Eg. I have a home page that 3 links (eg. btn1,2,3) to say topic 1,2 and 3. If I want the slides for topic 1,2,3 to appear as 1,2,3 from left to right in story view, I have to set up the buttons on the timeline as btn3,2 and then 1 from top to bottom. Shouldn't it go from top to bottom rather than bottom first?
(yes, it is a minor thing and I'm just doing it from bottom to top for now, but I thought it was a bit odd?)
Hi, Mark -- Thanks for your question, and I may be misunderstanding, but it seems like you may have already asked something similar over here in this thread. If you would like to share your file so fellow members of the community can take a closer look and chime in with suggestions, please feel free to use the ADD ATTACHMENT button below. Thanks!
The numbering of your buttons and the slides aren't necessarily connected - but it's the order in which they'll be triggered and shown. So I assume button 4 connects to slide 4.6? The higher an element is on the timeline, it's at the front or top of the slide, and then would be the top trigger element too.
If I'm misunderstanding what you're running into, could you share a few slides from this project?
Mark, I ran both of your scenes. In scene 1, when I start with the title slide and click on the Go to A rectangle OR the next button, it advances to slide A. If I click on the next button, it advances to Slide B. If I click on the next button, it advances to slide C. If I go back to the title slide and click on the Go to B rectangle, it advances to slide B. If I go back to the title slide and click the Go to C button, it advances to slide C. Surely this is the behavior you intended for this presentation.
In scene 2, when I start with the title slide and click on the Go to A rectangle OR the next button, it advances to slide A. If I click on the next button, it advances to Slide B. If I click on the next button, it advances to slide C. If I go back to the title slide and click on the Go to B rectangle, it advances to slide B. If I go back to the title slide and click the Go to C button, it advances to slide C. Surely this is the behavior you intended for this presentation.
The order of how the slides appear in STORY VIEW is in NO way related to the order in which they appear to a user. That is controlled entirely by triggers. It is only slightly likely that the order is influenced by the order in which the slides or their triggers are created, and even less likely that it is influenced by the Z order of the items on the slide. The Z order refers to the position of the objects in relation to each other on the slide. The closer the object is to the top of the timeline, the higher (or closer to you) the object appears to be on the slide. In other words, when you move the objects together, the one on the top of the timeline will cover those below it.
The actual placement of slide icons in STORY VIEW is most likely influenced by the algorithm's attempt to represent the flow of your presentation in the most direct manner possible. If you watch it closely, you will find that as your presentation grows more complex, with increased branching, the slide positions will change, sometimes radically. Let me emphasize that where they lie on this screen does not indicate the flow of how they will be presented to your user. What indicates the order of presentation to the user is the red arrows. Click on a slide and the arrows will show possible paths the user can follow from that slide.
Look at the attached video. The title slide has two arrows to Slide A. These correspond to the Go to slide A trigger and the Go to Next trigger. It also has one arrow to represent the Go to slide B trigger, and one for the Go to slide C trigger. Click on slide A and you will see one arrow (representing the Go to Next trigger) to slide B, which may or may not be physically next to it, BUT THE ARROW SHOWS THAT IT IS NEXT IN THE FLOW, regardless of where it is on the page. Likewise, slide B will have one arrow for the Go to Next trigger, which points to slide C. This is true of both scenes.
Where the slides are on the page means very, very little; the arrows indicate the flow.
I understand that the end product presented to the user works as intended
I just want the slide order in story view (sorry, I realized I didn't empathize this properly) to be 1,2,3 in order from left to right. so I can work easier.
Sorry, I forgot the video, but if you understand how it works, it is not necessary. As to changing the order in story view, I think you are just going to have to grit your teeth and go with what you get. When you add branches, all the slides change places anyway.
Thanks for your thorough response and explanation to assist Mark here, Walt! And Mark, please let us know if you are all set or if you still need additional assistance.
"The numbering of your buttons and the slides aren't necessarily connected - but it's the order in which they'll be triggered and shown."
I wouldn't mind more clarifications on this. The way that I'm doing it now, I can try to arrange the buttons order and it might work or I have to cut and paste slides in the story line which breaks most of the links and have to relink them.
Is there a better way to do this.
Sorry Walt, I don't like working with messy files with things all over the place. It's confusing as heck.
Mark, Don't take this as a personal condemnation, but being super-organized comes with both positives and negatives. This is one time where the negative can take control if you aren't careful. You can waste a lot of time trying to get story view to do what you want, and in the end it will do its own thing, anyway. I had a short 15 minute interaction with two options for navigation. It looked like this.
Then I added a third navigation option, and it looked like this.
You can see what a change it made, just adding one additional path through it. Remember that is a very short simple presentation. I think it is near magic the way story view organizes the slides and draws lines between them, but I know it is set in its ways and I can't change them.
My recommendation is that you learn to trust the little red lines and the slide numbers. Click on a slide and the red lines will show the slide(s) it link to. The slides will be visited (if you use the built-in or your own next button) in numeric order, like your sample here.
