Status completed and non-mandatory slides

There are two ways a module gets the status Completed.

1.       A minimum (most times all) number of slides is visited

2.       A minimum quiz result

With the first option you have a problem when the project contains non-mandatory slides such as slides used as lightboxes or slides with 'extra' information. If the students 'skips' these slides he doesn't reach the status Completed.

My solution for this problem is that at the start of the project the non-mandatory slides are automatically visited.

Variables

Each non-mandatory slide has its own variable: init1Done, init2Done, init3Done etc. These variables tell Storyline if a slide has been visited (initialized). There is also a variable initAllDone which tells if the initialization process is done.

 Triggers on slide Initialize:

Triggers on non-mandatory slides:

Steps initialization

1.       The project start at the slide Initialize

2.       Because init1Done is False Storyline jumps to the non-mandatory slide More Info 1

3.       On More Info 1 the variable Init1Done is set to True

4.       and because initAll is False Storyline returns to the slide Initialize

5.       On Initialize the first trigger is skipped because init1Done is true

6.       The second trigger tells Storyline to jump to slide More Info 2

7.       The process on More Info 2 is the same as on More Info 1 (only with a different variable)

8.       Back on the first slide. The first two triggers are skipped and InitAll is set to True

9.       Storyline continues to the next slide (Menu)

If the student visits a non-mandatory slide the variable initAll is True which prevents a jump to the slide Initialize.

Prevent flashing

To prevent that during the initialization the content of the non-mandatory slides flashes up, all objects have a small delay:

 

... but I cannot figure out this

In the example there are two extra buttons. You can use these to reset the variables and to restart the initialization process (something that will never happen in a real project).

The strange thing is that after visiting at least one slide (from the slide Menu) these buttons work perfect. However when I do not visit an information slide, reset the variables a click on the button Replay results in a white screen. Does anyone has any idea what I am missing?

... and found a solution!

Cleo Sinues, Customer Support Engineer at Articulated responded to my question and suggested the following:

The reason why your content is displaying a blank screen after the variables are chanced is because as soon as you select the "Replay" button, it jumps to slide 1.1 goes through several conflicting jumps (jump to 1.1/2.1/2.2) and loops. You will get a different behavior if you break the loop by changing on of the conditions to true. It would be best that you try re-evaluate your Jump to triggers based on the conditions or value of the variables. 

This wasn't the solution but it made me think that at revisiting slide 1.1 it should have some more time to 'settle'. After adding the two jump-triggers to the Text Box Title instead of the slide object itself the Replay function also works perfect.

These are the triggers on slide 1.1 of the improved version:

This blog is available in Dutch on http://www.dorna.nl/status-completed-ook-met-informatieschermen/. You can also visit this side for a online version of the project.