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Add interactive buttons to your Captivate Classic projects

Last updated on 9 October 2023 | Also applies to Captivate

Add interactive buttons to Adobe Captivate Classic projects and add states to the buttons.

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Buttons are one of the most common ways of adding a standard object to your Captivate Classic slides.

You can increase the interactivity of your Adobe Captivate Classic projects by adding buttons. To add a button, use the default button style (a plain, white rectangle). You can also import custom button images. You can size and position buttons on a slide. You determine what happens after the user clicks the button.

Adding an interactive button

In Captivate Classic, you can add interaction to a button and have any action when you click the button.

To add an interactive button:

On the main menu, click Interactions > Button. On the slide, you will see that a button is inserted.
With the button inserted in the slide, you can change the properties of the button from the Properties Inspector panel.

You can change the style of the button (transparent or image) and change the button font.
To add an action or interaction to the button, select the button, and click the Actions tab, as shown below:
Display Success, Failure, and Hint captions, if required.
- Success: Select this check-box to include a caption to be displayed when the user clicks the button.
- Failure: Select this check-box to include a caption to be displayed when the user clicks outside the button.
- Hint: Select this check-box to specify a hint to be displayed to users. The hint is displayed when the user moves the mouse over the button.
You can delete a button at any time by selecting it and pressing the Delete key. When you delete a button, all associated objects (such as success and failure captions) are also deleted.
Preview and/or publish the project.

As example , create a project with an interactive button, which when clicked hides an object. When you click the button again, you can see the object.

Create a variable myVar and set its value to zero. On button success, in the Advanced Actions panel, choose a conditional action with an if statement.

The action checks that if the value of myVar is zero, then hide the object, and increment the value of myVar to one.

Adding a Smart Shape as button

Smart shapes include many categories of readily-available shapes such as arrows, buttons, or basic shapes. You can insert and modify such shapes quickly and easily in your Adobe Captivate Classic projects.

You can convert a smart shape into a button and add interactivity to it.

Open the slide to which you want to add a button.
On the main menu, click Shapes > choose any Smart Shape.
Choose the button and modify the button properties in the Property Inspector panel.
Select the Use as Button check-box and define the action when the button is clicked.
Preview and/or publish the project.

Adding an Image as button

Image as a button

In eLearning projects, there were situations, when you, as an eLearning developer, wanted to import any image and use it as a button. In earlier versions of Captivate Classic, adding an image as a button involved multiple steps. You had to import an image, add a smart shape over it, change the opacity, and then use the smart shape as a button. It was more a workaround, less a precise workflow.

In Captivate Classic (2019 release) Update 2, you can add an image as button and add interactivity to the button, something that Captivate Classic already does. You can use the object as a button to trigger any action and assign states.

This workflow not only improves your productivity, but also introduces a simpler way to create buttons.

You can use both jpg/bmp and vector images as button. The following are the file formats supported for image files:

· Jpeg, jpg

· Gif

· Png

· Bmp

· Ico

· Emf

· Wmf

· Pot, potx, pict

To convert an image and use the image as a button,

Open a project in Captivate Classic.
To insert an image, click Media > Image, and select any image.
On the stage, select the image.
On the Property Inspector, choose the option Use as Button.
In the Actions tab, define the action after you click the button when previewing the project or having published the project.

Set the stage

Create a responsive project.
In the project, on the toolbar, click Fluid Box, and two horizontal Fluid Boxes.

Fluid Boxes
On the right Fluid Box, add the image, conclusion_img_bottom.png.

Insert image
Add Dave and Angie to the left Fluid Box.

Dave and Angie
On the right Fluid Box, add a smart shape with the title Image as button demo.

Insert smart shape
Insert speech bubbles for both Dave and Angie. Also, unlock both the objects from the Fluid Box.

Insert speech bubbles

Assign actions to the objects

Once the stage is set, the next steps are creating a variable, advanced actions, and assigning the button actions to the advanced actions.

Create a variable _toggle. The initial state of this variable is 0. When you click a button, the state of the variable becomes 1. For more information, see Variables in Captivate Classic.

Create variable
Create the advanced actions.
1. The first advanced action hides both the speech bubbles when you launch the project. Name the action hide_bubbles.
  
  Hide bubble action
  
  In the Property Inspector, under the Actions tab, choose the action hide_bubbles.
  
  Choose action
2. The second advanced action, toggle_Dave, when invoked, reveals Dave’s speech bubble, when you click Dave. The variable _toggle changes its value to 1 when you click Dave. After the speech bubble disappears, the value of _toggle becomes 0.
3. The third advanced action, toggle_Angie, when invoked, reveals Angie’s speech bubble, when you click Angie. The variable _toggle changes its value to 1 when you click Angie. After the speech bubble disappears, the value of _toggle becomes 0.
  
  Toggle Angie
Convert both Dave and Angie into buttons. Choose the image, and in the Property Inspector, choose the Use as Button check-box.

Use as button
Assign both Dave and Angie to their respective advanced action.
After you are done creating your project, you will need to make it available for your users. To do this, you will need to publish your project. Adobe Captivate Classic allows you to publish your project to multiple output locations:

·       Your computer

·       iOS or Android

·       Adobe Connect

Make SVG as button

In this update, you can also make a Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) button. The process is similar to how you have made other types of buttons as image.

