Using widget variables in advanced actions

Hello,
Is it possible to access widget variables from the advanced actions pane? Specifically, I after users click a checkbox and, after this, click on a button, I would like to have something else appear. Is this possible? If so, how can I access the widget variables from within the advanced actions pane to use them in if statements.
Thanks,
Dan

Daniel, this question is too general... Some widgets have associated user variables (you have to create them) that can be used in advanced actions: TextArea, ListBox, Checkboxes, Radiobuttons are some examples. I have several examples on my blog.
But if you are talking about controlling that variable for Checkboxes, Radiobuttons, TextArea widget, you'll need the extended versions created by Jim Leichliter and those are Flash only. If you do use CP7 and are now pointing to the Interactions (Checkboxes, Radiobuttons), who can also be used for HTML5 output, then you are stuck again. I have been pleading to have the extension by Jim included in those interactions, but my begging was apparently considered too exotic.
Have a look at the articles in this list: http://blog.lilybiri.com/widgetsquestions-source-list
Lilybiri

Similar Messages

When should you use widgets rather than advanced actions?

HI,
We have a few very complicated projects using lots of advanced actions and widgets that simulate laboratories.
1/ Should you always use advanced actions if it possible OR
2/ Should you use widgets when you reach a certain level of complexity ?
Are there any differences in the field in terms of reliability ?
regards Renovator

Hi Renovator
I'll take on the last thing you asked about. Differences in terms of reliability.
Unfortunately the answer to that one is actually a question.
The question? How long is a piece of string?
Of course the answer to that is "it depends". Likewise, whether an Advanced Action or a Widget is more "reliable" depends on how the code was implemented. Folks can create Advanced Actions that don't work as they think they will. The same can be true of widgets. So I'd say that they are on equal playing ground when it comes to "reliability".
Cheers... Rick

Query about User Variables and Advanced Actions

Hello,
I am creating a clinical-based project using Captivate 5.I have to give you quite a bit of information before I can pose my questions so please bear with me.
Users have to select multiple options from a checkbox widget (shown below).
Each options, for example 'location' is associated with a variable for example 'hpi0' (See below):
Each option has addtional data associated with it:
Location = hpi0 (user variable)
Location data = hpi0data (user variable)
Please see the screenshot below:
Notice in the image above that I have created a conditional advanced action - if the user selects Location (hpi0) on the checkbox widget, the data associated with that variable will be presented to them. That data (e.g. location data or hpi0data) is presented in a caption text box in the following slide. (see below)
I hope I have given you enough information.This is a complex project and this is just one of my many problems.I have had to create over 200 hundred user variables and more than 6 Conditional Advanced Actions in one project. The project is becoming unstable. So here are my queries:
1) Are there limits to the amount of user varables I can create in a project?
2) If so, how can I re-use the user variables I have already created? Otherwise I will have to divide this project into 3 parts and I want to avoid doing that.
3) Are there limits to the amount of Advanced actions I can create in a project?
Again I am using Captivate 5 for this project.
Any assistance, tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated. I am learning captivate as I go so If there is away to streamline this process, I am open to any suggestions.
Thanks
Tinukwa

Hello Tinukwa
This is indeed a challenging project, and although I did create a lot of projects with advanced actions, they were never that size. You have to listen to Jim's words about using some widgets, he is a widget specialist which I'm not. I do not know if you are aware of the fact that the checkboxes widget coming with Cp was extended by Jim? He offers it on his website, I blogged about this extension and suppose you do know my blog. About the advanced actions, perhaps I could help but only screenshots are bit limited. So I wonder if either I could have access to the file and/or if we could have a Connect session eventually?
First intuition tells me
we should look to re-use variables, but I do need more information; do you need the vars XXXXdata somewhere else later? If not, perhaps only to display it you could use one variable; now you keep the information chosen by the user in 2 variables: hpi0 and hpi0data (isn't that redundancy?)
and by choosing labels for variables, actions and objects in an intelligent way reduce the editing time because you'll need a lot of almost identical advanced actions. Usually I do a lot of reflection before starting to create labels, variables and actions.
About re-using what you already constructed: as I explained once, a template is the only way to be able to re-use a script at the moment. And Kevin Siegel discovered (so gratefully for that) it is possible just to change the extension of a standard CP file to cptl to have a template.
Lilybiri
PS Jim suggest also to split up the project? Here I'm not sure if that is really needed.. should have been the case for previous versions.

