Storyline 360 does wierd thing to my button states

Aug 17, 2023

Tim St. Clair
By Tim St. Clair

I'm trying a simple yes/no type entry which then sets the state of a Save button (e.g. the Save button isn't available until I've selected either yes or no on each row).

I want the buttons to work like two different button sets, but a) I can't make more than one button set at a time, and b) they don't operate as I would expect anyway (they should go into the selected state and set all others in the group back to normal, like radio elements - I can't make that work at all with buttons). I set all the buttonsets to 'none' on each object, and tried to build the same just with button states and variables.

Storyline 360 seems to set the selected state of buttons that I didn't even click on, and it's not always the same button.

Here's a recording of what I see.

https://360.articulate.com/review/content/71644f61-4407-4e5d-8487-b4e025314bb7/review

I've attached the storyline file. Can anyone see what I've done wrong here?

3 Replies
Walt Hamilton
9 months ago08/17/23 at 5:29 am (UTC)

Tim,

Your instincts about how button sets should work are correct, but you can't do what you want with all the buttons in one set. The way to create a button set is with multiple selections (see the attached video), not with groups. You can't have an object in two button sets simultaneously.

Look at the New slide in the attached .story file.

1. I started by ungrouping.  Here's my explanation of why:

Groups
There is an old saying in the theater: "Anyone who puts kids or animals on the stage deserves what happens to them." That means that no matter how well-behaved, or well-trained you think they are, at some time they are going to revert to their true nature, and you can only hope it doesn't happen during a performance.  The SL correlation is: "Anyone who uses groups deserves what happens to them." That means that no matter how well-behaved or how well-trained you hope they are, groups don't play nicely with anything, and especially not states, clicking on, and triggers. Sooner or later, you are likely to have problems with them.
 
I used a group in SL once, and it worked the way I wanted. I think it was in 19...  No, wait. I'm thinking of another program, Maybe it was ...  Well, it doesn't matter; the point is that groups don't work in SL. Pretty much you can use groups, or you can have triggers and states that work, but not both. I would counsel you to avoid them if at all possible, and get rid of any of them that aren't absolutely, absolutely necessary.
 
2. I deleted the triggers associated with the Yes/No buttons, and replaced them with Button Sets (see the video).
3. I added the triggers for the Save button.

 

 

Tim St. Clair
9 months ago08/17/23 at 7:08 am (UTC)

I could not get the second button set to apply at all. I selected the first set of buttons, added them to a button set, then selected the second set of buttons and added a new button set. BUT Storyline refused to add the second set and would only show Button Set 1 from the list.

I think the problem is, as you say, that things were grouped.

Your video is much appreciated, I can see much clearer logic to what is going on, as opposed to my mess. Much appreciated!

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