Trigger to Show Base Layer
Oct 15, 2015
Hey community,
I have a tabs slide where the tabs show different layers. One of those tabs is "Main", which is the Base Layer of the slide. The problem I'm having is, I can't find a way to put a trigger on that "Main" tab that either a)hides all layers or b)jumps back to the base layer. I need the user to be able to go back to the base layer once they are on any of the sub-layers.
The workaround I usually would do is put a trigger on that "Main" tab that tells it to jump to that slide, which would bring it back to the base layer. That's not working though, and actually wouldn't work in this situation because there are states on these tabs to show when one of the tabs has been visited. So if the "Main" tab reopened the slide instead of jumping back to the base layer, the rest of the tabs would reset and the user wouldn't know which tabs they have already gone to.
I hope this makes sense...
Thanks,
Mike
24 Replies
You could put a tab on each layer that looks like the main tab. Set its trigger to close this layer. That works if you only have one layer open at a time. if you allow more than one layer at a time to be open, then you will need a trigger for each layers to close it.
of course! Why didn't I think of that...
Thanks,
Mike
Glad you were able to get the assistance that you needed here Mike :)
I'm actually still have a small issue with this solution. To do this I copy the "Main" tab and paste it on the sublayers, to ensure that it is in the exact same spot and the exact same size. For some reason when I do this, it alters the font size of the text "main". As you know, any small change in size or position of these tabs takes away from the experience of a functioning tab interaction. I'm not sure if what's going on with that, but will give it another look tonight. If you know what might be causing that issue, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks,
Mike
Another option is to draw an image on the layer that is the same size and shape with no border as the tab. The trick is to fill it with a color and then set the transparency to 99% so it is invisible, and lets the base layer tab show through. It has to have a fill, because if it has no fill, the base shows through, but it won't register clicks.
That's a great solution, Walt! Thanks! Again, can't believe I didn't think of that. Onward.
Walt is fast! Thanks again.
Glad that was able to assist you Mike :)
This may be a related issue. I have a matching drag and drop interaction that allows 2 attempts, and I have created custom Correct, Incorrect, and Try Again layers. I set the option on the base layer to reset to initial state when revisited.
I put a Continue button on the Try Again layer that I want to take the learner back to the base layer of the same slide, but I can't get it to work. I would swear I have done this in the past -- but maybe it wasn't for a quiz slide.
In the attached Storyline 1 file, Slide 1 shows the built-in layers, and Slide 2 is the one I customized. The only difference I can see between the setup of the two slides is that I added an "answer" layer which has the triggers that would have been on the Incorrect layer.
In my full course, I tried having that Continue button jump to a different slide, and that worked. So, why won't it jump to the same slide?
This is what happened when I tried it in SL2, and I think it is what you want.
Maybe it is time to close and restart SL?
Thanks for the quick reply, Walt! Yes, that's what I want to happen - although it would be nice if it also pulled the pieces back apart instead of showing them still locked together. I thought that's what "reset to initial state" would have done.
However, even after closing my file and restarting Storyline 1, this does not work. When I click Continue on the Try Again layer, nothing happens.
Maybe I'll see if I can get a variable to do the job. Thanks again.
Bingo, you got it!!
When I imported to SL2, it reset that slide to automatic choice. When I changed it to reset to initial state, it quit working.
I put a blank slide in front of it, with the trigger to jump to next when timeline starts. Then I changed the button on the Try Again slide to jump to that new slide. It advances to the quiz so fast you don't even see it, but the quiz is reset.
Hmmm.... I will give that a try. I also tried splitting the question into 2 slides and that looked like it was going to work, but then the trigger to display the answer didn't work. I can't seem to win with this one!
But I am going to try this "blank slide" idea and we'll see. Thanks once again for your diligence in helping me solve this one. I'll let you know what happens.
Still working on this, but it's still not quite right. It's stuck in a loop on the Try Again layer. I have resorted to Excel (see attached) to organize my thoughts. KC in the filename = knowledge check.
I can't look at it anymore today. I'll tackle it again tomorrow!
Hi Walt,
Just to provide closure on this, I have attached a 2-slide .story file with my solution. I ended up not using the blank slide. People will just have to deal with the fact that the answers still look locked together on the second attempt. Other than that, it works exactly as I want it to.
Thanks once again for your help!
Norma
It looks good to me, and I'm glad you got it going.
What I do for this is to simply copy the base layer contents into a new layer. Then you can select this as a option :)
or don't copy anything - simple!
So simple, it's brilliant! Thanks for sharing your idea, David.
Hi, thanks community for a workaround to showing the base layer of a slide from other layers (add a trigger box with 99% transparency on all layers).
Articulate - maybe you can introduce a trigger function that has 'show base layer' so we don't need to do this fiddly work around? - Thanks
Think of it not as showing the base layer, but hiding the other layers. If you are showing only one layer at a time, that trigger exists. It is "Hide this layer". The transparent layer in the above post was to allow a click anywhere to hide the layer, thus "showing" the base. It's not until you have several layers showing concurrently that you need a workaround. The workaround is when the learner clicks, show another layer. This layer is completely blank, is set to hide other layers, and has a trigger to hide itself when its timeline starts. One click, one trigger, numerous layers hidden.
The best Option really would be, if we had the trigger "Show Base Layer".
Nevertheless, I think I have another workaround:
TLDR: Instead of copying the base layer, I added an empty layer with the trigger "Hide this layer" as soon as the timeline starts. Then you can call this layer as if it were the base layer.
I have a short history of 10 epochs. The Navigation is done by a drawer. So each story in on a layer and every layer is displayed depending on the value of the drawer. The base layer should be 0. So I added an 11th layer. And whenever the drawer gets the value 0 I show layer 11, which is immediately closed.
That's what I do too. I create a blank "close" layer and call it to hide any open layers before hiding the close layer itself, which then shows the baselayer again.
Wow. After all this time I'm surprised Articulate hasn't added a simple Return to Base Layer as an option in the Triggers. But I found a simple solution for my use: Set a button/text/image to Hide this layer when user clicks. Not sure if this will work for everyone.
Great idea, but base layer cant be copied if it has an interaction in it.
Nalin,
What do you mean when you say interaction, and what do you mean when you say can't be copied? Because if, being on the base, you press CTRL-a, everything on the base will be selected. If you follow that with CTRL-c, everything will be copied, and you can navigate to another slide or layer, and when you press CRTL-v, everything will be copied to the new slide or layer. Under certain circumstances, some triggers may not be copied, but David only wanted the objects, anyway.