Options for Show/Hide Base Layer Elements

Feb 27, 2020

Noel Sapp
By Noel Sapp

I'm testing options for an issue I've run into. Say I have a slide that has 3 buttons. Each button has a trigger to open layers 1-3, respectively.

Option 1
Normally, I would click on a Slide Layer, navigate down in the Timeline panel to find the Base Layer group and expand it. From there, I would disable the three buttons for while this particulate layer is visible (leaving the slide title to continue to be displayed regardless of what Slide Layer is open).

Doing this, however, creates very strange tabbing issues in the rare case a user views the Flash export within Internet Explorer.

Option 2
Upon discovery of this tabbing issue, I have reset all Base Layer elements back to visible, from within each Slide Layer's timeline. Instead, I have used the Slide Layer properties panel to check Hide Objects on Base Layer.

This is relatively easier than Option 1; however, doing this now disables the slide title so that when a Slide Layer is open, the title disappears as the properties check is all or nothing.

Short of literally pasting the slide title to EACH Slide Layer so that the title shows when Base Layer objects are invisible, what other options do I have?

Thanks in advance.

2 Replies
Walt Hamilton
4 years ago02/27/20 at 7:52 pm (UTC)

Show objects on base layer, and putting a background on the layer that covers all but the title

Put a cover on the base that covers all but the title, and show it when a button is clicked to show a layer.

It is possible that you can  not show the base layer objects, yet put a trigger on the layers to change the state of the title to visible when the layer starts (I haven't tested this one.)

create a layer layout that has the Title on it.

In short, nothing to click that does what you want, which means creating your own method. Unfortunately, most of those work best when implemented at layer creation time.

Noel Sapp
4 years ago02/27/20 at 8:54 pm (UTC)

I appreciate the feedback.

The heard of the issue is when viewing this content within IE as the Flash export. This needs to be accessible as well.

So I've also tried just placing a cover over buttons in the ways you've described. Visually that works fine. When you run this in a browser, though, all those covered buttons are still tab-able even if technically visually hidden by the cover shape. So what the tabbing user experiences is:

  1. Click a button, a layer opens effectively hiding everything (however the hiding takes place, be it the layer itself, covers, etc.)
  2. Visually, the user sees only that layer content.
  3. Click the Tab key once or twice and the yellow highlight frame selects the next "invisible" button from the tab order---the one under the cover/layer.

If I use Slide Layer properties to check hide base layers or prevent user from clicking base layer objects, then tabbing order jumps from the slide to the browser menus as described in the original post. This appears to be a bug, as ANY time I affect the visibility of a layer then the tabbing goes haywire when viewing the Flash export within IE.

...

I just tested using triggers to set the state of each button to HIDDEN when opening a layer, then when closing the layer setting the state of each button to NORMAL. First, I totally lose the Visited states by doing this. UGH, I forgot that would happen. Second, changing the hidden states to/from, recreates the tabbing issue described in IE/Flash.

!!!!! lol.

Thoughts?

Thanks again, btw.

 

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