mouse control in captivate

[Guest]

Do you have plans to provide more mouse control in captivate? I would like to have better control of where the mouse originates on each slide. A mouse on the screen before it is really required is very distracting.

[Lilybiri]

I think you misunderstand this forum: it is a user forum, only very occassionally someone from Adobe pops in.

If you want to reach them, it is a better idea to enter a feature request. The link is on the start page of these Captivate forums,

Lilybiri (just a user like you)

BTW: you can move a mouse object's timeline on the slide, just like for any other object!

[AndyKingInOC]

as lilybiri said you can control when/where it appears by moving its start point on the timeline.

To move the origin point, click on the 'start' of it's motion path on the stage and drag it where you want it to start.  Same with the end point. 

hope that helps.

[Guest]

Thank you for your answers.

I do have control on the start and end of the mouse movement on the first slide I insert the mouse object. From the second slide onwards, it appears that I cannot move the start point on the screen. I understand that I can move the mouse on the timeline. The annoying part is that the mouse just stays on the screen till it becomes active on the timeline.

I am using captivate v5.5. If you have ideas of I could solve the issue, please let me know.

[AndyKingInOC]

Ah, i see what you're saying now.  sorry, I misunderstood.

Yes you're right.  once you start recording the 'start' point of the motion path is where ever you created mouse event (click, etc) previously.  Manipulating the object in the timeline only changes when it starts moving, as you indicated above.  How I think of it in my head is that each capture session is one set of actions and captivate is trying to make it as seamless as possible to the viewer.  Not the answer you want to hear, I don't think.

The way I've worked around the staying on screen is to manually capture the screen with the print screen button, then move the mouse and click to capture the movement and the action. You can also do this after recording by making a duplicate of the slide, remove the mouse, add/remove what objects I need from the two slides.  So if I'm using captions and highlights etc to point out screen elements I do that, then have all the mouse movement on the other slide which is very short, just a few seconds.  yes, I do have two (or more) slides for every action I'm capturing.

Any extra slides I have once I actually start editing I just delete.  Caveat, this may make your cptx file larger than it really is, so tread cautiously if project file size is an issue.

Not sure what else you've tried, but you might find using different recording methods (demo, assessment, etc) might suit your workflow or final product better.

hope that helps.

[Guest]

I could try duplicating the slides and having the mouse movement on one. In my project I am using screenshots and simulating the mouse movement, so I have not created the recording actually.

I wish Captivate gave the flexibility for the mouse start and end points. As Lilybiri suggested, I will have to post in the feature request page.

Thank you for your response. I really appreciate the help.

[RodWard]

What I do is add another slide immediately before the slide where I want to have the mouse restart from a different point.  I make this extra slide very short, perhaps only two or three tenths of a second.  It should have the same background as either the slide before or after so that nobody notices any change.  Then on this extra slide I move the mouse pointer to the spot where it should start from for the next slide.  The mouse duration is as short as I can possibly make it, usually only one tenth of a second.

What happens at runtime is that the action of the mouse movement is so quick the user does not see it happen, but on the next slide the mouse moves from where it finished up on the previous slide.

If you use the same background image as one of the other existing slides (by dragging it from the Backgrounds folder in the Library) there is no hit to filesize because you are just reusing an image that is already downloaded.  You can have as many of these extra slides as you want without really affecting the performance of the movie.

[Guest]

That makes sense. Thank you for your response. I used your method and it worked out great!

[donalall]

Hi Rod,

re: "Mouse control" in this thread.

Does mouse control functionality now exist in Captivate 7?

If not, my scenario is below.

Scenario:

I have a training simulation slide where user gets two attempts to click a menu option. If they don't do it correctly the next slide shows a demonstration of the step i.e. mouse moves and clicks menu option. I have put this on a seperate slide to avoid the mouse icon being displayed. How do i stop this "mouse movement" slide being displayed if the user clicks "Back" through the course, or clicks "Next" having viewed the course once?

Regards

Donal.

