This may be a silly question, but it seems as though when I publish at Storyline project the Previous button returns you to the last slide you viewed as opposed to the actual preceding slide. I’m pretty certain that my settings/triggers are correct. Is there any way I can fix this so that the Previous and Next buttons take you to the actual preceding and subsequent slides as listed in the menu?
Oh Mike, that's really kind of you! But I can't - its confidential stuff.
But here's the thing I suspect is causing the problem and I don't know how to describe it; basically the slide that is causing me problems (4.3) has an off-centre arrow!
Could that be it?! What would be making that problem? The rest of the arrows on the other slide line up in the middle when they are selected!
It might not be this....(it probably isn't!)
You can hover your mouse over that arrow and it will tell you what the trigger is.
P.S. I think the right arrows denote an automatic trigger (e.g. it goes to next on end of timeline) but I have had it show a right trigger arrow even after I've deleted the auto-trigger.
However "Previous" links look at the last object you were on. For example if you start on Scene 4 Slide 8 then go to Scene 3 Slide 2 when you use "Go to Previous slide" you won't go to Scene 3 Slide 1 as you would expect but you go to Scene 4 Slide 8.
I think most users would expect previous to go to the last slide they were on, very similar to a back button on a web browser.
Sorry, I was only half remembering the problem so only half explained; the problem is inconstancy. (see my above post)
I was able to open the Dropbox file and it worked pretty much as I expected with the Previous button returning me to the slide I had viewed before the one I was on. When I clicked the Previous button again it took me to the slide I had viewed before that (as it should). I unzipped the file you included to hopefully see the .story file but I didn't see that file, just a bunch of .html, .js and .swf files. I then created my own test file, similar to yours. I included a button that jumps to a slide not in the correct numerical order (slide 3.2) and then previewed it. It works exactly the way I expected it to. I wrote down the slides in the order I viewed them and then used the Previous button. Each click of the Previous button took me backward through the order in which I had viewed the slides.
I'm not saying there's not a problem, just that I haven't been able to duplicate it.
I was able to open the Dropbox file and it worked pretty much as I expected with the Previous button returning me to the slide I had viewed before the one I was on. When I clicked the Previous button again it took me to the slide I had viewed before that (as it should). I unzipped the file you included to hopefully see the .story file but I didn't see that file, just a bunch of .html, .js and .swf files. I then created my own test file, similar to yours. I included a button that jumps to a slide not in the correct numerical order (slide 3.2) and then previewed it. It works exactly the way I expected it to. I wrote down the slides in the order I viewed them and then used the Previous button. Each click of the Previous button took me backward through the order in which I had viewed the slides.
I'm not saying there's not a problem, just that I haven't been able to duplicate it.
Weird, I just learned that while you do have to have the "next" trigger for the next button the "previous" trigger magically does not have to be there. This is another design inconsistency.
Sorry, I should have been more specific on how to replicate the error:
OK, part of it was me putting in triggers that I don't need but it still doesn't address my issue where I have my own navigation buttons. If you use the built in next/previous buttons and don't add a trigger to the previous button they will work correctly.
However, if you have your own menu system and you try to replicate the Next/Previous button functionality using the next/previous triggers it will not work consistently.
Oh Mike, that's really kind of you! But I can't - its confidential stuff.
But here's the thing I suspect is causing the problem and I don't know how to describe it; basically the slide that is causing me problems (4.3) has an off-centre arrow!
Could that be it?! What would be making that problem? The rest of the arrows on the other slide line up in the middle when they are selected!
It might not be this....(it probably isn't!)
You can hover your mouse over that arrow and it will tell you what the trigger is.
P.S. I think the right arrows denote an automatic trigger (e.g. it goes to next on end of timeline) but I have had it show a right trigger arrow even after I've deleted the auto-trigger.
There was no trigger for previous assigned - it doesn't work (even if you have quibbles with it going back to the last page you've seen, it doesn't do this.
Then, I assign a trigger for the previous and assign it a jump to slide - it still doesn't work...
Has anyone got any suggestions? I might just use the Storyline support if not!
just a stab in the dark, is that a quiz question with feedback removed? I had something odd happen once where a slide was branching strangely because of this
What you suggested works! Thanks for your help. It will be really nice for the next update to provide user an option to choose what behaviour the Prev button should have. That way, we don't have to add a customized trigger to every slide. But it solves the problem for now.
