Hand Cursor Not Showing for Smartshape Button

[rickhumphries86]

Hi - I'm using Cp7 and want to have a smartshape, that contains a user variable (as the text), as a button which displays the hand cursor when you roll your mouse over it.

When I turn the 'show hand cursor' option on this works fine when the smartshape has no text in it...but as soon as I insert the variable string the hand cursor no longer shows when I preview the project.

Is this a bug or is there something I'm not doing right...?

Thanks

Rick

[TLCMediaDesign]

Put a text caption on top of your smart shape with the variable, then group the 2 objects. It should achieve what you are looking for.

[AnitaHorsley]

This is also happening to me but not even with text in the SS, could be an image. The hand cursor shows up on preview, but not when published. Also happening with web links that are within text captions. Very strange.

[ElGuitarMan0]

I'm having a similar issue with a button. The hand cursor shows on most of the left side of the button and for just a part of the right side of the button. Very strange.

[rickhumphries86]

Thanks all - yes it is a bit strange. I think this must be a bug. @TLCMediaDesign's solution is a decent workaround though so thankyou.

[RodWard]

I haven't so far encountered this issue, but I'd be trying removal and replacement of the offending Smart Shape buttons first before looking at adding more interactive objects.

Has anyone found a definite way to reproduce this bug at will by some process, or is to seemingly random?

[rickhumphries86]

I seem to be able to reproduce this at will. If I start a new project. Add a new variable and assign it with a random value. Then add a smartshape and add the variable in as text (e.g. $$testvariable$$). Then click to use smartshape as a button and choose the option to use hand cursor (I also usually click to disable click sound effect).

I often get the hand cursor only appearing over half the smartshape as @ElGuitarMan0 describes if the smartshape is large enough. If the smartshape is small then the hand cursor won't show up at all.

[ElGuitarMan0]

Mine is not a smartshape though - just a button. But what I did was I deleted all elements from my slide except for the button itself. Then I previewed the slide and the problem was not there any longer. So now I just have to determine which element on my slide is causing the problem. Hopefully this will be a clue as to how this can be reproduced assuming it's a bug.

[TLCMediaDesign]

With AS3, this is one of the typical functions of a movieclip as a button with children, as the smartshape with text would be. When the cursor runs over the text part it loses the hand cursor. The mouseChildren would need to be set to false. I would think this could be easily added by Adobe for future functionality.

[rickhumphries86]

Yes this sounds like what must be happening. @ElGuitarMan0 - I imagine you may have had a text caption or a transparent part of an image positioned over the top of the button. If you put all the elements back on the slide -  click the button and then click 'bring selected objects to the front' before previewing the slide again, see if that fixes it.

[ElGuitarMan0]

Thanks @rickhumpries86. What I did was I narrowed the problem down to a text animation. I only left 2 elements on the stage:

1) A button

2) A text animation (a plus sign)

In this first picture of the stage, the problem exists. The frame of the + is indicated but is not overlapping the button.

How I corrected it was I had to move the text animation up about 9 times (Ctrl + up arrow) to the position indicated in this next screen shot. Then there was no interference from the + text animation. For the animation I used the Disperse effect. To get the + sign that large, I used Arial size 72 font. So I'm not sure if this is considered a bug, or there is something else that I'm not understanding about the interaction of the text animation and its affect on the stage to other elements.

[RodWard]

The interference zone might be taking into account the total area covered when the animation 'disperses'.  Try a different text animation option and see if the interference zone changes.

[ElGuitarMan0]

Good idea Rod. I tried 3 different randomly chosen effects and unfortunately the problem remained.

So then I started experimenting with the font size and voila! That was the problem.

Using that large of a font seems to create an invisible boxed frame that interferes with the mouse over of the button. Each time I reduced the font size and re-tested, this slowly added back the proper mouse-over effect of the cursor over the button.

I then deleted the text animation and recreated it from scratch and was able to reproduce the problem again.

[ElGuitarMan0]

I was able to work around this bug with the following solution:

Do not use the text animation. Instead, use a text caption and add the effect using the Effects panel. Looks and behaves indentically to the text animation but it doesn't create the invisible interference frame. Works like a charm now!

[TLCMediaDesign]

Create your smartshape with variable text (not as a button), duplicate it, align it with the first smart shape and give it a transparent fill. Make the duplicate act as a button with hand cursor. Group them and it will work.

[Just_Anythin]

I'm still seeing this Hand Cursor misaligned to a Smart Shape button with variable text in Captivate 9.0.2.421.

To Recreate:

1. Add a smart shape, of height 30 or so pixels, with text, including a variable (For example: Begin Lesson 1 - $$_L_01_Name$$).
2. Select Use as Button option, with the Hand Cursor option turned on under the Actions tab.
3. View the states, and change the text color, etc. for Rollover, Down, and other custom states (e.g. Visited state, or Inert state for an inactive button).
4. Exit the state.
5. Create another button the same as the first, but with no variable text.
6. Publish the course and observe the rollover behavior of the hand cursor.

My experience is that the hand cursor does not appear on the button with the variable text until the bottom of the cursor is approximately aligned with the top of the shape. This offsets the hand cursor so that it does not appear to overlay the button. On the other shape, the hand cursor appears as soon as the tip of the cursor arrow enters the shape's real estate on the screen, which is as it is expected.

This is pretty much of a drag that the issue was reported two iterations ago, but not fixed yet. The workaround offered by TLCMediaDesign is not going to be viable in all situations, and with the use of multi states it doesn't make sense.