Supressing Timing on First Screen

[UA_Lady]

Hi all...I'm trying to do something new. I'm trying to start from screen 1, and have 3 click boxes to take users to screens 2, 3, and 4 with a BACK return button. For the life of me, I can't find the info on how to have no timing on screen 1. I guess I've never had a static first screen before. Can somebody help out? Thanks!

[Captiv8r]

Hi UA Lady and welcome to our community

Normally you would just insert the click boxes and program them to jump to the respective slides. It really shouldn't matter if slide 1 is set for maybe 3 seconds, as the appearance shouldn't change. However, I'm guessing you have images or Text Captions that your user will click. Perhaps they are fading out of view? If so, you need to edit them and click the Options tab to change to either "Fade in only" or "No transition".

Hopefully something here was helpful... Rick

[UA_Lady]

Thanks Rick. I already have everything set to no fade. I was just concerned that one of our users may take forever to click a box and they'll get tossed out. Maybe I'll just set the first slide to 20 sec. or something to give extra time. Thanks!

[docedoc]

UA Lady,

As I understand it, you need a way to pause the first screen so the user can select a click box, no matter how much the dawdle.

Consider adding a hidden button (Frame width: 0 and Fill transparency: 100) to your 1st slide with settings of On success: no action, Appear after: 0 sec, and Pause after: 0.5 sec (given no fade in otherwise I'd use 1.5 sec).

Set your click boxes to Display for: Rest of slide and Appear after: 0 sec.

In my experience that stops the first slide in it's tracks but allows the user to click an object that has an associated action.

Phil

[Captiv8r]

Hi Phil

I'm a bit confused by your reply. And to be honest, I was a bit confused by UA Lady's question. Here's why.

The Click Box object by its very nature pauses the slide dead in its tracks and makes it just sit there and wait for user interaction. Of course, Captivate being what it is with allowing you to configure things pretty much any way you like, you have the option of turning off the Pause action. (Just click the Options tab and DE-select the "Pause project until user clicks" check box). I'm not sure if this was done here by UA Lady or not.

So here is another confusing point for me. Again, we are able to configure tings as we wish to a very large degree. But why would you use a Button object in this case, only to make it invisible? The Button objects behave just like the Click Boxes. And in my opinion, they are one and the same pretty much, with the Click Box object behaving just like an invisible button.

So if both types of objects pause the slide, why would you choose a Button over a Click Box?

Just curious... Rick

[docedoc]

Rick,

Good question. Here's the situation that led me to that hidden button.

I'm using a skin that includes a playback control and a progress bar because I want the user be able to move forward or backward within the slide audio and move from slide to slide. Many of the slides contain rollover images (with short audio attached to the rollover caption) or as many as four audio animations each of which has its own playback control -- that MP3ToSWF again.

When the slide's audio finishes, I needed a way to pause and let the user click (or rollover) various slide objects in any sequence, repeating some several times if wished. Then when the user is finished interacting with the slide, I want the skin's forward button to be the way of moving to the next slide.

I wanted the pause to be controlled by a single recognizable object so I could find it to make adjustments. (Here I mean I didn't want to have to remember which object or type of object was controlling the pause on a given slide.) Finally, I wanted to see at a glance on the storyboard (thumbnails) whether a slide was set to pause or move ahead automatically.

I though a hidden button would do the trick since I could put it on a slide without worrying about the slide's layout and which other objects a slide might contain. I position the button so that the skin hides it. (This is a location that I don't use for other visible objects, since I don't want them under my skin.) If I see my little green square on a thumbnail, then I know tht the slide pauses. Otherwise I know that it will move ahead automatically.

Works for me. Yeah, well, the honest answer is that I learned how to use a button to pause a slide and still haven't learned much about those click boxes. It's like I finally got this screwdriver and now I use it to paint and open cans. I suspect there are other and better ways? Do tell.

Phil

[docedoc]

Rick,

In another thread you wrote:

"I do believe that if you use a Click Box object, it isn't visible and can be sized and placed in an obscure location. It pauses the slide and if your user clicks the play button in the playback control, the movie will behave as you wish."

Ah, I'll bet that's why the real players use a clickbox. I do recall seeing all those choices in the clickbox edit window and thinking, "Humm wonder why anyone would ever want to do all this." Then I consulted the Captivate Help file for a detailed explaination of why and how to use clickboxes and how they compare to buttons. Yeah, right.

Darn. Now I have to rethink this button business.

Phil