I would like to make two buttons:
- Mute / Unmute: The button should mute any audio playing and show an icon of a mic with a line through it. When it is clicked and audio is muted, the button should have an icon of a mic on it and when clicked, turn the audio back on.
- Pause / Play: The button should pause the whole slide (auto-playing video also) and have a pause icon on it. When clicked, it should have a play icon and resume the slide (auto-playing video also).
I ran into some trouble I can’t figure out (nor apparently can I find the answer on Google), so I am hoping you can help. The problems I’ve run into with these buttons are:
- I can’t find a way to add an action to a button in a custom state. I can add an action to a shape i’m using a button, but the Actions panel is not visible (see screenshot below) when the shape is in a custom state.
- It seems that you can’t just attach two or more actions to a button; you must write an advanced action. Is that really the case? So to change the state of the button when pressed (from mute to unmute and from pause to play and vice versa) and to perform the actual action, i have to write an advanced action?
- For the mute button, i can’t find an action called “mute audio” or anything like that; i can find “Stop triggered audio” but it’s asking which audio file – Do i have to make an advanced action for every single slide on which this button is used?
Can someone help? There must be a way, no?
The reason I need to make those buttons is because we’re not going to be using the player control bar at the bottom at all (because i don’t want to allow the learner to fast-forward and when you take the playbar out of the bottom bar, the rest of the buttons all get distributed horizontally and it looks really silly). So instead, i’m making navigation buttons and for the most part that’s ok.
Attached files:
Thank you very, very much, Lieve. You’re right, I’m not up to snuff on the timeline or these intricacies in CP, like – as you say – most users. I am stuck using CP unfortunately and am trying to make the best of it, but I find the program extremely cumbersome and awkward so I my learning curve is rather steep and frustrating. Every time i think i got it, i run into another wall. I appreciate all the help and won’t feel offended.
I’ll take a look through these links.
Thanks for not feeling offended. Adobe Captivate is the most flexible, multifeatured eLearning authoring tool you can find, but it is wrong to tell that it is very easy because that is never the case with powerful tools. Switch from taking photos with your (simple, not complicated) smartphone to a professional camera and you’ll have to spend time to learn about all the functionalities You could use it like your smartphone: set everything to automatic and just press the shutter button but that would be a shame because you’ll never get the professional photos you want to make. And when you have mastered the camera, you’ll want to make those photos better, so you’ll open Photoshop and have to learn about workflows.
Nowadays manuals (camera, software applications) are no longer the good reference documentation we used to get 20-50 years ago…. too bad. This morning I offered a first lesson in a personalized training (1.5hrs) and the comment was: this will save me many, many hours, why didn’t I find you a year ago?
That’s true and as a professional photographer, I can attest to this. I learned on film, way back when, in the darkroom, those were fun times.
Thanks to your help, i’ve now made my mute button, thank goodness, but i realize that the pause / play button would have been a waste of time to try and figure out further; I have video on the slides, so it would never have paused (correct me if I’m wrong).
Synchronized video can be paused by a custom pause button, event video not. BTW I have developed in a real dark room as well, only BW photos, not colour.
It’s such fun! 🙂
I added a long comment, but it is waiting approval, which can take a while. I’m sorry about that.
Look for my blog (search on Lilybiri), you’ll find a lot of articles about toggle buttons, one of them shows how to use one Shared Action to create several toggle buttons with a multistate button, like you want.
However I also warned: you need to understand the timeline which seems not be totally the case due to some of your comments (about meaning of Stop Triggered Audio)…. Look for articles about Timeline and Pause.
I have been blogging quite a lot about toggle buttons. Can you have a look at:
http://blog.lilybiri.com/1-action-equals-5-toggle-buttons
That one article should give you a clue to the Mute button. However, you need a lot more explanation, because I suspect you are not fully to grips with Puase, Pausing points, and the effect of them on the different types of Audio and on other elements on the slides. Do not feel offended, most CP-users are in the same situation. ‘Stop triggered audio’ command only has effect on audio clips which were started by the command “Play Audio’, not on object audio, not on audio objects or slide audio. Similar for Pause/Play: some started objects will not be paused at all, like event video or animations.
I have a lot of published articles (and interactive presentations) to explain that real foundation of Captivate: the Timeline. Here are some links:
Interactive presesntation: Captivate’s Timeline
Interactive movie: PauseTypes
Blog: Pausing Timeline
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