Scene/ Section urgency timer.

Oct 04, 2016

I have created a choose your own adventure story for this module, it has been requested that one section of this story be given a time limit. However we don't want the end user to know exactly how much time they have left to complete.

Please see the attached images on how we are hoping to showcase the running out of time. If I were to give the user 5 minutes to complete this section, how would I set this module up to eventually fade to a time out page when the time runs out? AND keep track of the time on the screen when each image is its own slide.

Here is the link to the module as is. Without the timer.

http://dialecticstrategies.com/Grayson/story.html

8 Replies

Matthew Bibby

over 6 years ago10/04/16 at 1:29 am (UTC)

Hi Cindy,

Yes, this should be possible. Here's how I'd approach it:

Set up your timer to countdown from 5 minutes.
Have conditional triggers that are listening for a change in variable. Set them to change the state of your timer bubble when the timer value reaches the relevant time (e.g. When variable Timer changes, set state of Timer Bubble to state 20% if Timer is equal to 4.00)
When the Timer variable is equal to 0.00, trigger a layer (which has a show fade animation) to appear.

Does that make sense?

Here is a tutorial that shows how to create a countdown timer.

This may also be of interest (it shows how to track time across multiple slides).

Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks.

Cindy Holland
Author

over 6 years ago10/04/16 at 11:47 am (UTC)

Great! This is a great start.

I am having problems setting up the state change on my timer. I am using the java script and variable names from one your examples (THANKS!!).

I have the following SLIDE triggers setup (change the variables to 5:00 & 300)

1) Execute Javascript when timeline starts
2) Change state of timer to 22 when Countdown_Duration changes IF Countdown_Duration is equal to 287 (13 seconds after the timer starts)
3) Jump to 2.2 Run Out Of Timer when Countdown_Finished IF Countdown_Finished is equal to Done.

--------

So the timer works great. It count downs(just for testing) and takes me to the Ran out of time page. However I can't seem to get my timer to switch states.

I have uploaded my storyline file of just that one section. Any advice?

(don't mind my unassigned triggers)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B25OP74EKT1JS0pKbVVzQzJWOEU/view?usp=sharing

Matthew Bibby

over 6 years ago10/04/16 at 12:26 pm (UTC)

Hey Cindy,

You almost got it!

The trigger that changes the timer.png state to 22, needs to be listening for changes to the countdown_display variable, not the countdown_duration variable.

So instead of:

Change state of timer - "timer.png" to 22 when Countdown_Duration changes If Countdown_Duration is equal to 287.

You need:

Change state of timer - "timer.png" to 22 when Countdown_Display changes If Countdown_Display is equal to 04:47.

Hopefully that does the trick!

Cindy Holland
Author

over 6 years ago10/04/16 at 1:57 pm (UTC)

Hey Matthew.

I have tried that too and nothing happens.

Here's my triggers.

I have state 21 & 22 to show a greyed box as follows in the second screen shot

state21.png
triggers.png

Matthew Bibby

over 6 years ago10/04/16 at 2:26 pm (UTC)

That's odd, it worked when I tested it here.

Are you publishing the course? JavaScript doesn't work in preview, so you'll need to publish and view the HTML5 output to test locally, or upload to a web server or LMS to test the Flash output.

If that isn't the issue, then I'll take another look when I have a chance tomorrow.