several toggle buttons, trigger & variables in slide master

Sep 09, 2013

Morgaine Zumtobel
By Morgaine Zumtobel

hello everybody,

I´m trying to create a navigation bar in my elearning course, and I think I´m getting a little bit confused with the triggers and variables.

So here is what I want to create:

3 Buttons in the clean slide master - because the should have always the same function in the whole course and should always stay on the same place

- 1 help button: shows a help layer + change status to down, when clicked, hide layer + change status to normal when clicked again

- 1 contact button: shows a contact layer + change status to dow, when clicked, hide layer + change status to normal when clicked again

- 1 home button: returns to the start screen, set help and contact layer to false (for hiding layers)

So what I´ve done is:

placed the buttons and their layers in the clean slide master, and set some triggers to toggle the buttons and show/hide the layers.

At first glance, everthing looks fine and the buttons are working correct.

But: If I run the scene first, click the buttons help + contact on the startscreen several times to switch between the layers, and browse then to the next slide, the help+contact info layers don´t appear.

I can´t figure out, where I have a mistake in my logic and why it is not working perfect

I don´t want to place the buttons on the slides, because the session will have many of them, and IMHO it would be very inefficient to configure them on every slide again.

Hopefully somebody can help me finding the "missing link" in my logic? :)

many thanks in advance for your tips, and excuse my english (I´m no native speaker )

Best regard,

Morgaine

20 Replies
Rebecca Fleisch Cordeiro
over 10 years ago09/09/13 at 3:34 pm (UTC)

Hi,

Not sure what's going on...and I really want to figure it out. But I did notice this:

IF I play the story "straight through", i.e., in sequence, the help and contact layers don't work for me on slides 2 and 3 (they do work on the first slide)

But IF I jump right away to the 2nd or 3rd slide and click the contact and help buttons, these layers DO work.

So it seems like something isn't resetting properly?

Kevin Thorn
over 10 years ago09/09/13 at 4:31 pm (UTC)

Hi Morgaine,

The best thing about Storyline is you can build just about anything you can imagine. That also comes with the curse of over-thinking it.

What you're wanting to do is actually quite simple and doesn't require any variable at all. 

I stripped out all the variables and set the appropriate triggers to show/hide layers on click of the respective buttons. Also, I added a menu layer on that Master Slide with buttons to their respective Slides in addition to the Home button.

Check it out and let us know if this is the behavior you were wanting. 

Hope this helps.

Kevin

Morgaine Zumtobel
over 10 years ago09/10/13 at 12:12 am (UTC)

Good morning everybody,

Wow, thank you all so much for your swift replies! *like this forum*

@Ashley + Leslie: thank you for the tip, I´ve sent the file to the support team!

@ Rebecca: you have described exactly the strange behavior!

that´s what I think too, that something is not reset correctly, but I can´t figure out, where I´m wrong - the displayed variable values are all correct on the slides...

@Kevin: thank you for your example, but I would prefer that the contact and help layer disappear by clicking the same button again, not by clicking an extra close-button.

I will use this easier variant, if I can´t implement it the way I want... But I know that this complex variant can work, I´ve seen it in an example storyline course...

thanks,

Morgaine

Rebecca Fleisch Cordeiro
over 10 years ago09/10/13 at 3:15 am (UTC)

Morgaine Zumtobel said:

 ...

@ Rebecca: you have described exactly the strange behavior!

that´s what I think too, that something is not reset correctly, but I can´t figure out, where I´m wrong - the displayed variable values are all correct on the slides..

Yes, I see with the variable references that they seem to be setting correctly, too. I'm wondering if trigger order has something to do with it. I tried rearranging a few things last night, but didn't get anywhere. I WISH I had more time to play with it - I hate when SL is in control instead of the other way around. Probably need to get some work done, however ;(. Looking forward to the solution!
Phil Mayor
over 10 years ago09/10/13 at 3:52 am (UTC)

I have had a play with this, the attached version should work as expected.

I got rid of the down state trigger and created a selected state instead which means you do not need a trigger.

I have messed around with the trigger order and deleted some conditions.

Think it works as you want.  This is a simpler design.

Morgaine Zumtobel
over 10 years ago09/10/13 at 5:47 am (UTC)

Hi Leslie,

I´m not really sure, if my request was sent correctly, I got an error message in the upload file box, but I got also an email response with a Feature Request Number: 00355368

Is that the right number you´re asking for?

Thank you! I would be very happy, if you can help me - I´m getting crazy with the triggers... no matter what I try the behavior stays the same... Switch between the help and the contact button on the starting page at the first start - and the layers in the slides 2+3 go crazy...

@Phil: thank you, but trying to click the buttons several times and switch between has the same effect - the layers are not shown correctly...

thanks and BR

Morgaine

Morgaine Zumtobel
over 10 years ago09/10/13 at 6:06 am (UTC)

Phil Mayor said:

I did not anticipate switching between the two, this should work.


OMG, that´s it!!! Thank you so much Phil! You have saved me from going crazy! And it is so simple, if you know how to solve it - I thought I have to set the toggle trigger on the 1. place... but looking at your trigger order makes NOW more sense to me!

Thank you so much! That´s perfekt!

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