Restricting Movement Through Layers until Audio has played on all layers

Dec 14, 2021

The majority of slides in my project have layers. Some layers are a click to see and others are hover to see. There is audio on all layers. Is there a way to disable all clicks or hovers on a slide until the particular audio is done playing?

I read through many threads and discovered how to stop layers from playing over each other but this still allows you to leave a layer before it is done playing. I have tried to use triggers and variables as per this tutorial, but assumes that someone is moving through the layers in a specific order. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqDPoste5TU

I have tried changing the states of my layer buttons to disabled until audio is done but I could not figure out how to make disabled the default state as opposed to normal so I'm not sure if this will work for all layers on the slide.

Are there any other suggestions of how I can make this work? I have added a sample of one slide.

Layers_and_Audio_Example.story

5 Replies

Judy Nollet
Hero

over 2 years ago12/14/21 at 10:01 pm (UTC)

Hi, Sarah,

Here's an option:

On each layer, add a solid-filled shape over the buttons. It could be 100% transparent, but I'd recommend semi-transparent so it's obvious the buttons are being blocked.
Add a trigger that changes the shape to Hidden when the layer's timeline ends.
If you want to prevent them from clicking buttons even if they return to a given layer, add a trigger that changes the shape to Normal when the layer's timeline begins.

Sarah Lyon
Author

over 2 years ago12/15/21 at 9:48 pm (UTC)

Thank you Judy. That worked well for my click items. I just wish it was easier.

I used the YouTube video I originally referenced for when I only had two over items.

Morgan Lehnhardt

4 months ago12/22/23 at 5:59 pm (UTC)

I am running into this same issue with a slide that has 2 items to hover over. Each layer associated with the hovers has audio, but I cannot get it to prevent the user from switching to the other layer before the audio is finished. I have tried adding a hot spot to each layer, and then a regular rectangle, but neither works - the user is still able to hover over the other area even with an active hot spot or transparent rectangle covering it (I made the rectangle transparent so the slide would still look normal, but I don't see why that would make it function differently and NOT block the items behind it). I have selected the option to "Prevent the user from clicking on other layers" on both but still it does nothing.

What am I missing?? I think I'm going to have to choose "Hide Objects on Base Layer" and then manually re-create the base layer within each sublayer, except for the other hover area. But this seems crazy and super inefficient....

Morgan Lehnhardt

4 months ago12/22/23 at 6:10 pm (UTC)

Ahhh I finally just figured it out! When setting up a hover trigger, there is an option in the TRIGGER (not the layer!) that says "Hide layer when the user hovers out". This allows them to flip-flop between my two hover areas/layers no matter what parameters I put on the layers, because the layer will go away any time they stop hovering over it. Once I turned off that option, the layer will not hide until its timeline (i,e. the audio) is finished.

4 months ago12/27/23 at 2:27 pm (UTC)

Hi Morgan!

Good job finding out about the "Hide layer when the user hovers out" option to resolve the issue; thanks for sharing that with the community!

If you need help with anything else, please let us know here in the E-Learning Heroes Community or privately in a support case. We'll be happy to assist you!