[Lilybiri]

Started to answer, but you want Rod. Fine.

[RodWard]

You would probably need to do this with Advanced Actions. 

Have a variable that gets incremented from 0 to 1 if the slide in question gets visited by the user.  Use the ON Slide Enter event of that mouse demo slide to execute a conditional action that first checks the value of the variable.  If the variable is equal to 0 then Continue so that the slide gets played, ELSE jump to the next slide.

[donalall]

Hi Rod,

Thanks for the answer.

1. I'm assuming by your answer that the "mouse control" functionality is not in Captivate 7.

2. I forgot to mention that i am using advanced actions with the attempts. So a more complete answer would be on 2nd attempt set "ShowStepDemo" variable to 1. On StepDemo slide - on slide enter - if "ShowStepDemo" varaible = 1 play slide, ELSE jump to next slide. If StepDemo slide is played on Slide exit set "ShowStepDemo" = 0.

[RodWard]

I'm not sure what you mean by "mouse control functionality".

Captivate DOES allow you to add a moving mouse cursor to any slide and allows you to specify where the mouse moves to and when it starts and stops that movement.  It allows you to show the mouse click with animations etc as well.  So, if that's NOT what you want, I'm not really sure what aspect of controlling the mouse you are referring to.  By your explanation above, you should be able to create a slide that does exactly this.

Your second point above where you describe what should happen after each attempt is purely related to Advanced Actions and has nothing to do with the mouse (other than that the user probably uses the mouse to click something).

So could you please clarify where you are not seeing a solution here?

[donalall]

Hi Rod,

First point: Re: mouse control functionality

What i initially wanted to do was have the attempts and the mouse movement on the same slide. i.e. user have two attempts and if they get both wrong then a mouse moves to show them the step. The problem was that the mouse icon is displayed from the start of the slide even though the actual mouse movement is at the end of the timeline. I only want the mouse icon to appear just before the mouse begins to move. This was my inital question - is this still the case with Captivate 7 (or maybe i'm just not doing something correctly). For this reason i moved the "show step mouse movement" to a new slide.

Second point: I know it relates only to advanced actions. It was just a workaround for "show step mouse movement" slide so user doesn't view it when clicking "back" through a course.

[RodWard]

As far as how the mouse is displayed and functions on slides, there is no difference in Captivate 7 from previous versions. Your solution of having the mouse on the following slide is the best way to organise this.  If you use the same background graphic or master slide on both slides then there is no real penalty in filesize for using two slides instead of one.

[donalall]

Ok - Thanks Rod.

Re: How do I stop this "mouse movement" slide being displayed if the user clicks "Back" through the course.

My solution and your solution do not work for this because if I am clicking back through the course it will always return me to the slide I just left (i.e "Go to next slide"). Any ideas how to overcome this?

[RodWard]

There are a couple of ways around this.

If you are adding Back and Next buttons to the slide for navigation, just make the action of the Back button of the slide AFTER the mouse movement slide to jump back two slides instead of one.

Alternatively, if you were intending to use the Back buttons on the playbar instead:

Create a conditional action set to be executed ON SLIDE ENTER of the mouse movement slide. 

The condition will check the value of two system variables before deciding whether to Continue with playback of the Mouse Movement slide or to jump to the slide BEFORE the mouse movement slide.

The two variables being compared are cpInfoPrevSlide  and cpInfoCurrentSlide.  These two variables hold the numbers of the slide you were one BEFORE the current slide, as well as the number of the current slide respectively. 

So your condition will be something like: IF cpInfoPrevSlide is greater than cpInfoCurrentSlide jump to slide (the number of the slide on the timeline BEFORE the mouse movement slide) ELSE Continue.

[donalall]

Hi Rod

How do i combine both your solutions into the one conditional action?

(I have 3 slides - slide 1 attempts step 1, slide 2 mouse demo, slide 3 - attempts step 2)

Solution 1 (fails attempts - so views mouse demo of step):

On slide 2 Enter (mouse demo slide)

IF

"ShowDemoSlide" = 1

THEN

Continue (play slide 2),

ELSE

Go to Next Slide (slide 3).

