Macromedia Captivate for Windows [Electronic resources] : Visual QuickStart Guide نسخه متنی

Adding and Using Click Boxes

Click boxes add an element of interactivity to your movie. They ask the user to click the item to make a decision, which could include navigating to another slide or the movie, sending an email, or opening a Web site. You can resize these boxes and place them anywhere in a slide.

Clicks boxes are not visible on the slide. If you are familiar with the button creation features of Fireworks MX 2004, Flash MX 2004, or Dreamweaver MX 2004, click boxes define both the "hit area" and the actions that occur when the object is clicked. You set these actions in the Click Box dialog box.

You can have multiple click boxes in a slide. If this is your intention, keep in mind these boxes must be attached to captions. If click boxes are not attached to any objects in the slide, all captions in the slide will display at the same time.

To add a click box to a slide

Open the target slide in the Edit View panel.

Select Insert > Click Box. Alternatively, you can

Click the Click Box button on the Object toolbar.

Press Control-Shift-K.

Right-click the slide in the Storyboard View or Edit View panel, then select Insert > Interactive Objects > Click Box (Figure 7.5).

Figure 7.5. You can add click boxes using a slide's context menu.

[View full size image]

The "New click box" dialog box opens.

Select the Click Box tab (Figure 7.6).

Figure 7.6. Click boxes use events to determine what happens if a click is successful or if the click occurs elsewhere in the slide.

In the "On success" drop-down list, select what happens when the user clicks inside the click box.

The options are Continue, "Go to next slide," "Go to previous slide," "Jump to slide," "Open URL of file," "Open other movie," "Send email to," and "Execute JavaScript."

Depending upon your selection, the input box under the drop-down menu will change. How to work with each choice is presented later in this section.

If you want to add a key press instead of a mouse click to trigger the action, in the "Current shortcut" area, click the "Select keys" button.

The "Shortcut key" dialog box (Figure 7.7) opens.

Figure 7.7. You can assign keyboard shortcuts to clicks.

Deselect "Mouse click only."

Select a modifier keyControl, Shift, or bothand the key to be pressed.

Chapter 12, "Creating eLearning Projects."

Be very careful when assigning keyboard shortcuts to click boxes. You don't want to trigger a system shortcut. For example, theoretically you can use Control-C, but that is also the system shortcut for the Copy command. Also, always use a modifier key with shortcuts. Using just a letter or number, like C or 3, can be very confusing to the user. Function keys can't be used as shortcuts.

Alternatively, you can enter the key press manually.

Click OK.

When you return to the "New click box" dialog box, the key combination appears in the "Current shortcut" area.

Back in the "New click box" dialog box, select what happens when the user clicks outside the click box.

In the "Allow user" box, select how many clicks (1 to "Infinite attempts") are tracked before the action is triggered. In the "After last attempt" drop-down list, select what happens after the last attempt to click outside the box.

10.

Select one or more options.

11.

Click OK or Apply to see your changes.

Click Box Options

There is a lot of power "under the hood" when it comes to using click boxes. Essentially, the following options, on the Options tab of the of the "New click box" dialog box (Figure 7.8), determine what happens in a slide containing a click box:

Hint caption Select to open a caption when the user rolls over the box.

Success caption Select to add a success message caption.

Failure caption Select to add a failure caption.

Show hand mouse cursor when over success"hit"area Select to give the user a visual clue that the mouse is over a hot spot. This option should always be selected.

Stop audio when clicked Select this if you want any audio to stop playing when the box is clicked. Selecting this option only stops the audio in the slide. It does not stop the background audio. As well, this option can only be initiated with a mouse click. You can't assign a Keyboard shortcut to stop the sound.

Pause movie until user clicks Select to stop the movie until the user clicks the box.

Double mouse click Select to assign a double-click action to a box.

Figure 7.8. On the "New click box" dialog box's Options tab, you determine when the box appears on the slide, for how long, and what captions will appear when the box is clicked.

If you choose to add one or all of the captions, they will appear in the slide (Figure 7.9). Double-click the caption to open the Caption dialog box and enter the appropriate text.

Figure 7.9. A click box with captions.

To use click boxes to navigate throughout the movie

Open the slide containing the click box in the Edit View panel.

Double-click the click box to open the "New click box" dialog box.

To assign a location if the user clicks inside the box, select "Jump to slide" in the "On success" area.