I know you want the pictures to be in order, but at least the numbers are in order, and I think that is as close as you are going to get.
Otherwise, you may have to rely on a handwritten record that you keep as you add slides. If you do that, remember to keep track of slides by title, which doesn't change. The numbers are merely identifiers of order, they do change.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I hope this helps lessen the pain.
Many thanks for the thorough explanation and example, Walt -- your insight is always appreciated! And if you would like to share your thoughts with our Product Development team, Mark, here is the form you would use to do so. Thanks so much. :)
I just meant that the numbering of buttons and the slides are based on when they're created, not on the order in which you placed them for triggers.
The story view as Walt showed, indicates how the slides are linked and in terms of the triggers set up for them. Also since you mentioned putting in a feature request, you can send along here.
The issue is being caused by the stacking order on your timeline on the menu page (1.1). I just downloaded your file and reordered as per the screen grab:
And the story view now looks like this:
I hope this helps.
Also, if you're copying and pasting, importing or adding new slides it is best to select the slide in the running order that you want the new slides to follow before inserting. This should number the slide correctly in the running order.
let me know if I'm mistaken but you repeated what I said is the issue?
If you order the buttons from top to bottom C,B,A, the slides are in order, but it's backwards.
@Ashley Do you see the flaw in that kind of logic? If I make buttons A,B,C. then want to add another button/slide in between A and B, the order's all messed up (bit like Walt's example). At the moment, copy and pasting slides seems to work 100% of the time (but all the links break and have to relink) reordering button buttons on the timeline sometimes works which is a bit weird..
It seems like a simple thing but it also seems it's been overly complicated in the implementation/backend..
I don't see an issue in that case. Re: your note to Ashley, it isn't that much of a chore to add a new button and position it accordingly on the timeline.
It is fairly standard timeline functionaility to go from bottom to top.
Thank you so much! David's response allowed me to fix this issue. And Mark, this was driving me crazy too. Ultimately, what matters most is that the interactions are functioning properly; however, we review the layout with our clients and it can be confusing to work through a larger project if the slides are not in the proper order in Story View. I am so happy this issue is resolved! Thanks again.
20 Replies
Hi, Mark -- Thanks for your question, and I may be misunderstanding, but it seems like you may have already asked something similar over here in this thread. If you would like to share your file so fellow members of the community can take a closer look and chime in with suggestions, please feel free to use the ADD ATTACHMENT button below. Thanks!
hi Christie,
no this is a separate issue. Attached are screenshots:
the 1 image have the correctly ordered buttons (1-4, top to bottom) but the slide order is wrong (4-1)
the 2 images have the correct slide order but this is done by reversing the button orders (4-1, top to bottom)
let me know if you need more clarification
regards
Hi Mark,
The numbering of your buttons and the slides aren't necessarily connected - but it's the order in which they'll be triggered and shown. So I assume button 4 connects to slide 4.6? The higher an element is on the timeline, it's at the front or top of the slide, and then would be the top trigger element too.
If I'm misunderstanding what you're running into, could you share a few slides from this project?
....this is the 2nd time I've posted where it the site just kinda crashed and I have to rewrite the post again.... anyways...
attached is an example. scene 1 has buttons A,B,C and the slides go A,C,B (dono what's going on makes no sense)
then I duplicated the scene, and rearranged the buttons to C,B,A and the slides are now ordered properly as A,B,C left to right
Mark,
I ran both of your scenes. In scene 1, when I start with the title slide and click on the Go to A rectangle OR the next button, it advances to slide A. If I click on the next button, it advances to Slide B. If I click on the next button, it advances to slide C. If I go back to the title slide and click on the Go to B rectangle, it advances to slide B. If I go back to the title slide and click the Go to C button, it advances to slide C. Surely this is the behavior you intended for this presentation.
In scene 2, when I start with the title slide and click on the Go to A rectangle OR the next button, it advances to slide A. If I click on the next button, it advances to Slide B. If I click on the next button, it advances to slide C. If I go back to the title slide and click on the Go to B rectangle, it advances to slide B. If I go back to the title slide and click the Go to C button, it advances to slide C. Surely this is the behavior you intended for this presentation.
The order of how the slides appear in STORY VIEW is in NO way related to the order in which they appear to a user. That is controlled entirely by triggers. It is only slightly likely that the order is influenced by the order in which the slides or their triggers are created, and even less likely that it is influenced by the Z order of the items on the slide. The Z order refers to the position of the objects in relation to each other on the slide. The closer the object is to the top of the timeline, the higher (or closer to you) the object appears to be on the slide. In other words, when you move the objects together, the one on the top of the timeline will cover those below it.
The actual placement of slide icons in STORY VIEW is most likely influenced by the algorithm's attempt to represent the flow of your presentation in the most direct manner possible. If you watch it closely, you will find that as your presentation grows more complex, with increased branching, the slide positions will change, sometimes radically. Let me emphasize that where they lie on this screen does not indicate the flow of how they will be presented to your user. What indicates the order of presentation to the user is the red arrows.