Widgets buttons no advanced actions

help me...
I've started a project for this company and they are using cp5 for theri e-learning tool, its my first time using it, although i have made other e-learning packs with CP2/3
i wanted to use the fancy new widgets and have swf buttons on my menu page but I'm having problems with them not actioning and pausing the slide. I tired everything but they don't seem to jump to the correct slide, or pause the slide.
There is no advanced action option in the widget so I can't command them that way and when I hit the back button the the hold movie play with no pauses at all...
what wrong with it any ideas.
JSP

Hi,
I think i need to understand how button widgets pause a slide before it continues, I have a next button on my slide and its a flash version from the widgets panel. just a standard button on from captivate 5 library, but when i go into the options to say on click go to slide whatever it doesn't pause the slide and there is no way to adjust the pause on the button. On a normal button you can just add advanced option to progress when the delegate click or to hold until they do so. but here we have no such options
so all I need to understand is click button to move forward - not automaticly- and when i go back click button to move forward again not play all slide until then on
jas.

How do I use the same execute advanced actions?

I am using captivate 5, windows 7
I created a slide with several click boxes and images. I name them, for example,
Click Box A Image A
Click Box B Image B
Click Box C Imsge C
And perhaps Images D, E, F
I created Advanced actions, for example,
Show_Image_A - which shows A and hides B and C - and shows Image D
Show_image_B - which shows B and hides A and C - and shows images D and E
Show_image_C - which shows C and hides A and B - and shows Image F
Then On Success for each of the click boxes, Execute advanced actions as below:
Click Box A - Show Image A
Click Box B - Show Image B
Click Box C - Show image C
Works fine.
My problem: I want to repeat this slide's actions again (and over and over) with new images, same actions of click boxes. SO - I thought I could copy it and paste it where I wanted it. I want to use it again later in the same project - and I want to be able to use it again in anothe project. I was hoping NOT to have to rebuild the slide every time, but here's what I am seeing:
The click boxes and images are in the duplicated slide - BUT they all have different names - no longer my named Click_Box_A, but Click_Box_<number>, etc each time I paste it has a new number. SO - my advanced actions still say Click Box A, Image A, etc - and obviously they're not recognized here. SO - my actions don't work here.
It is painful - and tedious! - to change the names of all the objects and then change the names in the advanced actions. There MUST be a way to do this that I don't know about?
Please can someone help me?
THANK YOU!!

Hello,
You cannot copy an advanced action from one project to another, that is really a pity. Please, if you have time, fill in a feature request!
If the actions are always similar: why not create a template with the advanced actions you mostly use and create future projects on that template. I do it that way for the advanced actions I'm using often.
Lilybiri

How can I use local variable in LabVIEW-Action?

Hi All!
There is local variable (for example "MyVariable") in local scope of project. There is Action-step, created by LabVIEW. One of input terminals step is "Sequence Context".
How can I access to MyVariable by Sequence Context? Unbundle? It does't work.
Thank you.

