Visited State Branching Scenario with Player Next Button State Changes

It looks like the file wasn't attached.  Here is the file.

Hi Michael

change the revisit option on the slide properties to 'resume saved state' and also change the trigger to 'when timeline starts' and put the visited state of the buttons into the conditions.

see attached updated file

Awesome Wendy.  Thank you!  Any chance you can explain why using the states all visited trigger doesn't work, and why it had to be in the format you used with conditions?  I figured that since that trigger came after the disable trigger, it would have seen that all of the shapes had been visited and change the Next button to normal?  Is it because that trigger only occurs once, the first time the slide is visited, and since we must set the slide to 'resume saved state', it will not look at my trigger again, but will look at those triggers that have to do with when the timeline starts?  Thank you again!

Hi Michael

The visited state occurs as soon as the user clicks the button but because you had the slide properties set to 'reset to initial state', each time the user came back to the slide the visited state was reset to normal so your trigger when 'all are visited' never occurred.

If you were using layers on the same slide that trigger would probably work but since you are leaving the main slide then returning you want two things to happen.  e.g. For SL to remember that buttons 1 and 2 have been clicked so you set the revisit option to 'resume saved state' and you want the Next button to change once all nine buttons are visited and the user returns to the 'hub' slide.

You want SL to check what is the state of everything each time the timeline restarts so 'when the timeline starts' and putting the states into the conditions is the approach I would take.

The beauty of SL is you can achieve the same outcome in different ways so others may chime in with a different approach...I use what works for me :-)

Hope that explains it.

You might be able to control the next button with conditions. Don’t set the state of the next button to disabled at the beginning. Set the next button to jump to the next slide when all of the 9 topic buttons are all equal to visited. 

Thanks again Wendy.  I actually did try my original triggers with the slide set to 'resume saved state', but I was trying all of the settings and must have left it on the 'reset to initial state', even though I was sure that was not going to work.  Your method will help me in the future for sure, and the courses I have been working on all pretty much similar original PowerPoint presentations with a 'hub' or 'base' slide with the topics laid out as I had the numbered boxes, and they expand on each, repeating the 'hub' slide showing the topic covered (but it's all linear).  I've just been converting some past Power point Product training, trying to make it a little interactive at least, giving the learner the option to choose the topics in any order they prefer.  Thanks again for your help.  I think using similar logic will also help me with other scenarios I will come across in the future.

Thank you Melanie.  That also worked, and with one less trigger/  I believe I got the idea to disable the Next button initially from a recent Articulate Live webinar where (I think it was David Anderson) showed an example of not allowing the learner to proceed until completing some things and said not to hide the button, but to disable it.  If disabled, then it's clear to the learner that they cannot proceed or that there is more to do before moving to the next slide.  If it's hidden, they may get confused, and if it's there and appears that it should work, I think they also may get confused?  I did something like this before, but at that time I had created my own Previous and Next buttons (and disabled the player buttons).  I didn't have an issue then,  but they was more work to add those.  Thank you!

Glad this information was helpful. I learned this technique from a Storyline newbie I worked with a couple of years ago. I was so surprised - I had never considered not disabling the next button at the beginning of the slide, and thought her alternative method of locking the next button based on the conditions was brilliant! :-)

Good point Michael - that's why I prefer to disable the button otherwise if it's looks clickable but the user can't progress they get frustrated. If I do want to leave it in a normal state, then I add a popup hint that displays for a few seconds 'You must complete all activities on screen before clicking Next' or something visual like that.

Here's a quick peek what I mean

Wendy, I've seen that as well, but have not used it yet.  Thanks again.  This community has been quite helpful as I am fairly new to all of this, but I love it...so much fun!