Click on a slide and the arrows will show possible paths the user can follow from that slide.
Look at the attached video. The title slide has two arrows to Slide A. These correspond to the Go to slide A trigger and the Go to Next trigger. It also has one arrow to represent the Go to slide B trigger, and one for the Go to slide C trigger. Click on slide A and you will see one arrow (representing the Go to Next trigger) to slide B, which may or may not be physically next to it, BUT THE ARROW SHOWS THAT IT IS NEXT IN THE FLOW, regardless of where it is on the page. Likewise, slide B will have one arrow for the Go to Next trigger, which points to slide C. This is true of both scenes.
Where the slides are on the page means very, very little; the arrows indicate the flow.
hey Walt
sorry, I don't see an attached video.
I understand that the end product presented to the user works as intended
I just want the slide order in story view (sorry, I realized I didn't empathize this properly) to be 1,2,3 in order from left to right. so I can work easier.
regards
Sorry, I forgot the video, but if you understand how it works, it is not necessary. As to changing the order in story view, I think you are just going to have to grit your teeth and go with what you get. When you add branches, all the slides change places anyway.
Thanks for your thorough response and explanation to assist Mark here, Walt! And Mark, please let us know if you are all set or if you still need additional assistance.
"The numbering of your buttons and the slides aren't necessarily connected - but it's the order in which they'll be triggered and shown."
I wouldn't mind more clarifications on this. The way that I'm doing it now, I can try to arrange the buttons order and it might work or I have to cut and paste slides in the story line which breaks most of the links and have to relink them.
Is there a better way to do this.
Sorry Walt, I don't like working with messy files with things all over the place. It's confusing as heck.
Mark,
Don't take this as a personal condemnation, but being super-organized comes with both positives and negatives. This is one time where the negative can take control if you aren't careful. You can waste a lot of time trying to get story view to do what you want, and in the end it will do its own thing, anyway.
I had a short 15 minute interaction with two options for navigation. It looked like this.
Then I added a third navigation option, and it looked like this.
You can see what a change it made, just adding one additional path through it. Remember that is a very short simple presentation.
I think it is near magic the way story view organizes the slides and draws lines between them, but I know it is set in its ways and I can't change them.
My recommendation is that you learn to trust the little red lines and the slide numbers. Click on a slide and the red lines will show the slide(s) it link to. The slides will be visited (if you use the built-in or your own next button) in numeric order, like your sample here.
I know you want the pictures to be in order, but at least the numbers are in order, and I think that is as close as you are going to get.
Otherwise, you may have to rely on a handwritten record that you keep as you add slides. If you do that, remember to keep track of slides by title, which doesn't change. The numbers are merely identifiers of order, they do change.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I hope this helps lessen the pain.
thanks Walt, holy cow that example.
I put in a feature request. I guess that's all I can do.
cheers
Many thanks for the thorough explanation and example, Walt -- your insight is always appreciated! And if you would like to share your thoughts with our Product Development team, Mark, here is the form you would use to do so. Thanks so much. :)
Thanks for the great explanation Walt :)
Hi Mark,
I just meant that the numbering of buttons and the slides are based on when they're created, not on the order in which you placed them for triggers.
The story view as Walt showed, indicates how the slides are linked and in terms of the triggers set up for them. Also since you mentioned putting in a feature request, you can send along here.
The issue is being caused by the stacking order on your timeline on the menu page (1.1). I just downloaded your file and reordered as per the screen grab:
And the story view now looks like this:
I hope this helps.
Also, if you're copying and pasting, importing or adding new slides it is best to select the slide in the running order that you want the new slides to follow before inserting. This should number the slide correctly in the running order.
Thanks so much for your suggestion, David, and I hope Mark finds the info to be just what he needed!
hey David...
let me know if I'm mistaken but you repeated what I said is the issue?
If you order the buttons from top to bottom C,B,A, the slides are in order, but it's backwards.
@Ashley Do you see the flaw in that kind of logic? If I make buttons A,B,C. then want to add another button/slide in between A and B, the order's all messed up (bit like Walt's example). At the moment, copy and pasting slides seems to work 100% of the time (but all the links break and have to relink) reordering button buttons on the timeline sometimes works which is a bit weird..
It seems like a simple thing but it also seems it's been overly complicated in the implementation/backend..
I don't see an issue in that case. Re: your note to Ashley, it isn't that much of a chore to add a new button and position it accordingly on the timeline.
It is fairly standard timeline functionaility to go from bottom to top.
Thank you so much! David's response allowed me to fix this issue. And Mark, this was driving me crazy too. Ultimately, what matters most is that the interactions are functioning properly; however, we review the layout with our clients and it can be confusing to work through a larger project if the slides are not in the proper order in Story View. I am so happy this issue is resolved! Thanks again.
That's great, glad you got it sorted!
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