Select the slide from the pop-down list in the "Jump to slide" area (Figure 7.10).

Figure 7.10. You can use click boxes to navigate to other slides in the movie.

To assign a location if the user doesn't click the box, set a number of attempts in the "Allow user" box, then select "Jump to slide" in the "After last attempt" area.

Select the slide from the pop-down list in the "Jump to slide" area.

Click OK.

Tips

In many respects, movies are living documents. You can expand or contract them through the addition or deletion of slides. Navigating to a numbered slide is a dangerous practice, because the slide numbers change if slides are added or deleted. If you are using click boxes for navigation purposes, always navigate to a named slide. This way, if slides are added or deleted, the user doesn't run the risk of being taken to the wrong slide. To add slide names, select a slide's properties to open the Slide Properties box, and add the name in the Label area.

Selecting Infinite in the "Number of attempts" area results in the rest of the area being grayed out.

To use click boxes to open another Captivate movie

Open the slide containing the click box in the Edit View panel.

Double-click the click box. The Click Box dialog box opens.

To open a new movie if the user clicks the box, in the "On success" area, select "Open other movie."

Select the movie to be opened from the "Open other movie" drop-down list (Figure 7.11).

Figure 7.11. Click boxes can open Captivate movies.

Select a destination window by clicking the Destination button (the down arrow button to the right of the pop-down list).

Your choices are Current (the default value), New, Parent, and Top.

If the movie is not listed, click the Browse button (it has three dots) and navigate to the movie.

To assign a location if the user doesn't click the box, set a number of attempts and, in the "After last attempt" area, select Movie.

Click OK.

To use click boxes to open a Web page

Open the slide containing the click box in the Edit View panel.

Double-click the click box. The Click Box dialog box opens.

To assign a location if the user clicks the box, in the "On success" area, select "Open URL or file"

Enter the full URL address in the "Open URL or file" text entry box (Figure 7.12).

Figure 7.12. Use a click box to open a browser.

To assign a location if the user doesn't click the box, in the "After last attempt" area, select URL.

Enter the full address in the "Open URL or file" text entry box and then click OK.

Tips

When you enter a URL, always use the absolute address.

The down arrow in the URL input area enables you to choose, if the movie is playing through a browser, how the page selected appears in the browser. The choices are Current, New, Parent, and Top.

To use a click box to send email

Open the slide containing the click box in the Edit View panel.

Double-click the click box.

The Click Box dialog box opens.

To assign a location if the user clicks the box, in the "On success" area, select "Send email to."

Enter the email address in the "Send e-mail to" text entry box (Figure 7.13).

Figure 7.13. You can send email when a click box is clicked.

To assign an email address if the user doesn't click the box, in the "After last attempt" area, select Email.

Enter the email address in the "Email address" text entry box.

Click OK.

Tips

Be careful using click boxes to send email. If the movie is playing from a CD or even a kiosk, be sure that an email application is installed on the computer.

If you have a number of email applications on your computer, you can't choose which application opens. Captivate launches the computer's default mail application.

To execute a JavaScript

Open the slide containing the click box in the Edit View panel.

Double-click the click box to open the Click Box dialog box.

To assign a JavaScript action if the user clicks the box, in the "On success" area, select Execute JavaScript.

Click the button with the three dots to open the JavaScript dialog box.

Enter the code and click OK (Figure 7.14).

Macromedia Captivate for Windows [Electronic resources] : Visual QuickStart Guide نسخه متنی

Adding and Using Click Boxes

To add a click box to a slide

Figure 7.5. You can add click boxes using a slide's context menu.

Figure 7.6. Click boxes use events to determine what happens if a click is successful or if the click occurs elsewhere in the slide.

Figure 7.7. You can assign keyboard shortcuts to clicks.

Click Box Options

Figure 7.8. On the "New click box" dialog box's Options tab, you determine when the box appears on the slide, for how long, and what captions will appear when the box is clicked.

Figure 7.9. A click box with captions.

To use click boxes to navigate throughout the movie

Figure 7.10. You can use click boxes to navigate to other slides in the movie.

To use click boxes to open another Captivate movie

Figure 7.11. Click boxes can open Captivate movies.

To use click boxes to open a Web page

Figure 7.12. Use a click box to open a browser.

To use a click box to send email

Figure 7.13. You can send email when a click box is clicked.

To execute a JavaScript

Figure 7.14. You can use JavaScript to control the click box.