Next Button Functionality

In the attached sample, the custom exit button is hidden until all the slides are visited, but the user is free to visit them at random. Look at the mixed navigation menu.

Here is a link for a quick mockup of the issue I'm having.  I have a trigger that changed the next button to hidden when the timeline starts and another changing it to normal when the 6 green buttons are visited.

When you click "Wrapping Up" on the menu slide, the next button becomes visible immediately before it goes to that slide.  Once you are done with the wrapping up slide and return to the menu, the next button is once again hidden when it should be visible.

The "When " portion of the trigger tells what action the trigger should watch for, so it knows when to fire.
"When State is ..." is not an action, and therefore does not work to initiate a trigger. This is not your fault; it is an error on the part of Storyline's programmers. It should not have been included in the trigger wizard in the "When ... " dropdown, even though sometimes it does work. It works sometimes if it is listening at the exact moment a state changes. Those rare times are highly dependent on timing and a great deal of luck. Who wants their interaction to work "If I get lucky?"

It is, however very reliable when used where it belongs, and that is in the conditions portion of triggers.

"Visited" is a state that works well on the page where it resides, but if you navigate away (especially if you go through several pages and branching activities), it tends to get lost, and is not a reliable indicator.

That's why in my sample I use variables; they are stable, reliable and predictable.

Thank you for that clarification.  However I'm very new to Storyline and have never used variables.  Is there any easy way to change my triggers from State Changes to variables?

Thank you!

I took a look at your test file, and I have a few suggestions. First, you shouldn't need a trigger to change the button states to visited, as that should happen automatically if you have a visited state on your button. So you should be able to delete those if you like.

As for your Next button issue, you can make this work with triggers only (though variables do tend to be more reliable). You need to create a trigger that changes the state of the Next button when the timeline starts on your menu slide, with the condition that your buttons are all visited. I've attached a picture of what it would look like here.

That worked!

Thanks so much Julia for your help!  I had no idea how to add conditions to a trigger and your picture was very helpful! It looks like I'm going to have to look into how to use variables in Storyline since they seem to be rather popular.

Thank you again!

I wouldn't say popular, so much as necessary. Maybe this explanation will help you get started.

The important thing to remember about variables is that SL is like someone with really bad memory; it can only remember what it can see. Variables are just a way to write notes so it can remember things later on. Whenever it looks at the note, it can tell that something happened earlier. For example: LookedAtLayer2 is True means that the user looked at layer 2.

Triggers always do what they are supposed to do.... unless someone comes along and tells them to do it only if certain conditions are met.

Example: Dad is eating supper with the kid and Mom has gone to get ice cream. Trigger for kid is "Eat ice cream when Mom gets home IF you have eaten your veggies. Since Dad has to leave, he leaves Mom a note: "Kid has eaten veggies", and he leaves. A few minutes later, Mom comes in and says: I told you "Eat ice cream when Mom returns IF it is True you have eaten your veggies." Kid shows Mom note from Dad (to prove he didn't just dump them), and Mom lets him eat ice cream. Kid is SL object, command to eat is trigger, note is variable, and IF you have eaten ice cream is condition.

Hi, Analie -- Thanks for reaching out and I see you've gotten lots of great insights here! I thought I might also stop in to share the following resources on Variables that may be of interest:

• Simplifying Variables for Better E-Learning
• Using Variables in Articulate Storyline #2
• The Case for Variables in E-Learning