Matching drag and drop activity

Because the target boxes are so small, the free answer that's hiding the dropped one doesn't move into an empty slot because it's not on the target. In the built-in method, answers can compete for the targets but in your custom version, the answer choice on the right isn't on the target:

As far as the free answer is concerned, it's on its own starting point, not a target, so there's nothing for it to get out of the way of.

There are probably a few ways of rigging up a solution, including some with JavaScript, but I think the easiest workaround would be to have all of the answer choices stacked together so that none of them are near the targets in the first place. The learner can then drag the top one to a target, revealing the second in the pile, and when that drag that one the third one will show. If they remove or replace one of them, it'll return to its origin, the pile.

Either that or a bucket of triggers, or a single JavaScript trigger to essentially replace and condense the logic the other triggers would use to check which spot is empty and move the now-free answer to it.

Thanks I have done other ones in the way that you describe, I was just hoping that there was a way to mirror the built in functionality. It's a shame that we can't resize the boxes on the built in version as that would be so much better!

JoC62​ a fix that might work for you in your second problem in your version, in the drag and drop options (Format tab > Drag and Drop), tick "Return item to start point if dropped outside a target” Combine this with "Only one item per drop target"

This means a slot can't be double-occupied so the second item bounces back to its origin. It's not a true swap (the user has to consciously drag the first item away first), but it prevents the "sitting behind" problem. You could do it with triggers but that would be a lot of triggers 😬. If I were doing it I’d use Javascript