On the TestStand palette there is a VI called TestStand - Get Property Value.vi. Use that. Attached is an image showing how to use it. The trick is making it produce the correct data type. Do that by right clicking on the VI and selecting Select Type. Then you can choose the type. I think in LV 2010 and TS 2010 it is a polymorphic VI and you can just change it. I wrote an example here for Chaz: http://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand/How-to-execute-two-steps-in-parallel/td-p/1449874
It's the second example that's attached.
Hope this helps,
jigg
CTA, CLA
teststandhelp.com
~Will work for kudos and/or BBQ~
Attachments:
AccessLocalVar.JPG ‏67 KB

Which variables for branching scenario assessment based on advanced actions:

I want to be able to use branching on fuzzy questions that don't have a clear correct answer, but have some answers that are better than others (to be more authentic). Has anyone had success with using the variables in advanced actions to provide a branching scenario assessment?
What I want to do is use one multichoice question with partial scoring, each of the 4 possible answers has a different points values (best choice to worst), the value adds to the quiz total score for assessment /feedback purposes, but the next slide is determined by the points gained in that quiz slide (e.g. if they gained 10 points for picking the best answer the condition is set to variable =10 then jump to slide x).
I have tried several cpquizinfo variables but the outcome does not reliably take me to the right slide. I have a feeling quiz questions earlier in the project are affecting the variable.
Thoughts???

You do not explain what you tried. For such a scenario I would create a
custom question slide to get the control you want. I doubt it is possible
with default MCQ.

How can I use an advanced action to show a sequence of images by clicking on a single button?

I'm trying to make Captivate 7 project where I have several slides where images are revealed one after the other. I wanted to insert a button along the lines of click here for next image but can't work out how to write the script for it. The Adobe information is next to useless and I can't find anything which breaks down these processes from scratch. Any help appreciated!

You're a little early but help is on the way. There are a couple of new e-books being written about using Advanced Actions.
One of them is currently available as a discounted pre-release here:
http://www.infosemantics.com.au/e-books/guide-to-adobe-captivate-advanced-actions-01
Lilybiri is also writing an Advanced Actions Cookbook as well.
Your specific use case could be handled a number of different ways:
Have your images on different slides and use an identical button to jump to each slide.
Use Conditional Advanced Actions and User Variables to check which images have been viewed and then show the next image in a series. This would allow everything to be done on the same slide but is a more advanced technique that may be beyond your abilities until you are more versed with how variables and advanced actions work.

Using system variables to open new SCO and then return to same slide in previous SCO

Hi,
I am working on a eLearning project which will have about 30-40 individual lessons (SCOs), with a common Glossary of terms used in the lessons. The user needs to be able to click on the Glossary button in any lesson, go to the Glossary and then ideally return to the same slide in the SCO where they clicked on the Glossary button.
I am still learning Advanced Actions but I have seen variables such as curentScene, and currentFrame. Could these variables be used to create an Advanced Action which would take the user back to the same slide or is there a system variable which could be used to peform this function?
Really need help on this one. If what I am trying to do is not possible then knowing that would be very useful too as I will not spend anymore time trying to find a solution but will look at other alternatives.
Thanks,
Richard

When you reopen a file, all variables are reset... so with Advanced actions this will not be possible AFAIK. Michael Lund, cpguru, has a Save and Load Data widget that allows to pass values of variables between files. Maybe JavaScript could help as well?
I do not know the system variable you are pointing to. There is cpInfoCurrentSlide and cpInfoCurrentFrame but scenes? Perhaps you are using StoryLine and confusing the terminology. In this blog post you can find a link to the complete list with available system variables in Captivate 6:
http://lilybiri.posterous.com/system-variables-in-captivate-6
Lilybiri

