Goal

In a first tweak article I described how to replace text feedback messages by images, workflows for non-responsive (and breakpoints responsive) projects and for responsive Fluid boxes projects. This second article offers some tweaks when you are using Slide audio. For object audio and audio started by the Play audio command, look at the third tweak post.

I recommend that to have read at least these posts about the default setup of quiz slides, especially the part concerning the timeline and pausing point of quiz slides.

Terminology

Submit Process

This post is mainly based on questions appearing regularly on the forum and other social media.

Force listening to Slide audio

If you need Closed Captioning and want to use the well-designed CC feature of Captivate, you need to use Slide audio. When adding slide audio to a quiz or KC slide, the duration of the slide will be extended to the length of the audio clip as is the case for all slides. However the default pausing point will remain at the original 1.5secs. Slide audio is NOT paused by slide pausing point (same for Score slide and D&D slides). This means that when the playhead is pausing at 1.5secs the audio will continue to play.

If you leave both Success and Last Attempt actions at the default command ‘Continue’, this could result in frustrations for the learner. Reason: after having clicked the second time for the Submit Process they have to wait for the playhead to finish the slide, a waiting time of of about 6.5secs in the example of the screenshot above. The fix is easy: drag the pausing point near to the end of the slide. It is the only possible workflow, you cannot change the timing in the Timing Properties.

This post is about Tweaking! Do you want the learner to listen to the audio clip before being able to submit an answer? It could save some students from failing At the same time you’ll avoid another audio problem: if you have audio attached to the feedback messages (object audio), you will not have them playing at the same time as the slide audio

I will offer you two possible workflows to force the learner to listen to the slide audio. Both are based on the idea that the Submit button becomes visible at the end of the audio clip. First workflow can only be used for non-responsive projects or responsive projects with Breakpoints. Second workflow can also be used in responsive projects with Fluid Boxes. You will be cheating the learner, maybe some will discover the trick. On Quiz slides you have very little control over the embedded objects like the Submit button.  Here are some consequences of this lack of control:

1. You cannot edit the action triggered by the Submit button in the first step of the Submit Process.
2. You cannot add custom states to any Quiz button, including the Submit button.
3. You cannot disable a Quiz button because it has no individual ID.

For both workflows I suppose that you already moved the pausing point of the quiz slide to be near the end of the audio clip as described above.

Workflow 1: Dummy Shape

This workflow is valid for non-responsive projects and responsive projects with Breakpoint views. A drawback may be that learner will not see a Rollover nor Down state for the Submit button. If you are a ‘perfectionist’, you could take out those states for all Quiz buttons.

Step 1:  Default Quiz Button Style

Check its style, either in the Object Style Manager or the Quizzing Master Slide. It needs to be a Transparent Button, not a Text button nor an Image button. All themes packaged with Captivate use Transparent buttons. Check the Fill and the Stroke, Character setup for the Normal state.  You will have to reproduce them in a shape.

Step 2: Dummy shape

Create a shape looking like the Submit button. Reproduce Text setup, Fill and Stroke. Add the text ‘Submit’. You can do this on a slide, or in the Object Style Manager. It would be a good idea to save the style.  When saving the theme, that style will be saved with the theme and can be reused in future projects.

Step 3: Submit button invisible

Edit the Submit button on the quiz slide (if you need the tweak only on some quiz slides) or on the Quizzing Master slide. It has to be invisible to the learner, which can be done by setting Alpha for the Fill to 0% and set the Stroke Width to 0 as well (if it is not already the case as in the screenshots). Delete the text ‘Submit’ in the Properties panel, field Caption.

Step 4: Timing Dummy

Extend the timeline of the Dummy Shape till the end of the slide (CTRL-E). Move the timeline of the shape as shown in this screenshot:

Start of its timeline needs to be before the pausing point of the slide, and near end of the audio cl ip. Result is that the learner will not see any Button while the audio clip is playing until the shape appears. Although that shape looks like it is on top of the invisible Submit button, that is not the case. Embedded objects are always on top, the Submit button is covering the shape.

In Fluid Boxes this workflow  cannot be used because shape and Submit button are stacked. Although all screenshots and testing were done in version CP2019, this workflow is also possible in older versions.

Problem with this first workflow is also that you have to repeat all those steps on each question slide. That is quite a lot of work if you have lot of quiz slides or big question pools to create. That is the reason of this more automated workflow 1Bis, with a shared action (of course).

Workflow 1bis: Dummy Shape – shared action

If you have tried the first workflow, you have already a new style ‘DummySubmit’ in the theme. You’ll now also need a new style for the Submit button, which can also be saved in your custom theme.

Step 1: Default Label Submit

If you have seen the first tweak (Image feedback) you know that changes to Default Labels (under Preferences, Quiz) need to be made before inserting quiz slides. In this case you have to delete the ‘Submit’ for the Submit button.

You see that I also changed the Submit button style to a custom style (see step 2), however that will not be honored.

Step 2: Submit Button Style

Default style of the Submit button is the Default Quiz Button Style. Create a custom style ‘MySubmit’ with the setup described in Step 3 of Workflow 1 (makes button invisible). I want each Submit button on quiz slides to use that style and tried to do that by defining it as default style for the Submit button in the Object Style Manager, but again (like with the Default labels) this is not functional. The only way to force this is to apply the style on the quizzing master slides which you need. Results of the two steps so far is that each inserted quiz slide will now have an invisible Submit button, no label.

Step 3: Dummy shape

Create the dummy shape as described in step 2 of Workflow 1. Insert it on the first quiz slide or a sequence, and time it for the rest of the project, always on top. No need to time it as we did in Workflow 1. I labeled that shape  SS_Dummy.

Step 4: Shared Action

On each quiz slide in a sequence of quiz slides (or slides in a question pool) a shared action will be triggered with the On Enter event of the slide. The action will hide the shape at the start of the slide, then show it after a number of seconds. The Continue command is necessary to let the playhead proceed.

The action has two parameters to be filled in on each slide. The first parameter is always the same, the dummy shape. The second parameters is the amount in seconds that you want the shape to remain hidden. Here is a filled in example:

Workflow 2: Effect on Submit button

Instead of hiding the Submit button by making it invisible until a shape indicates its location, you can apply an Alpha effect on the Submit button itself to hide it for the duration of the audio clip. This workflow doesn’t need to stack objects in the same location, which makes it also suitable for Fluid Boxes projects. I mentioned the limitations of the control over the Submit button but you can apply an Effect to it, although you will not see an effect timeline on the Timeline panel. Embedded objects do not appear in the Timeline panel with an individual timeline. You can only apply a time-based effect, not apply an effect by a shared action (would have been time saving) because the Submit button has no ID you can refer to. You have to repeat the workflow on each slide manually.

Step 1: time of the effect?

Check the length of the audio clip: when do you want the Submit button to become visible? It has to be before the pausing point of the quiz slide of course.

For the example of the screenshots in the first workflow, a time of 8.7seconds would be fine.

Step 2: Apply effect

Select the Submit button on the stage, use either the Timing panel or the right-click menu to Apply Effect. It is the Alpha Effect from the Basic category which is needed. Set it to 0%, to start on 0 seconds and for a duration equal to the one defined in the first step:

The only way to detect the presence of an effect is by selecting the Submit button: you’ll see the usual Effect indicator appearing top right of the button.