On the toolbar, click Media > SVG, and select any SVG.
On the Property Inspector, enable the option Use as Button.
In the Actions tab, assign any action to the button from the On Success drop-down list.

Fill SVG

You can apply a fill color to the image. To apply fill on the image,

Select the SVG on the stage.
On the stage, double-click the SVG.
On the SVG, choose any path, and apply a color from the color palette. In SVG, you can use a path to create lines, curves, arcs, and more. A path is also a combination of multiple shapes, for example, straight or curved lines. A path can be as complex as a series of polylines; therefore, it is important to know the right path to apply a color to. For example, the screenshots below show a path that has been filled with color. In the first image, the path is filled with red. In the second image, the path is filled with green.

The blue boundary on the SVG shows the path selected in the SVG and changing color would change color for that path only.

Add states to the button

To add states to the button,

Convert an image into a button.
On the Property Inspector, click State View.
Change the properties of the RollOver and the Down states.
Exit the State view and preview/publish the project.

The buttons should change states when they are acted upon. You can also add visited state and custom states to image as a button.

Button properties reference

To view the properties of a button, select it on the slide. The Property inspector displays the properties of the button.When you change the properties, the changes are instantly applied to the selected instance of the button.

Interactive button properties

Id	Description
1	Choose any of - Text, Transparent, or Image.
2	The button label.
3	Change the properties of the button label font.
4	Change the button label effects.
5	Change shadow and reflection properties of the button.
6	Choose to apply the properties to all objects of the same type.

Smart Shape as button properties

Property	Label description
	1. Change the smart shape. 2. Change the smart shape background color and opacity. 3. Modify the stroke properties of the button. 4. Change the button label font properties.
	1. Insert symbol, user-defined variable, or hyperlink. 2. Modify button label color properties. 3. Modify button margins. 4. Modify button shadow properties.
	Choose the action to be executed when you click the button. Assign a shortcut key to the button Display Success/Failure/Hint caption upon clicking the button. Choose the type of cursor and enable/disable click sound.
	Choose an audio file/clip that plays when you click the button. Modify the size and position of the button. Change the angular position of the button. Maintains the height-to-width ratio of the button when you resize it.

Using interactive buttons in a Drag and Drop interaction project

Drag-and-drop interactions provide an interesting and engaging way of assessing your users’ knowledge. This interaction lets users answer questions by draging and dropping objects in the designated areas or objects.

A drag-and-drop interaction involves a drag source and a drop target. Users drag the drag sources and drop them onto drop targets.

Create a drag and drop interaction project specifying the drag sources and drop targets, and the mappings, as shown below.

For more information on creating s drag and drop interaction, see Drag and drop interactions in Adobe Captivate Classic.
Add appropriate success and failure captions.
To add Undo and Reset buttons to the project, navigate to the Drag and Drop panel, and enable the options Undo and Reset.
To add states to the buttons, select a button, click the Properties Inspector, and add button properties for RollOver and Down states.
Preview and/or publish the project.

Using interactive buttons in a Quiz project

In Captivate Classic, you can add states to quiz buttons. You can add a RollOver state and/or a Down state to the buttons.

Create a quiz project with the buttons, as shown below:
Add states to the following buttons:
- Submit
- Back
- Skip
- Review forward
- Review back
- Clear
Preview and/or publish the project.

Using interactive buttons in a Master Slide in a responsive mode

You can add states to buttons in a Master Slide in responsive mode and use the Master Slide in your project.

Create a responsive project (Ctrl+H) and insert a Master Slide (Insert > Content Master Slide) into the project.
Add the title, sub-title, and content placeholders. Add three smart shapes into the project and convert them into buttons.

Master Slide responsive layout
Add states to the buttons. Choose a button and in the Properties Inspector panel, add the button properties for RollOver and Down states.

Button states
Exit the Master Slide view. Insert a content slide, and choose the Master Slide you had created from the list of Master Slides. Insert a title, sub-title, and content to the slide.

Preview/publish the project.
To insert Fluid Boxes into the project, click Suggest Fluid Boxes in the Properties Inspector. The Fluid Box automatically creates containers according to the layout of the objects.

Align the objects vertically or horizontally.

For more information on Fluid Boxes, see Fluid Boxes in Captivate Classic.

Master Slide Fluid Box layout

Automatically resize buttons

You can configure Adobe Captivate Classic to automatically resize a button or caption according to the amount of text in the button. If you edit the text, the button changes size to accommodate the new text.

In an open project, select Edit > Preferences (on Windows) or Adobe Captivate Classic > Preferences (Mac OS).
In the Preferences dialog box, select Defaults under the Global menu.
Select Autosize Buttons in the General panel on the right.

Note:

Best practice is to resize buttons before resizing the project. Resizing a project does not resize the buttons automatically.

Modify buttons on question slides

You can modify some properties of buttons on question slides. The standard buttons are Clear, Back, Submit, and Skip.

Select the question button that you want to modify.
In the Quiz Properties panel, set the values for the various options.