my experience here.

Most of my triggers are set to run when timeline starts. However it just didn't behave as they should. I quit and reload, created new story file, published to different folders and did all the chores I can think of to refresh, but nothing worked. Then I changed some triggers to occur on state change. Curiously some triggers then worked but others still not. I am starting to pull my hairs out but changing the trigger activation condition SEEMS to trigger refresh of the code. And when I changed it BACK to timeline starts, it started working. I do not have a clear idea of what happened in this process.

One shortcoming of this approach I want to mention here, and hoping someone would have a solution, is this:

because all markers are set to normal and you change them into hidden when timeline starts, you actually get to see them in a flash (about a third of a second?). An attentive learner would be able to spot this. If anyone knows how to eliminate this "flash" then the solution would be perfect.

Lauren Connelly

Hi Dong,

Are you seeing the markers flicker in Preview? Or if it's visible when the course is published, are you publishing to web?

I'm happy to take a look at your file and see what's going on. You can share in this discussion by using the "Add Attachment" button. Or you can share it privately with our Support Engineers using this link. 

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