Solution 2 (Skips mouse demo slide when navigating back through course)

FYI: "ShowDemoSlide" = 0

On slide 2 Enter (mouse demo slide)

"IF

cpInfoPrevSlide > cpInfoCurrentSlide

THEN

Jump to slide 1 (demo slide is slide 2)

ELSE

Continue

[RodWard]

I think you're misunderstanding my solution.  Both of them were covering a case where the user was backing up through the slides in the course.

In my first solution it was designed to cover reversing back through the slides using Back buttons placed on the slides. 

In my second solution it was covering a case where the only back button available was the one in the playbar.

The way you've worded your combination solution is something different.  You're trying to cover situations where the user enters the slide from two different directions.  One going forward and one coming back.

[donalall]

Yes my combination solution is something different - sorry i should have been more specific. I'm trying to combine the solution from your earlier message number 10 - going forward, with your playbar solution in your message number 16 - moving back. How do i combine these in one conditional action that's tested on Slide Enter of Mouse Demo slide?

[RodWard]

I believe you would NOT combine the two solutions into one conditional action.

You have one situation where some actions get executed on the slide BEFORE the mouse movement slide, whereas the conditional action I was explaining above gets executed ON SLIDE ENTER of the mouse movement slide itself.  So since these actions happen on two different slides and are dealing with totally different issues really, there's no reason I can see to even try to combine them into the same conditional action.

[donalall]

HI Rod,

Re: conditional action ON SLIDE ENTER of the mouse movement slide itself.

"IF cpInfoPrevSlide is greater than cpInfoCurrentSlide jump to slide (the number of the slide on the timeline BEFORE the mouse movement slide) ELSE Continue."

Not sure how "cpInfoPrevSlide" works? cause in the two column list below it is never greater than current slide. (PrevSlide - returns the number of the slide previous to the current slide: I'm assuming previous in relation to slide's position in the project/timeline)

In column 1 below i am clicking the button on the playbar to navigate 4 slides.

Column 2 shows the value of "cpInfoPrevSlide".

Also I'm not sure why the underlined items in Column 2 have the values they have.

Nav

Prev

Slide 1 = -1

Slide 2 = 0  Slide 1

Slide 3 = 1  Slide 2

Slide 4 = 2  Slide 3

Slide 3 = 3  ??

Slide 2 = 0  Slide 1

Slide 1 = 1 Slide 2

Slide 2 = 0  Slide 1

Slide 3 = 1  Slide 2

Slide 4 = 2  Slide 3

Slide 1 = 3 ??

Slide 2 = 0 Slide 1

[RodWard]

I can confirm that you're right.  These values make no sense at all.  I think this indicates this system variable has a bug.

According to the Captivate 7 Variables dialog for the cpInfoPrevSlide variable : Returns the number of the slide previous to the current slide (uses 1-based index).

I understood this to mean that it was showing the number of the slide from which the user had just left.  But that cannot be according the tests we've just done.

Hence it's probably a bug and my previous suggestion will not work.

[Lilybiri]

?? I checked and cpInfoPrevSlide gives me the correct number. The description in the Variables dialog box is not correct (not the only one IMO), it is not 1-based but 0-based index.

Because of the sometimes confusing descriptions, I had published the list with system variables in CP6:

http://blog.lilybiri.com/system-variables-in-captivate-6

And I just checked, this variable is behaving exactly the same way in 7.

Sorry to interrupt your discussion, will refrain now for the rest.

Lilybiri

[RodWard]

Lieve is correct.  If the index for cpInfoPrevSlide is 0 (zero) based, rather than 1-based, then it is showing the correct slide.

However, this just makes things a little more difficult for you much when trying to find a solution for your navigation issue.  It means you could only use the method I suggested if you also include an Expression to add 1 to the value of the cpInfoPrevSlide System Variable to ensure your math calculation would work.