You've seen them… and you've ignored them. But what, exactly, are they? I'm referring to those pesky red arrows you often see to the right of objects on the Timeline.
The red arrows indicate that the Timeline object is anchored to the end of the slide's play time. In the image below, all three of the Timeline objects are anchored to the END of the slide.
The red arrow (anchor) will automatically appear any time you stretch the right edge of an object on the Timeline right and bump up against the word END. The word END indicates the moment in time when all of the action on the slide has concluded. Unless something has been added to the slide to override the default behavior, once END has been reached, the next slide on the Filmstrip will appear.
So now that you know what the red arrows mean, I bet you're wondering if anchoring an object to the END of a slide is good or bad.
Personally, I don't like the anchors. Why? Try this experiment: Go to any slide in your project and create an anchor. Next, extend the play time for the slide by four or five seconds (on the Timeline, drag the right edge of the slide's object to the right). As you drag, notice that the anchored objects move to the right and end at the slide's new end time.
But look at the left edge of those objects (the left edge is when the objects will appear on the slide). You'll notice that the Appear After timing has changed–something that most Captivate developers don't want to happen every time the timing for a slide is adjusted.
What's a Captivate developer to do? Since the anchors will appear every time an object touches the END of a slide's timing and you can't disable the anchors, you'll need to perform a quick workaround. (Okay, so maybe the term workaround is a bit harsh. Anchors aren't a bug in Captivate; they're a feature.). Simply select all of the slide's objects, right-click and choose Show for the rest of the slide. If you extend the play time for a slide now, the slide's objects will extend as if they were anchored but their start times will not change. Nice!
If you would like to see object anchors in action, check out the video I created on the IconLogic YouTube channel.
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