interactive video play and replay buttons

May 29, 2019

Holly Heston
By Holly Heston

I've made an interactive video where markers appear at various points. The user clicks the marker, the video pauses, and a text box appears. When they close the box, the video resumes. This works fine. The issues are with Play and Replay buttons that I've tried to set up. Rather than explain everything I've tried and how it doesn't work, I'll just ask.

This is what I am trying to achieve.

  • User clicks play button to start video. Since there is introductory text on the page, when User clicks Play, slide jumps back to original state so that timeline restarts. (Is there a way to have a separate timeline that begins when the video starts and is separate from the main timeline? - Because I think this is where the problem lies.)
  • Play button disappears when user clicks it.
  • Replay button appears after Play button disappears. I want user to be able to replay at any point, ie, return to base slide and restart.

Thank you.

 

 

14 Replies
Ned Whiteley
almost 5 years ago05/29/19 at 11:51 pm (UTC)

Hi Holly,

At this stage I am not sure why you are returning to the start of the timeline when the Play button is clicked. I can understand why you would want to do that when the Replay button is clicked as you are effectively starting again from the beginning. For the Play button, however, I would have thought that all you want to do is continue playing the media from the point at which it last paused.

Are you able to share a copy of your Storyline file here as that would be a big help in diagnosing your problem and providing a solution?

Thanks

Holly Heston
almost 5 years ago05/30/19 at 9:38 pm (UTC)

Ned - thanks for replying.

I want to return to the start of the timeline when the user clicks Play because I can't control how long the viewer sits on the page before clicking the Play button, and the triggers within the video are tied to the page timeline. It seems like the video should have a separate timeline but if so, I can't find how that works.

I've looked at several interactive video examples but they all start automatically.

The Replay button works ok except that if the user hasn't yet clicked one of the markers in the video, when the user clicks Replay, then the video goes back to the start and the user must click Play. But if the user has clicked one of the markers, then it replays automatically without the user having to reclick Play. I can't figure out why it's doing this.

I would like the Play button to disappear after the user clicks it and the Replay button to then appear. However, since the page restarts after clicking Play, it means the Play button never disappears and the Replay button never appears. I've tried solving this with layers but it didn't work.

The video is proprietary. Can I send the file to you at a private account?

Thanks for your put.

Ned Whiteley
almost 5 years ago05/31/19 at 12:27 am (UTC)

Hi Holly,

If you place your video on it's own layer, the layer timeline effectively becomes your video timeline and should therefore give you more control over it.

If the video starts automatically whenever the layer's timeline starts, all you should have to do is to show the layer whenever the Replay button is selected. As I am not at my computer right now I cannot check if you may have to close the layer first or not, but there will be a simple solution to this as well.

I will put together an example and get back to you later today.

Ned Whiteley
almost 5 years ago05/31/19 at 3:12 am (UTC)

Hi Holly,

I have attached two versions of my file as I am not sure if your video only fills part of the slide or the whole slide.

In the first version, the video only covers part of the slide and so the Play Video and Replay Video buttons are both on the base layer. In version 2, because the video layer covers the entire slide (and hence everything on the base layer), I have moved the Replay Video button to the video layer. Other than that, everything else works in the same way.

Note that, in the slide properties for the video layer, the "When revisiting" option is set to "Reset to initial state":

I don't know how you have set up your markers, so I have simply represented that with an information button that appears 4 seconds after the video starts playing and this then pauses the video and opens an information layer. Closing this layer then resumes the video. I didn't concentrate too much on this area as you indicated that your option was already working fine.

Hopefully what I have done with the Replay control will give you some assistance in solving your problem. If you have any further queries, just get back to me here.

Holly Heston
almost 5 years ago06/05/19 at 4:12 pm (UTC)

Thanks for these examples. I set it up like V2, with the Play and Replay buttons on top of the video. I tried to duplicate your sample, but when the user clicks the marker on the video layer, the video disappears. I think I must be setting up the layers incorrectly. Attached is sample. Thanks.

Ned Whiteley
almost 5 years ago06/07/19 at 11:24 pm (UTC)

Hi Holly,

There are a couple of issues that are easy to resolve. First, the reason the video layer is disappearing is because, by default, Storyline hides other layers when a new layer opens. To avoid this happening, all you need to do is to double click on the new layer in the Slide Layers list (bottom right of screen) to open the Slide Layer Properties dialogue box and de-select "Hide Other Slide Layers":

With regards to the second issue, for your Exit button to operate correctly, it needs to be on the layer you are working in. As a result, I have moved the Exit button to the untitled layer. I have also removed the trigger to hide the button as it will be hidden anyway when the untitled layer is hidden.

P.S. I like the use of Dr Robin to avoid using your proprietary video, but I'm not sure I would want him to conduct the operation !

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