"Jump To" Hotspots on content pages over Master Slide objects

Hi Gary,

One way to do this is by adding your navigation elements to a layer on the master slide and using these to change variables instead of triggering navigation directly. Master slide layers have a trigger bug that prevents some trigger actions from activating.

See the attached for a rudimentary example. This places the navigation on a layer in the master. The layer is shown with a variable listener. Each of the buttons increments a variable. So you'd be able to determine the navigation logic based on when a value changed. When variable Nav1 changes, jump to next slide. OR you could override this by placing a trigger on your base slide to operate differently just for that slide.

The variable increment abstraction opens up some neat possibilities since you can use this to "remote" across the slide and master slide barrier.

One workaround in this file is the addition of a trigger to the feedback master for the layer. When a new layer is shown, chances are it'll hide other layers. I place a trigger that runs .05 seconds into the slide that shows the navigation layer.

Hi Steve,

Thanks so much for the explanation and the example file. Learning from your example, I can see how using a trigger to set a variable and then a " jump to" trigger/action based on that variable value can help make the navigation more flexible.

I'm not sure however that incrementing the numerical variable value with each click of the same button will work in my application. My application will be very non-linear and there will be navigation hot spots on various areas of most content pages. These content page hotspots will jump to various scenes/pages in the presentation. Therefore the clicks of the buttons in the slide master perpetual nav bar will be somewhat random. On some pages, the user may click the slide master nav bar button to navigate, and on other pages they may navigate by other means.

Having said that, is there some other way to detect current page location in the file and add a trigger/action (with conditions) in the slide master hotspot to jump to the desired page based on that current page value? The only way, that's apparent to me now (said complete Storyline newbie), would be to insert a trigger on each content page setting/updating a value to a custom variable such as "CurrentPage". That seems like a bit of a force to me though. It would be really nice if Storyline had system variables that could track info like that.

Disclaimer: My previous authoring tool was Authorware, so I'm coming into Storyline a bit "spoiled" in the functions/variables area

Thanks again for your asssitance.

Gary

Hey Gary -

The incremented variable is just an alternate event to "click". You can listen to a variable from anywhere (master or base) In this case, you can't use some triggers on the click object in master slide layers. This is one of the only ways to bubble up an event to connect with these triggers. So, for example, you could setup a listener that did this on the master slide:

When variable X changes, jump to slide 1 if state of variable Y is true and variable Z is false.

When variable X changes, jump to slide 2 if state of variable Y is true and variable Z is true.

When variable X changes, jump to slide 3 if state of variable Y is false and variable Z is false.

So the change of variable just echoes the click. You could also override the behavior by adding a trigger to a slide or layer:

When variable X changes, jump to slide 15.

- OR -

When variable X changes, show layer KITTENS.

Thanks Steve. I got you on the "listener" aspect of it> Its just to tell me that it's been clicked and it's time to navigate "somewhere". I also get that I can jump to anywhere in the file at that point. What I apparently I was not being clear about was that in order for me to tell it where to jump, I would need to know exactly what content page it is currently on in order to specify the jump. It will not be enough for me to know that a slide master button was clicked and others were not. There will be dozens of pages in my file with at least a 20 potential unique navigation destinations. A single slide master button will need to be able to navigate to any of those pages.

As you point out, I can indeed define the jump to destination based on the value of a variable (or several variables). I will apparently just have to define those variables on the page level in order to be able to evaluate them after the listener detects the click and then define the jump to destination. My hope was that there was some inherent way to read current location (undocumented system variable rather than create custom variables to track location. Yes, I can be very lazy sometimes.

It sure would be a lot easier if I a content slide hotspot could work on top of a slide master object. Did I understand you correctly to say that it is a bug that they cannot now? Or is it normal current behavior and what I'm asking for is actually a feature request?

Gary

Not sure I follow this:

"It sure would be a lot easier if I a content slide hotspot could work on top of a slide master object. Did I understand you correctly to say that it is a bug that they cannot now? Or is it normal current behavior and what I'm asking for is actually a feature request?"

You *can* make a content slide hotspot work over top of a slide master object. But the slide master object under any object on the base slide won't receive events.

Sorry Steve, I'm afraid that's the best I can explain what I was originally trying for. I do appreciate you taking the time to respond.

I can't make a content page hotspot respond at all when it's placed directly over the nav bar image which displays in the content slide via the the slide master. As a test, if I extend the content page hotspot above the nav bar image, the finger cursor and click response work when I point the mouse cursor to the portion of the hotspot that extends above the slide master object. But as soon as the mouse cursor goes into the area of the slide where the slide master graphic is, the rest of that hotspot goes dead.

I can make your workaround of hotspots in the slide master (with variables) work for my navigation needs, but my "feature request" question was about being able to do what I describe above.

Hey Gary -

Sounds like a bug. I haven't seen this one before. Can you produce an example that illustrates what you're seeing?

Side note, I tend not to use hotspots in favor of shapes with transparent fills and no strokes. Unless I need cursor control, there are lots more possibilities.

Hi Steve,

Given my inexperience with the tool, it's probably more likely its user error. But anyway, I have created and attached a simple story file that demonstrates what I am experiencing.

In the file you do not see the slide master generated nav bar in the content slides until you preview the slide. To illustrate I extended the content page hotspots a bit above the height of the nav bar graphic. That way when you preview the file, you can see how the hotspot is active above the graphic, but dead once the cursor goes into it.

Interesting idea on using transparent shapes instead of hotspots. I like that idea and hoped that that would make a difference in what I'm seeing with this issue. I tried that on page 3 of the example, but unfortunately the same result with those.

Thanks

Gary

I figured out what the cause of the dead content page hotspots when placed over a slide master object. It was indeed user error. Well at least I assume it was.

I was importing the nav bar image into the larger master slide (numbered 1) rather than the indented layout slide beneath the master. (see capture below). I just tried reversing that and importing the nav bar into the indented layout slide instead, and just like that, the content page hotspots are alive. Feeling kind of stupid that I didnt try that earlier. Oh well, learning somethng new in Storyline every day.

Gary

Glad you got it sorted, Gary