Advanced actions - trying to show a text caption

I have a slide with 5 text captions made from smart shapes, and 5 click boxes. All 5 smart shapes are hidden. I have 5 variables, all of which are set to zero. When a click box is clicked on, the corresponding smart shape shows and the value of the first user variable is set to one. When another click box is clicked on the corresponding smart shape shows and the next user variable is set to 1. Each of the click boxes is set up in a similar fashion. I set up 5 advanced actions, and the On Success action for each of the click boxes uses one of 5 advanced actions. The action for each click box looks something like this (I'm using generic names for this example):
IF variable1 is equal to 0
ACTIONS
Show textCaption1
Assign variable1 with 1
Play Audio sound.wav
Continue
This is working fine, and the corresponding smart shapes are showing as they should when each of the click boxes is clicked on.
But I have an additional feedback text caption that I want to show after all 5 smart shapes are showing. I tried setting up an advanced action that looks like this:
IF
variable1 is equal to 1 AND
variable2 is equal to 1 AND
variable3 is equal to 1 AND
variable4 is equal to 1 AND
variable5 is equal to 1
ACTIONS
Show feedbackTextCaption
But even after all of the click boxes have been clicked (which should set each of the 5 variables to 1), the feedback text caption does not show.
Can anyone help with a suggestion?

@Sreekanth, that is not the correct approach, because a user could click 5 times on the same click box and see the final text caption. Only when you disable an already clicked interactive object this can be used. Jay was right by choosing five different variables.
@Jay How do you trigger that last conditional action? Which event do you use? You explain that the first described action is triggered by the click box, but not what is triggering the conditional action.
I suspect you'll have to combine both actions, and assign them to each click box. That means a conditional action with two decisions:
First decision 'Always' needs the condition 'IF 1 is equal to 1' to create a mimicked standard action, and has to show the text caption, to assign 1 to the variable and to play the audio. I don't know why you added 'Continue'? If the click boxes pause all at the same moment, don't add Continue, let the playhead remain at the same location.
Second decision 'Checker' is the conditional action that you wrote, checking the values of the 5 variables, and if they have all the value 1 to show the feedback text.

Can I create a javascript in a captivate advanced action

Hello all:
I am just getting the hang of Advanced Actions and I am having trouble trying to utilize the Javascript Window.
I have three captivate variables v_Var1, v_Var2, and v_Var3.
I am trying to create a JavaScript function in the Javascript window to concantonate these into one variable v_AllResponses.
Is there an example of such a script out there and can you point me to it?
I have looked but so far no luck.

You can define a variable to contain a space and use that in your Advanced Action:
The SPACE variable has a default value of (see screenshot).
That default value is the HTML for a space character.
Not too many people know this, but you can add limited HTML tags to a caption by using Cp variables. Here are the supported tags:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/text/TextField.ht ml#htmlText
This opens up a wide range of possibilities for dynamic text formatting of your variables. For example, using a single text caption, you could change the color of the text to red or green depending on the tags you surround your variable with DURING RUNTIME.
Jim Leichliter

One for all you advanced action gurus out there :)

Ok so here is what im wanting to achieve.... on a slide i have various click box's that pop up some more info.
I want a continue button to appear only after all the click box's have been viewed..
In the past i have been able to achieve this when the click box's on the page direct you to another slide for the information, this way i have an advanced action set up on my initial page 'on enter' to see when all have been viewed to then show the continue button.
In this instance its slightly different as i will never be 'entering' the slide again, i want to remain on the slide at all times?
Possible??? let me know your thoughts?
Thanks

This will certainly be an example use case for conditional action with multiple decisions in my 'cookbook' for variables and advanced actions that I'm preparing.
The only events you can use are the Success events for the click boxes (or other interactive objects) which means that for each of them you'll need a conditional action with a mimicked standard action and a real condition to check if every click box has been clicked. Have multiple examples on my blog post, and in threads here everywhere. You have to make one important choice:
Can each click box be clicked multiple times, or is it OK to deactivate it when it has been clicked - that is the easiest way, because you can then use one variable as a counter and check if it reaches the number of click boxes
Example: http://blog.lilybiri.com/blog-after-posterous-clickclick
If each click box should be always available, you need a variable for each click box to toggle and you'll have to check if all variables have been toggled
Example (old): http://blog.lilybiri.com/template-for-reusing-script
Have new templates for CP7 and CP6 but stopped offering everything for free. You can still have the 5.5 on request.
Lilybiri

Advanced actions not working in project preview or publish

I have a project with advanced actions which work fine in single slide preview but which don't work at all in project preview or when I publish. To make it even worse a slide on the same project I did earlier works ok when previewed. Very confused! Any suggestions? I have used the force publish option and all the timelines look the same as the successful slide as far as I can see so I have no idea.

