CP7 Advanced Action stopped working

[chris_odonoghue]

I am trying to create a slide that gives answer specific feedback to a multiple choice practice question.  To do this I am using the radio button interaction and an advanced action that displays the appropriate text caption box based on the selected answer.  It also shows the "next" button allowing the user to proceeed to the next slide upon choosing the correct answer.  I have used this method before successfully.  It was working properly for this specific slide.  Then, suddenly, on one preview it stopped working.  Clicking the "Check answer" button has no effect.  No text captions are displayed at all.

If you want to see the problem the (unfinished) project is here.  Slide 6 is the problem.  It should be behaving exactly like slide 4, and was at first.

I'm sure I did not inadvertently change anything about the slide or the action and have checked to see that everything is set properly.  I have checked and rechecked the variable and action names for conflicts with other actions.  I have restarted Captivate and restarted the computer.  I tried assigning a different action to the "Check Answer" button then re-assigned the desired action to try to "reconnect" it.  The action was working correctly each time I previewed the project until one time it did not work.  It has not worked since.  I believe that I only worked on static content slides between the working and non-working previews so I can't see what I could have done to break it.  The problem occurs in both Flash and HTML5 and in both previews and published files.

I must have done something but I can't see what.  Any suggestions would be most apppreciated.

I am using the latest version of Captivate - 7.0.1.237 - on Windows 8.1

Here is a screen shot of the action:

Thanks for anything you might be able to add here.

[Lilybiri]

Maybe the action did get corrupted, and I would just advice you not to spend too much time on finding out what has happened. Personally I would turn the action on slide 4 that is behaving properly into a shared action, and configure that action for this slide.

I could however offer some tips, if you don't mind

• You have a lot of objects to be hidden, and a smaller number to show on this slide. Group all the objects (here I see 6) so that you can reduce the number of statements and parameters in the shared action
  • Hide Gr_slide6
  • Show ReadScale1A
  • Show readScale2Continue
• Be careful with labeling decisions, there can even be a conflict between those labels and labels of actions, objects, variables
• Personally would never use only one character for a decision label

Lilybiri

[chris_odonoghue]

Thank you for your suggestions.  Looking with fresh eyes today I found the problem.  On checking the radio button interaction there was no variable listed.  Somehow the variable holding the selection had become "disconnected" from the interaction.  Re-entering it fixed the problem.  Of course I only discovered this after deleting and recreating the actions and trying your suggestion of sharing the action from the other working slide.  When none of these worked I was trying to figure out what else might be common to all of these "solutions" and eventually found it.

As for your other offered tips, I don't mind at all and welcome them.

I considered grouping items but unless I am missing something there is no group that is common to all options and can be shown/hidden together.  I would have to create separate groups for each alternative answer which seems to me to be about an equal amount of work to showing/hiding individual items.

As for your labelling suggestions, I have adopted them and made the appropriate changes.

Once again, thank you so much for your time and efforts.

[Lilybiri]

Fine, you found the reason.

You know that in latest version 7.0.1.237 the Usage button was added to the Variables dialog box. But too bad, not all variables are detected, those associated with an interaction/widget/TEB are not found as I explained in http://blog.lilybiri.com/new-features-in-captivate-7-dot-01

My tip about grouping (maybe I should have seen your file, could offer more tips) was meant to lower the number of statements with parameters in case you take the tip to use shared actions. In that case, if you will use that shared action a lot of times (even as a template), it is worthwhile to do grouping any way.

Lilybiri

[chris_odonoghue]

Understood I think.  I shall consider groupings more carefully.  Also, I hadn't come across your excellent blog before.  I will keep an eye on that in future. Many thanks for your help.

Chris