Intro

Last week I answered several questions about audio on the forums with pretty simple workflows Maybe you will like them? Contrary to what you are used to read in my blog, this is a short article, there is no example movie.

Trick 1: Audio when hovering over a (shape) button

Buttons and shape buttons have 4 InBuilt states: Normal, Rollover, Down and Visited (only available in CP2017).

Quite a while ago I explained what I mean by an ‘Audio Object’. It is a shape or a highlight box, which you make invisible to the user by changing the stroke width to 0 and set the Alpha for the Fill to 0 as well, but attach audio to that object. If you want to learn more about them have a look at this post.

This screenshot illustrates the workflow. The audio (Cymbals) will only play when hovering over the button.

Trick 2: avoiding overlapping audio on quiz slide

A problem occurs on quiz slides with following setup:

• Slide audio plays explaining the question
• Object audio is attached to the Feedback messages

Problem is that when a learner submits the answer(s) before the slide audio ends, there will be overlapping of the slide audio with the audio of the message that pops up. It is not possible to control the appearance of the Submit button, since it is an embedded object, has no individual timeline. Submit button in all Captivate themes is of the type ‘Transparent button’. This was my workaround, and the user confirmed it was working perfectly:

• Create an image that is similar to the Submit button. That is perfectly possible with a shape: same fill, same stroke, same font, font size and font color as the quiz buttons.
• Take out the label ‘Submit’ from the original Submit button, set the stroke width to 0, alpha for the Fill to 0 so that it becomes invisible. It will still be active.
• Put the image in the same location as the invisible Submit button (use Align menu).
• Change the start of the timeline of the image, so that it begins just at the end of the slide audio.
• Move the pausing point of the quiz slide to be after the end of the slide audio. Only way to do that is by mouse dragging. That pausing point is not in the Timing panel.

Why is this working? Because the Submit button is an embedded object, it is always on top of added custom objects (the image). That means it is active! Only when the learner would click by accident on the ‘invisible’ active button, the problem will occur. But in most circumstances the learner will not be aware of that possibility and will wait patiently until the audio finishes and the ‘Submit’ indicator appears.

Trick 3: Audio in states

Just want to refresh your memory: it is possible to attach audio to states. When you change a state, the audio of the previous state is automatically stopped. A feature that you can use in many ways as I illustrated in these movies:

Automatic Lists

Drag&Drop Object Actions

You can even create a shape with states that are invisible but have all audio clips. Let your creative mind wander….