layer order not working in captivate 9?

[JGarrou]

Am I going insane?

I have a number of objects on my slide. I need the GrayShadeBox to be under the "pop up" boxes, but over the background. Here, I have it under 2 boxes, but over the other two:

If i try to use the arrange tool (both from the menu and from the "ribbon") to move back (down) one layer, this happens:

It moved down to the bottom of the stack.... 6 spots!

Ditto happens with ctrl+[

Even if I it try to drag it, it won't stay where I dropped it (the red circle), and it actually disappears from the timeline!

Why can't i get this layer to sit between WatchInboxTip_271 and SmartShape_268? What have I done wrong?

[donalall]

Hi JGarrou

I have experienced the same / similiar problem (CP9).

Where i select an object on the timeline and try to move it.

The object part on the timeline moves but the text (name of the object) stays where it is.

For example after i try to move a Smart Shape above a click box.

Text says click box but its object is the Smart Shape. i.e. name and object get mixed up.

It only happened on 1 or 2 projects - can't remember:

• If it was normal or responsive
• if it happened only to specific objects
  

Regards

Donal.

[JGarrou]

donalall‌,

Glad it's not just me. I can say for myself, that:

1. it's not just this graybox (shape), it's appearing in other places.

2. There are 'placeholder objects" on my slides- I don't know if that matters. This box is not one of them.

3. This is a normal project.

4. This is Cap 9 only. It was never Cap 8.

[Lilybiri]

It is an old bug, not consistent but annoying. It is around at least since CP6, where the timeline doesn't correspond anymore with the labels in the first column. Refreshing the workspace or navigating to another slide and coming back mostly solves it.

@JGarrou (Jessica?) this is weird, are you sure the project is not corrupted?

[donalall]

Lieve - thanks for the solution. Donal.

[JGarrou]

Lilybiri‌,

No, I am not sure it's not corrupt- banish the thought! But I followed the Adobe tech's advice and copied all of my slides fresh yesterday. And then this started happening this morning.

Going to another slide does fix the problem where it disappears from the timeline....

But going to a new slide, changing the workspace, or closing and opening the project still doesn't allow me to move the object to where I need it to live.

Oh dear... I am also finding my advanced actions on this slide are all messed up again. This could be a serious problem. And maybe related?..

And I was able to fix my advanced actions, so it wasn't the same problem at all. I still have items on the slide that on the sldie that won't let me put anything between them. It's not the graybox that is the problem, it's items under it that won't play along.

Oh well... I deleted the items I needed on top and recreated them and that seems to work.

[Lilybiri]

Did you customize a lot? If not, please use the CleanPreferences file in the utils subfolder of the Captivate installation folder. To preserve customization, have a look at:

Captivate 8.0.1 Install? Keep your Customisation! - Captivate blog

And delete the cache folder, while your project is open to get rid of old caches but not the one of the present project.

[Sankaram]

Hi Jesica Garrou,

   Can you share the sample file with us at sankaram@adobe.com? we will investigate and update you.

Thanks,

Sankaram.

[JessAdobe]

I am having the same issue and look forward to a response.

[Lilybiri]

This is a very old thread, please start a new thread and explain the problem more in detail!

[speed2fast]

I just spoke with a very knowledgeable person at Adobe tech support and he showed me how to address this issue.  Right click on an object that is no longer visible (its still there but you just cant see it).  If there is something on top of it you can right-click that object.  in the pop-up menu select arrange and then bring forward or bring back. This trick brings everything back and viewable.  If your changing the order of several items you may have to do this a few times. 

[visartg64078739]

That's lovely that it brings it back. But it brings it back where it was before one attempted to change the layer order. So nothing happened and the layers are still in the wrong order. - Not helpful

[dan561]

I never try to drag items up or down the timeline any more due to this issue. I find the keyboard shortcut works well - select the object you want to move, then use ctrl-[ (control and open square bracket) to move down a level, ctrl-] to move up a level; ctrl-shift-[ to move to bottom; ctrl-shift-] to move to top. At least on Windows. I assume the equivalent shortcut on Mac is cmnd-[, etc.

[Lilybiri]

Smiling now, because your shortuts probabl work only on a US keyboard. Adobe alwaus presumes that everyone is using that very simple keybaord. WHen you need more keys which is the case in most European countries, they do not work at all.

[visartg64078739]

The keyboard short cuts worked for a hot minute, then it rearranged the layers back to the bad order and left a lt of dead gray spaces in my time line. I tried the "Right-click on object, then click arange/bring forward"-trick to bring it back, but nothing happens.

The problem goes even deeper. About what you are seeing in the screenshot:

The Title of the slide in the screen shot below is actually on a master slide, so it should never cover content from the filmstrip. The buttons you see are all below the white shape in the timeline. The white Area, and the transparent black area surrounding it make up a modal window that has different content in different states, which are controlled by the  blue buttons. This approach worked in 4 other projects and here too, everything is fine in state 1,2,3 & 5 but in state 4 it gives me this mess. (btw. in the normal state of the modal window the modal is off screen).

Her is another kicker. I inserted a slide after this one and rebuild the slide by copy and paste in the layer order I wanted. All the instance names were changed so I adjusted the "Advanced Actions". I did a preview and the exact same thing happened. Just on a different state then before. (it was actually states 1 & 3 that did not work in the first version. This is a screenshot of the re-build)

[dan561]

So - the items you want to change are all in the modal window (white box) that has a state for each blue button? I cannot see why you are having problems with just a few states, but there are 2 approaches I would take as a work-around.

1. Instead of using states (states are my preferred way of working, too, but if they won't work....) use groups of objects, each of which has an opaque white smartshape as a background. Hide them all, but show the one group you want when you want it.

2. Separate all of the states onto different slides, which means duplicating all of your buttons. Then, it's just a simple matter of each button jumping to the slide that contains the text you want instead of worrying about layers and states. Schleissen would then jump back to the first slide in the series and Naechste would jump to the slide after the series.

Neither approach is elegant from a programming standpoint, but they work. Sometimes the old-school way is the best way to go.