Thanks
Alice
I agree with Alice. I hope the next major update provides us with an easy option for how the Previous button works. Going back sequentially makes more sense from an e-learning perspective.
If changing the behavior of the Previous button is allowed I hope the behavior defaults to "go back to the last slide viewed." That is what users (end users of the eLearning, not the creators) expect when they click on the "Previous" button.
If changing the behavior of the Previous button is allowed I hope the behavior defaults to "go back to the last slide viewed." That is what users (end users of the eLearning, not the creators) expect when they click on the "Previous" button.
I definitely agree that the designer should have a choice on what the previous button should do. I don't want to lock down my users to having to go sequentially, but I also don't want them to have to use the menu to go to the numerically previous slide if they skip around. Perhaps a 'last viewed' vs 'previous' would be good, or have a 'back' button which does what your 'previous' button does. I do not like not having a choice unless I manually set triggers on 70 slides - which would have to be updated if, god forbid, I add or delete a slide. Very user-hostile.
Finally someone that gets it. You need to design your course
Peter Herman said:
I do not like not having a choice unless I manually set triggers on 70 slides - which would have to be updated if, god forbid, I add or delete a slide. Very user-hostile.
Finally! Someone that gets it. The way I design my courses the "back" button does take them to the previous slide but the behavior of the "previous" trigger is, in my eyes, incredibly hostile to changes.
Finally someone that gets it. You need to design your course
Peter Herman said:
I do not like not having a choice unless I manually set triggers on 70 slides - which would have to be updated if, god forbid, I add or delete a slide. Very user-hostile.
Finally! Someone that gets it. The way I design my courses the "back" button does take them to the previous slide but the behavior of the "previous" trigger is, in my eyes, incredibly hostile to changes.
I agree. In some cases history stack based navigation is the wrong and unexpected way, sometimes you want navigation following a fixed sequence. There is no one and only pattern for this... even if some guys wants to tell us that.
I hope this will be put on the feature list for one the next updates.
I'm not sure why, but the previous button for any of the scenes that I have created is not doing anything. I've tried creating a player trigger that navigates to the "previous slide", I've tried creating a play trigger that navigates to a specific "title" slide I've even tried to create may own "previous" button after having removed the original prev button from the multiple slide navigation controls.
No luck.....the scenes refuse to allow me to "move backwards".........not sure if I have accidentally enabled or disabled something at a master level.
I've just read this post because I was searching for a solution to this problem. Respectfully, I have to disagree with what Phil and Steve are saying. My users have written up the navigation (return to previous slide viewed) as a bug. The behavior they are expecting is that the slide will return to the previous slide in the sequence, not the previous slide viewed. It has shown up enough in user reviews that I think it's worth mentioning.
We've discarded the option to hard-code the navigation, because as Peter has pointed out, this can increase QA problems down the line. Our courses average around 70 to 100 slides.
My team's current solution is to describe the behavior in a navigation page, so they know what to expect when they click the previous button. But, it would be really helpful if we were able to change the behavior without adding a trigger to each slide, or an extra explanation in the navigation instructions.
I know this thread is a little dated, but I guess I'm a little late to the party and am just now finding a lot of threads that discuss issues I'm encountering. I entirely agree with Mike Bethany's posts in that the previous button's behavior is problematic and needs some work so it is more consistent and developer-friendly. I get that it needs to be learner-friendly, too, but as it is right now... it's just wonky.
I just wanted to add that my course testers as well as myself thought the previous buttons were working incorrectly until I figured out what was happening and verified it with this discussion. I will be adding text to the begging of the module to tell folks how it works. I will also submit a feature request to allow the creators to choose the functionality of the previous button. Thanks-
Thanks Greg for sending along a feature request, as that will be helpful for our developers to have more information about how/why you would expect it to behave that way. Also, welcome to the Heroes community!
Before I go through and manually configure all of my "Previous" buttons to go to the previous slide in sequence in a new course I'm working on, I wanted to just check in to see if there's been any action on this issue. I'm hoping there's something I can easily do to make the "Previous" button go to the previous slide in sequence, not the previously-visited page.
