Forum Discussion
Slide navigation variable & trigger jumps to a random slide after a Results slide
I create a lot of templates and e-learnings for our instructional design team to use. To make them as clean, consistent, and easy-to-use, I usually place our custom navigation buttons on a layer in the master template, and trigger them via variables. I set this up like this:
- Variables:
- Nav_Next (True/False)
- Nav_Back (True/False)
- Master slide has a layer with the custom nav buttons on it.
- Trigger: When the timeline ends, show nav layer.
- (on Master Slide)
- (on Master Slide)
- Trigger: When user clicks either nav button (Back or Next), toggle relevant variable (Nav_Next / Nav_Back)
- (on Master Slide Nav Layer)
- (on Master Slide Nav Layer)
- Trigger: When Nav_Next changes, jump to slide xyz.
- (on each slide where nav is used)
This is how I've done it for nearly 2 years now, and it's always worked perfectly.
Around 3 or 4 weeks ago, I was reviewing one of our builds when I encountered an issue where on the Results slide, the 'Jump to Slide when Nav_Next changes' trigger was choosing a random slide to take the learner to, instead of the slide that it's meant to (see below).
Screenshot of the trigger on the Results slide, which should take me to 2.2 Question 1 when clicking Try Again, but it takes me to 1.4 2.0 Site Access.I thought maybe the variable was firing from the hidden Success layer and was just getting confused (the Nav_Next is also on the Success layer for when the learner passes the quiz), so I added the condition you see in the screenshot above, but it still threw me to the wrong slide.
It is only happening after a Results slide. At first I thought it was isolated to the specific template/module I was building, but one of our other builders has had this happen in a completely different template/module/file.
What's weirder, is that it only happens to the specific variable used (Nav_Next). I managed to work around it by creating a new Nav_Next2 variable and used that on the Results slide, but some of our modules have multiple quizzes and Results slides throughout, so this won't work in the long run. It also breaks if you want to review your answers, and you click next, which then fires the Nav_Next variable, and takes you to that random 2.0 slide. It doesn't matter when you fire the Jump to Slide via the Nav_Next variable changing, if it fires after the Results slide, you are always taken to the randomly selected slide.
My guess is that a recent update has caused some issue with the Slide ID's in the back end. I had an issue 8 or so months back where object class IDs were not being created properly, with some not registering all the characters, causing their IDs to break, so it could be something similar? I'll link to that post here.
Has anyone encountered this issue in their own builds? And is Articulate aware of this bug, and is it being tracked?
I'd be happy to share the affected .story files with Articulate, but I can't publish them here due to privacy with our clients.
2 Replies
UPDATE:
We've identified that when we lightbox a slide, it's setting the Nav_Next trigger to go to the slide that the lightboxed slide would have gone to.
Context:
When a learner gets a question wrong a second time, we lightbox the slide with the relevant information, so the learner can make an informed answer on their third attempt. We have the Nav_Next triggers on the slide that is lightboxed, but we have a condition on the Show Nav layer on the Master Slide to only show the layer if the slide is inside the player frame (i.e. not lightboxed).
Through some testing, we've found that even though this condition is set, its actually overwriting and LOCKING the Go To Slide triggers that are fired by the Nav_Next variable, so it fires to that specific slide regardless of when you fire it (the first time it fires again via the variable will always be the slide that it would have gone to in the lightboxed slide).
We have found a way around it by adding the "If this slide is inside the player frame" to each Go to Slide when Nav_Next changes trigger on each slide. It seems that the variable + trigger combo gets initialised when the slide starts, regardless of if the layer is shown or the trigger is fired. Since its on the lightboxed slide, it appears to lock it in place, bricking the course from there onwards.Still, the lightboxed slide should not be adjusting or locking other slides into a specific trigger if the layer or trigger was never fired.
Hello Alistair,
Thanks for giving a detailed description of the behavior you're experiencing. I opened a support case on your behalf so we can have a support engineer request a copy of your file for testing. They'll be able to review your triggers and see if there's anything that needs to be adjusted! You're in good hands, and someone from our team will be in touch shortly.
