Previous Slide Trigger

Mar 23, 2014

I have used buttons for next/previous links instead of using the default ones on the player. I have placed them on the master slide and applied the previous/next triggers to them. They function correctly when using just the buttons to navegate the lessons.

Here's the problem. When you select a slide from the menu, then click previous slide it doesn't go to the previous slide in numbered order it goes to the slide you were just on.

So, to break it down say you were clicking next until you're on page 5, then go to the menu and skip to slide 10, then click the previous button, you don't go to slide 9, you go back to slide 5. I don't want it to do this. Is there a way to stop it from functioning this way besides changing the next/previous buttons to go specifically to a slide. I only ask this because slide structure/layout design can change after you have created it and I don't want to have to go through and keep manually changing the buttons. I'd like to be able to do it from the master.

27 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Natashia and welcome to Heroes! 

This is currently the expected behavior as it's returning you to the previously seen slide, not necessarily what would appear in linear order. If you'd like it to function in linear order you'll need to add that as a trigger for each slide - so that on slide 10 it'll have Jump to slide 9 as the previous trigger. 

JC Goyette

It may be the "desired behavior", but it's unfortunately very counter-intuitive and time-consuming to get around. If I have 50 slides, I need to hard code all of them to jump to the previous slide, just in case the user might use the menu to navigate instead of the regular navigation.

If "jump to next slide" follows the numerical order of slides by default, you would expect the "jump to previous slide" to do the opposite.

How about splitting the trigger into two different ones, like "jump to previous slide" and "jump to last-visited slide" ?

Alyssa Gomez

Hi JC! It sounds really frustrating to manually adjust the triggers on so many slides -- I can see how that would be time-consuming!

Thanks for your idea to split the trigger into two different behaviors, i.e. "jump to previous slide" and "jump to last-visited slide." I'll be sure our Product team sees this!

philip williams

A linear back button action in the jump to slide has been a long requested feature to allow for navigating linearly through the menu order would be great. A built-in variable to clear the previous history would suffice and probably be easier for your programmers to implement.

A built-in "ClearPreviousHistory" variable (true|false) would reset the previous navigation array to reflect the menu (or story view) up to the current slide. This would allow us to put navigation buttons in the master slides and conditionally reset the previous button with the "ClearPreviousHistory" at the beginning of a slide. This would be my preferred method as it would be easier to adapt old projects and retain previous button function conditionally.

I've also submitted this as a request.

Mateusz Szuter

Katie, could you please ONCE listen to your community? :) This thread goes round and round since the first iteration of Storyline. Every once a while someone complains, that prev/next triggers are not logical. You give as hierarchical view, the slides nicely connects in storyline line one-by-one, and then, after publishing, magic happens and we are bound to hardcode every navigation button in course if we have menu enabled... That's so, so irrational and you never try to even talk about that. For you, things are just like they are and you don't give a single about what people are telling you. 

Come on, that's not some ugly thing to change. If 'next' works as intended, changing prev to work as people think it should work, shouldn't be so troublesome. We are here, we are telling you, that actual way is wrong, and you just pop and says 'nah, we don't see a problem' - why are you treating people who are paying you such a big cash for your product like their voice doesn't matter?

No, I won't submit feature request, because that requests doesn't work. Do a proper voting for features and bugtracker to be in touch with your community and take some priority! We don't need 3d graphics inside, when storyline is full of bugs and no one listens... Who is in charge there obviously ignoring community voice?

Glen Young

Hello, I just want to add my voice: I thought the behavior described by the staff was a bug, and I came here looking to fix it. I am dismayed that there doesn't appear to be an easy fix, and I'll have to hack a solution.

Please split functionality into "Jump to slide > Previous slide" and "Jump to slide > Previously viewed slide".

Brett Conlon

WOW, 9 years this discussion has been going on and still no changes! :(

I came here also looking for a solution as I have built a progress bar with buttons that become active for the learner when they reach each section of the course, but if the learner clicks on one of the buttons to jump to a previous section, then presses the back button, they are taken back to where they were, not the numerically linear previous slide.

Please give us the CHOICE by adding a new trigger behaviour. I'd be more than happy to create 2 buttons in my Nav for the learners (one for previous and one for last visited).

Jean-Christophe Goyette

The issue is that it doesn't make sense from a logical standpoint: if the NEXT trigger goes to the "next slide" chronologically, why doesn't the PREVIOUS trigger go to the "previous slide" chronologically as well? If I go forward with 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4, the reverse should be possible.

However, if the user is too curious and uses the MENU to navigate from 1.1 to 1.4, then the PREVIOUS trigger goes back to 1.1 instead of 1.3, because it's actually the "last seen slide". If I flip a book to from page 1 to page 50, I should back to page 49, not page 1.

This is considerably annoying when you have to hardcode every PREVIOUS button on 20, 35 or even 50 slides.

Brett Conlon

Agreed, Jean-Christophe, but I personally can see a functional purpose for BOTH scenarios.

For example, someone is sitting on slide 25 and might want to quickly review something in an earlier slide so they click on a menu item which jumps them maybe 20 slides earlier. Once they have finished reviewing that slide they might want to immediately return to where they were, but if they press the back button and they are taken only 1 slide behind where they are now, it may be hard for them to get back to where they came from (except by using another menu item again, maybe).

I'd like to have BOTH options available to me (and to the learner) so they can either press a back button (moves linearly back by 1 slide) or they can press a return/previous button to go back to where they last were.

Acrobat provides BOTH navigation methods and I use them both - regularly.

Scott Wellman

Completely agree with Brett Conlon.

Scott
- - - -
Scott Wellman, MD
Associate Professor Family Medicine and Community Health
Instructor, Pediatric Clerkship
Retired Director, Center for Academic Achievement
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