I can see a case for a "Back" button to return to the previously-visited page, but that button should then not be right next to a "Next" button that takes you to the next page in sequence. The "Previous" button being positioned where it is, should go to the previous page in sequence and should have a different icon, IMHO, and many users have complained as well when I don't re-configure it to go to the previous page, they get confused and lose their place.
There is not yet a change in this behavior, the previous button still functions similar to a browser back button showing the last slide the user saw.
You mentioned a change to the button icon and you could also look at changing the text label to say "Back" if that is more in line with what you think your customers/users are looking for. Here is an article on how to change the text labels.
Okay, bummer. I know how to change the label, but I think that would only be helpful if the position could be moved from right next to the "Next" button. So I'll continue to just keep remapping that button with every project.
Sorry Dean - no way to move the button at this time either. Perhaps you'll want to look into creating a custom player using the Storyline SDK - just to note it's only for Flash output.
58 Replies
You can hover your mouse over that arrow and it will tell you what the trigger is.
P.S. I think the right arrows denote an automatic trigger (e.g. it goes to next on end of timeline) but I have had it show a right trigger arrow even after I've deleted the auto-trigger.
Sorry, I was only half remembering the problem so only half explained; the problem is inconstancy. (see my above post)
Mike,
I was able to open the Dropbox file and it worked pretty much as I expected with the Previous button returning me to the slide I had viewed before the one I was on. When I clicked the Previous button again it took me to the slide I had viewed before that (as it should). I unzipped the file you included to hopefully see the .story file but I didn't see that file, just a bunch of .html, .js and .swf files. I then created my own test file, similar to yours. I included a button that jumps to a slide not in the correct numerical order (slide 3.2) and then previewed it. It works exactly the way I expected it to. I wrote down the slides in the order I viewed them and then used the Previous button. Each click of the Previous button took me backward through the order in which I had viewed the slides.
I'm not saying there's not a problem, just that I haven't been able to duplicate it.
Weird, I just learned that while you do have to have the "next" trigger for the next button the "previous" trigger magically does not have to be there. This is another design inconsistency.
Sorry, I should have been more specific on how to replicate the error:
Go to https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33392673/BadDesign/story.html
Press "Next" twice, you will be on S1 L3 (Scene 1 sLide 3).
Press "Previous" once, you will be on S1 L2.
Press "Previous" again, you will be on S1 L1.
(This is all expected behavior)
Press the "Next" button three times, you will be on S2 L1 (Scene 2 sLide 1 - a new scene).
Press "Previous" once, you will be on S1 L3. (expected)
Press "Previous" again, you should be on S1 L2 but are in fact on S2 L1 (unexpected).
Here's the storyline file:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/33392673/PreviousButtonBadDesign.story
--- mega edit conclusion ---
OK, part of it was me putting in triggers that I don't need but it still doesn't address my issue where I have my own navigation buttons. If you use the built in next/previous buttons and don't add a trigger to the previous button they will work correctly.
However, if you have your own menu system and you try to replicate the Next/Previous button functionality using the next/previous triggers it will not work consistently.
I'm lost.
There was no trigger for previous assigned - it doesn't work (even if you have quibbles with it going back to the last page you've seen, it doesn't do this.
Then, I assign a trigger for the previous and assign it a jump to slide - it still doesn't work...
Has anyone got any suggestions? I might just use the Storyline support if not!
Hi Rachel
just a stab in the dark, is that a quiz question with feedback removed? I had something odd happen once where a slide was branching strangely because of this
Phil
I agree with Alice. I hope the next major update provides us with an easy option for how the Previous button works. Going back sequentially makes more sense from an e-learning perspective.
If changing the behavior of the Previous button is allowed I hope the behavior defaults to "go back to the last slide viewed." That is what users (end users of the eLearning, not the creators) expect when they click on the "Previous" button.
Agree here last slide viewed is what users expect
I definitely agree that the designer should have a choice on what the previous button should do. I don't want to lock down my users to having to go sequentially, but I also don't want them to have to use the menu to go to the numerically previous slide if they skip around. Perhaps a 'last viewed' vs 'previous' would be good, or have a 'back' button which does what your 'previous' button does. I do not like not having a choice unless I manually set triggers on 70 slides - which would have to be updated if, god forbid, I add or delete a slide. Very user-hostile.
