Triggers "when state of ... is ..." not working as expected

I tried it, but it still does not work as expected (see also https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/strange-behavior-states-in-drag-and-drop-interaction). The change of the states of drop objects is not detected by the state trigger.

Hey there, Chris!

Thanks so much for replying back with your findings, and I'm sorry this problem resurfaced.

We'll need to take a second look at this, where I've shared your example with our Support Engineers. Keep an eye out for an email from the support@articulate.com soon after we carefully review the behavior! 

This issue is still present and has been for the past several versions. I am currently running v3.46.23620.0. If I could use this functionality it would significantly reduce the time it takes to create a work around for it. 

For example, I have a toggle switch on screen (on/off). If I could trigger based on the state of the toggle it would be a simple matter of creating two triggers. But the best work around I have found is to create a variable and toggle it true/false and then change the state based on the variable change. This gets really bad when you have multiples of these types of toggles as I have to create a new variable for every single one. 

Same here. I would love to see this fixed.

Hello Fridolin,

I appreciate you chiming in to share that you're experiencing a similar issue, but I'm unsure which conversation above you are referring to.

If you could share the details of what you are seeing, that would be helpful. With your permission, I'd like to take a look at your project file to investigate what's happening. You can share it publicly here, or send it to me privately by uploading it here. I'll delete it when I'm done troubleshooting.

Hi Leslie,

I am referring to states as a trigger. I attached a file showing the issue.

 I have 4 buttons as a set and a shape which is hidden and set the trigger as follows:
(i have the egrman version, so translation might be incorrect)

If state of all "button 1,2,3,4" is not "normal"
then: change state of "shape "to "normal"

So, if I click all 4 buttons, the should all have the state "visited" or "active" which means the hidden shape should appear. But it does not - the shape never appears.

If I set it to:
If state of none "button 1,2,3,4" is "normal"
then: change state of "shape "to "normal"

The shape appears as soon as I clicked the first button.

If I set the trigger to:
If state of at least one "button 1,2,3,4" is not "normal"
then: change state of "shape "to "normal"

I expect the shape to appear as soon as i clicked the first button. Even when i clicked all the buttons, the shape does not appear.

I then set the default state to a custom state, since i read that "normal" sometimes leads to unexpected result.

If state of none "button 1,2,3,4" is "start"
then: change state of "shape "to "normal"

the shape shows from the very beginning. Althought allof the buttons are "start"

If I set it to:
If state of all "button 1,2,3,4" is not "start"
then: change state of "shape "to "normal"

the shape will not appear, even if all buttons are visited/active. 

Thanks for sharing your .story file, Fridolin. 

I was able to take a look and I'm seeing the behavior you are reporting and it is similar to the other reports we've seen and this conversation is attached so that we can share updates with you in the future.

In the meantime, I've added an additional slide to your sample project. If you take a look at Slide 2.1, I've set the trigger to change the state of 'OK' to Normal when the state of all of the buttons (1, 2, 3, and 4) are visited. It's working as expected.

Fridolin,

Be aware that "Visited" is a normal state, and reports itself as "Normal".

Be aware that "When states are..." is very flakey, because it is not an action, so doesn't always fire triggers. This is especially true when there are more states to check (four or five seem to be the limit), and is even more of a problem with a NOT condition.

That's why Leslie's approach (States are "Visited") works.

It's not just the Normal state that is a problem. I've attached simple 1-slide Storyline file in which I have 3 buttons that all have a Selected state. 

I want the Submit button to be in the Normal state if at least one of the other buttons is in the Selected state, and I want the Submit button to be set to the Disabled state if none of the other buttons are in the Selected state.

The trigger to change the state of the Submit button to Normal is straightforward and works fine:

As Johan identified over 2 years ago, the logic for changing the state of the Submit button back to disabled when all of the other buttons are not in the Selected state can be expressed in two equivalent ways. The more obvious way is to use the "When the state of none of...is Selected":

Unfortunately, this does not work--the Submit button never gets changed to the Normal state, even when none of the other three buttons are Selected.

A logically-equivalent way to express this is to use the "When the state of all of...is not Selected":

This statement is a bit more awkward, but is logically equivalent to the statement that doesn't work. However, this trigger works fine.

Bottom line: There appears to be a bug (perhaps a long-standing one) in the implementation of the "When the state of none of" trigger, and it does not appear limited to instances where the Normal state is involved.

I've attached my Storyline file which has both versions of the trigger to disable the Submit button, so you can toggle back and forth between them (by disabling the one you don't want) to make testing easier.

Thanks for that explanation and sample file, Ray. 

I was able to follow along and record a Peek 360 video outlining the issue with my team, so much appreciated.

This conversation is attached so that we can share any updates with you here, but I'm happy that you were also able to find a solution in the meantime.