I recently had a student in my Captivate class ask how she could force a button to play a sound, but nothing else. Usually buttons are used to move a user through the CBT, jump to a Web site or launch a JavaScript.
At first, asking a button to actually do less than its design seems like a simple thing to do. However, you might be surprised to learn that the process is a bit more complicated than expected and will require a bit of tinkering on your part.
The process of inserting a button onto a slide and attaching a sound to the button is simple enough (Insert > Button and then use the Audio tab to attach the audio). But if you were to preview the project, you’d quickly realize that the sound plays by itself–before the user can click it. Want the sound to play only after the user clicks the button? Read on…
Insert a button (without audio)
- Open or create a Captivate project with at least a few slides
- Open a slide
- Choose Insert > Button (you can use either a text or image button for this experiment)
- Set the On success to No Action
- Select the Options tab
- Select Success caption (ensure the remaining options match the picture below)
- Click OK
There should now be both a button and a Success caption on your slide.
Attach Audio to the Success caption
- Double-click the Success caption
- Delete any text
- Change the Caption type to [transparent]
- Select the Options tab
- Change the Transition Effect to No transition
- Select the Audio tab and import your audio
- Click OK
If you preview your project now and click the button, you should hear the sound. (Very clever of you to attach the audio to a transparent caption!) But there is a problem. While the button can be clicked over and over, the sound will only play once. Bummer! Now what? If you could get the slide to somehow refresh, that would make the button think that it hadn’t been clicked and take care of things. But how to you refresh a Captivate slide? Read on…
Refresh a Slide
- Insert a blank slide before the slide with the button (Insert > Blank Slide)
- Right-click the slide with the button and choose Copy Background
- Right-click the slide you just inserted and choose Paste as Background (click Yes when prompted)
Now the slide you inserted will look identical to the slide with the button (sans button).
- Right-click the slide you inserted one final time and choose Properties
- Change the slide’s Display Time to .1 second (one-tenth of a second)
- Click OK
- Finally, go to the slide with the button
- Right-click the button and choose Properties
- On the Button tab, change the On success to Jump to Slide and select the slide just previous to the slide with the button (you know, the slide where you changed the Display time to .1 second)
- Click OK
Play the project now and, when you click the button, the sound should play.
In addition, clicking the button takes you to the slide preceding the slide with the button. Since that slide plays so fast (you set its timing to .1 second), and looks like the slide with the button, it should hardly be noticeable that you left the slide with the button at all. And if you click the button again, the sound should play again. How cool is that????
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Thanks for this info mate.
Thanks for this info mate.
Thanks for this info mate.
Love this Success Caption audio method, but multiple sounds play together if you click a second or third button. 1: Any way to make it that all other button sounds stop when you click a new button. 2: Can you adapt the refresh a slide trick to multiple buttons?
Another question with click boxes/buttons, this one branching. If you have 3 buttons/click boxes and use branching so people can pick the path they want, then return to this 3-button choice to pick another button, how do you disable or visually indicate the buttons already visited?
Thanks, Carol
PS: Still reading your advanced Cap 4 book, nice…
Love this Success Caption audio method, but multiple sounds play together if you click a second or third button. 1: Any way to make it that all other button sounds stop when you click a new button. 2: Can you adapt the refresh a slide trick to multiple buttons?
Another question with click boxes/buttons, this one branching. If you have 3 buttons/click boxes and use branching so people can pick the path they want, then return to this 3-button choice to pick another button, how do you disable or visually indicate the buttons already visited?
Thanks, Carol
PS: Still reading your advanced Cap 4 book, nice…
Love this Success Caption audio method, but multiple sounds play together if you click a second or third button. 1: Any way to make it that all other button sounds stop when you click a new button. 2: Can you adapt the refresh a slide trick to multiple buttons?
Another question with click boxes/buttons, this one branching. If you have 3 buttons/click boxes and use branching so people can pick the path they want, then return to this 3-button choice to pick another button, how do you disable or visually indicate the buttons already visited?
Thanks, Carol
PS: Still reading your advanced Cap 4 book, nice…
Thanks to multiple actions that can be assigned to buttons, you’ll find it much easier to accomplish these kinds of tasks in CP4. I cover multiple actions on a button in my Beyond the Essentials book: http://www.iconlogic.com/Captivate4_BeyondTheEssentials.htm
Thanks to multiple actions that can be assigned to buttons, you’ll find it much easier to accomplish these kinds of tasks in CP4. I cover multiple actions on a button in my Beyond the Essentials book: http://www.iconlogic.com/Captivate4_BeyondTheEssentials.htm
Thanks to multiple actions that can be assigned to buttons, you’ll find it much easier to accomplish these kinds of tasks in CP4. I cover multiple actions on a button in my Beyond the Essentials book: http://www.iconlogic.com/Captivate4_BeyondTheEssentials.htm
Thanks! This explained what i needed perfectly
Thanks! This explained what i needed perfectly
Thanks! This explained what i needed perfectly