Hi Lilybiri,
sorry for the delay in replying, I've been tied up elsewhere. I'm using CP7. My advanced action is simply meant to show one image after another on click of a button. It works perfectly for the first instance and then doesn't for the next two. The only difference between the slides is that the latter two have the images stacked on top of each other whereas the first slide has the images placed separately on the slide. This is the advanced action for the first slide:
The decisions just refer to the images. And this is the timeline:
Compared to one of the slides that doesn't work (no images appear)
where again the decisions are just referrring to showing images, and the timeline for this slide:
As I said they both look the same to me apart from the layering of images on the second slide. Any help much appreciated!

Can Advanced Action functions be done with JS?

Is it possible to use JavaScript to perform Advanced Action functions like "show", "hide", "assign", etc? If so, is there an applicable reference doc?
Thanks,
Bob

The SWF JS API does not support show/hide... only assign. HTML5 JS API supports show/hide and assign.
To assign a vairable regardless of Output, you can look at this article:
http://captivatedev.com/2012/12/17/display-the-students-name-from-your-lms-using-adobe-cap tivate-6-x/
If you want to show/hide in HTML5, you can use
cp.hide("ItemNameHere");
cp.show("ItemNameHere");

How to get an advanced action to respond to text selection in dropdown widgets

I want to provide a user with a set of dropdowns containing text strings, and if they select the right combination of dropdown entries, give them a Continue button, and if they don't select the right combination then give them an error message and solution.
The trouble I'm having is I don't understand how to get the action to read the widget selections. I'll go through a demo to show you what I'm doing so far.
(Context: CP5, and JavaScript/programming ignoramus.)
Objects in the demo
My steps so far
1. Set up two user variables
2. Create two dropdown widgets (Widget1 and Widget2) each with labels "Right" and "Wrong" and point them to the two variables.
3. Add a Continue button and a text box labelled Wrong, each set to invisible.
4. Add a Submit button with advanced interactions to show Continue or Wrong depending on what is chosen in the widgets.
The full set of conditions and actions are:
IF vTestWidget1 is equal to Right
AND vTestWidget2 is equal to Right
THEN Show Continue
ELSE Show Wrong
The problem
I run this and only ever get the ELSE response (i.e. I can select two Rights and the Submit button still displays the Wrong text box).
Possibilities
I'm missing some sort of formatting around the text?
I need something like a submit button for each widget to prompt an update in their associated variables?
Can anyone help?

Thanks, for the help guys. However...
I have triple-checked my variable naming and can't see any problem.
What I did do was eliminate the "Choose" option from the head of each widget. The demo suddenly worked perfectly!
BUT that perfect outcome seems accidental.
The demo seems to work ONLY when the Advanced Action's success conditions refer to the first entry on each dropdown. That is, if the dropdowns contain values Right and Wrong, IN THAT ORDER, and the Action looks for "Right" and "Right" then you can click Submit and it produces the Continue button.
However, for example, if you reverse the order of the entries in one widget, so Widget2 contains Wrong and Right, and YOU DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING ELSE, then selecting "Right" and "Right" and clicking the Submit button produces the Wrong text box response.
So the order in which entries are listed in the widget has an impact, at least for me.
When you guys replicated my use case, did you replicate the Choose entries in the widgets, or did you simply have two top-level Right responses?
I've uploaded my first demo, without any other changes, to Google Docs, if you want to check it:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0Bz2ZZ5mfN3BkMjc1N2U3ZjgtZWZmMC00MmVlLWE3Y2UtZTczMzM5ZjI1N GMx&sort=name&layout=list&num=50

Using widget variables in advanced actions

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for