Forum Discussion
Layers not changing with Button Interaction
Hello,
I've set up a Base Layer consisting of multiple buttons. When a learner clicks a button, I would like different layer to be displayed. That's the theory anyway. Unfortunately, it's not working for me in practice.
When I preview the slide and click on the first button (e.g. Case Team), the layer for that button is displayed as expected. However, when I click on another button (e.g. Search Officer), the layer linked to that button is not displayed but remains stuck on the layer of the first button that was selected. Is there anything that I'm missing here? For your information, I've attempted to simply replicate the behaviour of the slide to the behaviour of the Tabs Interaction template within the Content Library.
Maybe I'm missing something, but the screen capture doesn't show you ever hiding the layers above the base. That is, if you click one button and show the Case Officer layer, it just stays on top of the base layer forever. Should you maybe hide Case Officer when someone clicks on Digital Forensics?
11 Replies
When you select the slide properties (gear) icon of your layer, do you have "Prevent the user from clicking on the base layer" unchecked?
I would also put all of your buttons on the base layer in a button set (select all > right click > button set).
Let me know if those suggestions help!Hi Ashley,
Thank you for your reply. I can confirm that on every layer, the "Prevent the user from clicking on the base layer" option is unchecked, and I have added all the buttons on the Base layer to a new Button Set. Unfortunately, this hasn't resolved the issue.
For what it's worth I have attached a screen grab of what I see when I select the "Search Officer" button first when I preview the Base slide. This successfully shows the "Search Officer" layer. I've also added a "Selected" state for the button which turns to green. Note that when I select a few other buttons in Preview, they turn to green, but the associated layer for that button does not display. I can only change a layer by selecting select the "Replay" button in Preview, which resets to the Base layer and then when I select a button it loads the layer for that button.My initial thought is the triggers might be crossed. Like, maybe one trigger was duplicated out for every button but each trigger still has the layer it was duplicated with instead of the layer respective to the button. Happy to take a look at the .story file to troubleshoot. Without it, there's a fair amount of guessing.
JackRaouzeos: The triggers in the screenshot you attached look fine. (Kudos for giving the buttons and layers meaningful names!)
There is one other thing to check in the Slide Layer Properties: Be sure the Visibility is set to Hide other slide layers.
- I have to admit, though, that that's probably not the problem. Even if the first layer shown isn't hidden, any higher layer should show above it.
The most likely issue: the slide is corrupted. I suggest you rebuild it.
Here’s some standard advice that the staff usually offers:
- Be sure you only work on Storyline files located on your local hard drive.
- Quit Storyline and relaunch it.
- If that doesn’t help, try to repair Storyline (see
If all that fails to help, submit a case directly to the Articulate staff.
Hi Judy,
Thank you for your advice. Thankfully I have resolved the issue. I have very much appreciated the rapid and thoughtful responses from everyone.
Maybe I'm missing something, but the screen capture doesn't show you ever hiding the layers above the base. That is, if you click one button and show the Case Officer layer, it just stays on top of the base layer forever. Should you maybe hide Case Officer when someone clicks on Digital Forensics?
Hi Carl,
I think that was it. I'm not sure how layers are hidden, but I did notice that the buttons in each layer were in some way "active". When I went through each layer and deactivated the buttons, this appears to have resolved the issue.
Hiding a layer:
JackRaouzeos: You wrote this in an earlier reply to Carl's "solution":
You mention "buttons in each layer."
All of the unique layer content appears in an area below the buttons on the slide. Therefore, you only need buttons on the base.
- The buttons should not be duplicated on the layers. That just complicates the programming and the accessibility.
If the Visibility in all the Slide Layer Properties are set to Hide other slide layers (as I mentioned previously), you don't need any hide-layer triggers. When the user clicks a button to open another layer, the current layer will automatically close.
As AshleyChiasson said, the buttons on the base could be in a button set if you want only one to appear Selected at a time. And you don't need any triggers for changing to that state. That functionality is built it. (You can find details about built-in states here.)
