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As heard in training...

How Can I Control the Next Button?

March 12, 2015   Yukon Learning    6 Comments

Once again, this month brought about lots of great training classes across many great cities. During these sessions, we encounter lots of great ideas, questions, and discussions. Here’s one of the questions we encountered, along with some options for resolving it.

How Can I Control the Next Button?

I guess I should clarify…this question was not asked in a recent training session. This question is asked in every training session! It’s a popular question since many developers have to deal with compliance or legal content, and they don’t want the learner advancing slides too early. Or, let’s face it…some of you are just control freaks.

Like many of the questions asked about Storyline, this one has several possible solutions. Let’s look at some of the more common options.

Option 1: Design Your Own Buttons

Remove the Previous and Next buttons from the Player, which is done in Slide Properties. (Tip: From Story View, you can do this for more than one slide at a time.) Then, you can create your own Next and Previous buttons on the slide itself. These can be adjusted on the timeline to appear whenever you like.01 Next Button

Option 2: Use a True/False Variable

Create a True/False variable and name it something like NextSlide. Then, add a condition to your Next button trigger so that the variable NextSlide must equal True.

Trigger Wizard window

From there, use a trigger to adjust that variable to False when the timeline starts on your slide. Add another trigger to adjust the variable to True when the timeline ends. (Tip: If you’re using Timeline Start and Timeline End triggers, you may consider adding the triggers to the Slide Master.)

02 Triggers

When we use this solution, we also like to add a layer that creates a prompt for the learner and explains why the Next button is not advancing. Don’t forget to add that “Show Layer” trigger to the Next button as well.

Option 3: Use a Locked or Restricted Player

Locking or restricting the Player will prevent the Next button from working until the timeline of the slide completes. This is the easiest and most straightforward solution; however, keep in mind that it will not allow you to adjust this functionality on a slide-by-slide basis. It’s a one and done solution for your course.

04 Menu Settings A

Option 4: Changing the State of the Next Button

One of the great yet overlooked features in Storyline 2 is the ability to change the states of the Previous and Next buttons. You can create a trigger to “Change the state of the Next Button” to Disabled or Hidden when the timeline starts. Then, at some point during the slide (by using the “When Timeline reaches” trigger event) or simply when the timeline ends, you can change the state of the Next button to Normal. So easy and yet effective!

06 Trigger Wizards05 Trigger Wizard

Any of these four solutions could possibly work, depending on your specific need. So, what’s your favorite approach? Do you have another that you like to use? Share your comments below, or ask any questions you may have.

That’s Storyline, and I’m sticking to it!

ron

~Ron

Update: Please note that the interface of the faster new trigger workflow (in Storyline 360 update 3.33.20625.0 or later) will appear slightly different! While the process is the same, this article uses screen captures from the classic trigger workflow.

Comments

  1. Ed Springer says

    March 31, 2015 at 11:37 am

    Ron,

    Great tip! Especially the use of variables and conditions to control the NEXT button. By the way, great class on variables and conditions at Learning Solutions.

    Reply
    • Yukon Learning says

      March 31, 2015 at 1:44 pm

      Thank you, Ed! We enjoyed having you in class and will look forward to seeing you at the next show.

      Reply
  2. James says

    April 14, 2015 at 5:05 am

    thanks for the great post

    Reply
    • Yukon Learning says

      April 17, 2015 at 8:34 am

      Thanks, James! Happy Articulating!

      Reply
  3. Melanie Sobie says

    September 22, 2017 at 10:02 am

    I usually only disable/lock the next button on slides that have several objects they need to interact with before moving on. For instance, a slide with five topics/tabs they must click on; each then branches off to more content somewhere else, or displays a layer, and then returns to the slide with the five topics/tabs.

    I don’t change the state of the next button at the start of the timeline at all. I modify the next button trigger with a condition, such as:
    Jump to next slide
    when user clicks
    next button
    on condition:
    Tab1 state is visited
    AND Tab2 state is visited
    AND Tab3 state is visited
    AND Tab4 state is visited
    AND Tab5 state is visited

    I love the simplicity of this technique!

    Reply
    • Yukon Learning says

      September 26, 2017 at 11:13 am

      Thanks for your comment Melanie. As you have indicated, there is never just one way of building something in Storyline. Learning which way you want to go based on your desired results is part of the art of using Storyline. Having all these options can make building courses a robust experience. I, too, like the solution of adding conditions to the Next trigger. I use it quite often, and when I do, I also typically add another trigger that shows a layer explaining that they need to complete the tasks given first. I do not want the learner thinking the course is not functioning.

      Thanks again!

      Reply

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