Using keyframes to automate a rig slider widget in Motion 5.

Question

I'm trying to automate a rig slider widget with keyframes, but any time I try to set a value for a keyframe, the value changes for the entire object instead of for just at that point in time.
Here's the background:
I set up the rig to make a bunch of pieces appear to explode. (Could have used "repel from" behavior, but wanted more control.) It uses a slider widget, values ranging from 0 to 100. At value 0, all the pieces are together, and they form the intact, un-exploded object. At value 100, the pieces are all positioned away from each other, and the object appears to have exploded.
Now, when I move the slider by hand, it performs the intended motion. But using keyframes to do this motion over time does not work. I'm able to change the value of keyframes, but doing so changes the values globally — that is, editing one keyframe makes any other keyframes drawn inherit that value.
This is what it looks like broken down:
• First, I'll draw a keyframe at value 0, time 00:01;
• then I go to draw the keyframe at value 100, time 00:30;
• it creates a new keyframe at value 100 and time 00:30, but...
• the 0 keyframe at time 00:01 mysteriously jumps to value 100 (though stays in its place in time), and the entire keyframe graph becomes a horizontal line, thus eliminating the would-be change over time.
In short, I can't animate the slider because changing a keyframe changes all values to that one value.
Any ideas on what's going on here?
I'm thinking it may have something to do with the fact that the paramaters modified by the slider are all "ramp" behaviors of objects. The slider controls both the start and end values of the "ramp" behavior, but I set it so the start and end values are always the same. (In effect, using ramp as a means to modify X and Y positions.)

Answer 1

Widgets allow you to distill complex motions or animations into a simple interface. For instance, you can link together and control the values of numerous related parameters into a single slider. That's what I was doing.
The problem, I now see, is that I was trying to connect values of one of the prefab behaviors. Those already happen over time, so I think it just tripped Motion up.
I circumvented that by relinking the widget directly to the position values of the objects, rather than linking it to the behaviors, which in turn controlled the position values.
To answer your last question more directly, I was animating the position parameters of objects. The objects were bezier shapes that, when pieced together, formed a line of text. The effect I was going for was to have the text start in (apparently) one piece — then have the pieces suddenly move outward from the center of the frame to give the effect of exploding. In the end, the easiest way to do this was to use a slider on a rig (after mapping it to start and end points for each piece). When done correctly, dragging the slider to value 0 brought all the pieces together to form the whole word. Dragging the slider to value 100 made all the pieces "explode" out.
This also makes it easy to come back and make changes to the rate of the "explosion" motion. Which was important, because there were about 60 pieces. Redrawing each path individually would be too much work.