Finally someone that gets it. You need to design your course
Finally! Someone that gets it. The way I design my courses the "back" button does take them to the previous slide but the behavior of the "previous" trigger is, in my eyes, incredibly hostile to changes.
I agree. In some cases history stack based navigation is the wrong and unexpected way, sometimes you want navigation following a fixed sequence. There is no one and only pattern for this... even if some guys wants to tell us that.
I hope this will be put on the feature list for one the next updates.
Jakob
Hi there,
I'm a bit of an Articulate "Newbie"
I'm not sure why, but the previous button for any of the scenes that I have created is not doing anything. I've tried creating a player trigger that navigates to the "previous slide", I've tried creating a play trigger that navigates to a specific "title" slide I've even tried to create may own "previous" button after having removed the original prev button from the multiple slide navigation controls.
No luck.....the scenes refuse to allow me to "move backwards".........not sure if I have accidentally enabled or disabled something at a master level.
Cheers.
Hi Robin and welcome to E-Learning Heroes! Would you be able to share your .story file here so that we can have a look at what may be going on?
Okay Robin, I'm not sure if I'm missing something here. I took a look at your file.
Slide 1 - Next button enabled, but no previous button (which makes perfect sense)
Slide 2 - Next button enabled, but no previous button, but you have a custom one on the slide that works
Slide 3 - Next button and previous button enabled and the previous button works
Thanks Leslie.....I'm glad those buttons are working for you because they don't work for me either when I preview or publish.
Slide 2 - the custom button does not perform as expected.
Slide 3 - the previous button does not peform as expected
Sorry :(
Hi Robin! I'm not sure how you are viewing your content? Have you published your content to test the functionality as shown in this article?
Hi All,
I've just read this post because I was searching for a solution to this problem. Respectfully, I have to disagree with what Phil and Steve are saying. My users have written up the navigation (return to previous slide viewed) as a bug. The behavior they are expecting is that the slide will return to the previous slide in the sequence, not the previous slide viewed. It has shown up enough in user reviews that I think it's worth mentioning.
We've discarded the option to hard-code the navigation, because as Peter has pointed out, this can increase QA problems down the line. Our courses average around 70 to 100 slides.
My team's current solution is to describe the behavior in a navigation page, so they know what to expect when they click the previous button. But, it would be really helpful if we were able to change the behavior without adding a trigger to each slide, or an extra explanation in the navigation instructions.
I know this thread is a little dated, but I guess I'm a little late to the party and am just now finding a lot of threads that discuss issues I'm encountering. I entirely agree with Mike Bethany's posts in that the previous button's behavior is problematic and needs some work so it is more consistent and developer-friendly. I get that it needs to be learner-friendly, too, but as it is right now... it's just wonky.
I just wanted to add that my course testers as well as myself thought the previous buttons were working incorrectly until I figured out what was happening and verified it with this discussion. I will be adding text to the begging of the module to tell folks how it works. I will also submit a feature request to allow the creators to choose the functionality of the previous button. Thanks-
Thanks Greg for sending along a feature request, as that will be helpful for our developers to have more information about how/why you would expect it to behave that way. Also, welcome to the Heroes community!
Before I go through and manually configure all of my "Previous" buttons to go to the previous slide in sequence in a new course I'm working on, I wanted to just check in to see if there's been any action on this issue. I'm hoping there's something I can easily do to make the "Previous" button go to the previous slide in sequence, not the previously-visited page.
I can see a case for a "Back" button to return to the previously-visited page, but that button should then not be right next to a "Next" button that takes you to the next page in sequence. The "Previous" button being positioned where it is, should go to the previous page in sequence and should have a different icon, IMHO, and many users have complained as well when I don't re-configure it to go to the previous page, they get confused and lose their place.
Hoping this isn't a Storyline 3 feature! :)
Hi Dean,
There is not yet a change in this behavior, the previous button still functions similar to a browser back button showing the last slide the user saw.
You mentioned a change to the button icon and you could also look at changing the text label to say "Back" if that is more in line with what you think your customers/users are looking for. Here is an article on how to change the text labels.
Okay, bummer. I know how to change the label, but I think that would only be helpful if the position could be moved from right next to the "Next" button. So I'll continue to just keep remapping that button with every project.
Sorry Dean - no way to move the button at this time either. Perhaps you'll want to look into creating a custom player using the Storyline SDK - just to note it's only for Flash output.