Skipping a slide without displaying it's content

Where does the variable get set? In the previous scene?

It's set in the prior scene and referenced in all subsequent scenes.  Why do you ask?

Seems like you could just direct the navigation to the proper slide from a trigger at the end of each scene?  You said that the last slide of scene "N" is a quiz question, but you can still add a trigger in the feedback layers to go to whichever slide is appropriate based on the variable. Of course, not seeing your setup, I'm likely not considering certain restrictions you may have.

Chris has the best idea, but if you can't do that, you might get some focused suggestions if you use the ADD ATTACHMENT button and post at least a couple of representative slides here. Lacking that, setting a jump to another slide when the timeline starts usually jumps before any part of the first slide is rendered.

I have come to the unpleasant conclusion that there really isn't a way to skip a slide without a flash of information.  This does push the branching decision into the previous scene which ends with a quiz question.

Here's what I have: 22 scenes each ending with a quiz question:

• Base, Correct, and incorrect layers, 22 different scenes
  • All three layers have manually coded triggers as "next" doesn't seem to work when the question is the last slide.  So far, that's 3x22 = 66 triggers
  • "Retry Quiz" is required in the course so each quiz question must test a variable to see if this is a "retry" and branch to the next question at the end of the next scene. (Storyline should automate Retry)  Now we have an additional trigger and test on each layer.  2x66=132 triggers.
  • Now we want to control the branch to the first slide or alternate slide of the next scene.  That's what this thread is about.  3x66= 198 triggers.

At 198 triggers, there's a lot that can go wrong, or at least make maintenance a burden.

Is it really this difficult to have a quiz question at the end of each scene? I hope I am overlooking something.

Sam

Hi Sam.

That does indeed sound like a lot that can go wrong and that maintenance will be a burden.  :-)  But your base layer on the quiz slides wouldn't need the nav triggers, right? So that reduces your number of triggers by 22. Not much help I know.

You could put your logic into a button and copy / paste those in all those feedback layers, and adjust the target destination in each button, but that's a headache and a lot of maintenance. Or you could explore some esoteric solution using master slides and more variables and all that, but that would be a logic nightmare.

I've always been a less-is-more kinda person. If it were me, I'd just put a nice looking topic title page at the beginning of each scene that shows onscreen for 5 seconds (and has the nav logic in it), and be done with it. The more time we spend working out complex navigation logic, that is less time spent making content useful and compelling. I'm sure you'd rather be spending time making sure learners are learning rather than creating and testing 198 triggers. :-)

Regarding the Retry functionality, in the interest of simplification, could you just make the questions at the end of each scene an un-scored knowledge check, then put all of the questions together into a formal assessment at the end of the lesson? Would make Retry much simpler and easier.

Hope this helps in some small way. Sorry I don't have the silver bullet.

I agree with everything you're said excepting the base layer triggers.  The base layer triggers are involved when the quiz question is in "review" (previously answered).  In this instance, it will display a NEXT button (no SUBMIT button).  Here again is a challenge: Try to create this trigger on the base layer without having the NEXT button appear next to SUBMIT when the question is being answered... good luck with that. BTW: You will notice the quiz properties are modified to always show NEXT now.  Better reset that property now. Oops... the trigger is deleted.

Side note: Learners can visit a quiz in review mode by two methods: A review button or by using PREV or the MENU tab to navigate back to a previously answered question.

With everything Storyline, there is a kluge that I've found to solve this problem.  Create the trigger on a non-quiz slide, then copy and paste it to the quiz base layer.  Ta-da. The trigger will apply in review mode and no NEXT button will appear when the quiz is being answered by the learner. 

This is way too much work. Articulate should do something to improve quiz integration in courses.

Sam

I understand completely, and I know it's frustrating. The type of functionality you're doing are the types of things we used to write a lot of automation code for, back in the Toolbook days. But we have happily traded those days of complex coding -  with awesome whiz bang functionality but lots of bugs and constant troubleshooting - for the simpler streamlined development in Storyline. It was a tough mental adjustment at first, but those days of rigorous troubleshooting, debugging, "button checks" and functionality tests, and quality control checklists have long since receded into memory. We go with simpler constructions and take advantage of Storyline's streamlined approach, so we are spending all of our time on content and almost zero time on troubleshooting functionality. We adapted to Storyline's strengths and life's much more relaxed, and I would say our courses are much better than they ever were in the past, since we spend all of our time on content rather than structure, if that makes sense.

I know this is a bit philosophical and not providing solutions to your issues, but thought it might help to share another perspective on development.

I am having an issue with a slide and have spent far too much time attempting to figure it out I thought I would ask the experts.  I have a slide with a base layer and 5 other layers.  The base layer is set to go to layer 1 when media completes.  This works fine.  In Layer one I have boxes set with normal and visited states, along with hot spots to move from one layer to the next.  So Four boxes - when clicked each will go to another layer.  This too is working with the exception that no matter what order they are selected, it works fine for the first 3 but when I click on the forth, articulate is advancing to the next slide before learner has the opportunity to read the forth layer.

My jump to next slide trigger is added to Layer 1, and says to advance to next slide when
all boxes are visited.  The issue is when I click on the last box it is visited so it moves to fast.

I'm still learning articulate, so I'm sure I must be missing something.

My jump to next slide trigger is added to Layer 1, and says to advance to next slide when all boxes are visited. The issue is when I click on the last box it is visited so it moves too fast.

You have pinpointed the problem exactly, but solving it is another matter. It is very alluring to want to just click the next button and go to the next layer, but you have found the flaw in that reasoning. You might be tempted to set a timing on each layer, and advance when that time expires, but I hope I don't have to point out all the problems with that.

As it is, I can think of no way to handle this apart from some action from the learner that says, "I'm finished here." One way to do that might be to have a button to advance (I usually name them Continue) that shows up when all the layers are visited. Fortunately you have a trigger to do that. Instead of jumping, have that trigger show your continue button, and have it jump when clicked.