Digital Workshop

Hi!
< I am creating a presentation in which I want a horizontal cursor move after a certain button is pressed to reset certain objects and 'hover overs'. Does anyone have experience on how to do this? Is it at all possible? >
Thanks!

Ruud from Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Hi,

Thank you for your enquiry.

Does the cursor have to physically move around the screen, or could you just use a series of hide actions to reset the objects and remove the 'hover overs' from view. If you simply need to reset all of the objects on the page, try issuing a 'Go To Page' action which reloads the current page.

If you do need to show the cursor physically moving from one object to the next (for example, as part of a software demonstration), the easiest method would be to issue a 'Hide Cursor' action to hide the real cursor, then show a 'dummy' cursor (i.e; a small transparent GIF image of the standard arrow cursor) moving along a predetermined animation path. Please note that many objects, including buttons, will not respond to this fake cursor, so you may also need to emulate button clicks and object states using fake versions of the original button objects.

I hope this helps. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further queries.

Kind regards,

Hi,

Thanks for your answer!
The problem is that by hovering over a button, certain frames and some text is displayed. If the cursor stays on the button, and it is pressed again, these frames and the text will stay hidden while other actions do take place. By moving the cursor over another button, a different frame and textbox is shown. I hope you do understand this, despite my 'denglish' explanation. If not, I can also send you the page.

Ruud, The Netherlands

Hi,

Thank you for your reply.

This should be relatively easy to achieve. Simply add a Mouse Over trigger to each of your buttons which hides ALL of the frames and text objects from view, then shows the correct frame and text. You can then move the mouse off the original button and perform other actions without affecting the frame and text, but still go back and rollover another button if needs be.

Please find below a link to download an example of this.

Kind regards,

Hi,

Thanks for your explanation, but...
...not really what I meant. I have attached one page of my publication to clarify things. As soon as the page starts, just click on the yellow-ish button. After the action is complete, another button comes in to view. The user however may want to click the first button again, therefore will see different information, and -of course- different actions. The only way to make this work is to move the mouse of the button and then in again. Or am I missing something?

Ruud, The Netherlands

Ruud --

I downloaded your sample, and re-read your posts. Sorry, I'm still not sure what you want. Here are a couple of things which may help you:

1) Have you tried MultiFrames? You can create a MultiFrame which covers all of your computer components, and have the first Frame blank. If they move their pointer over the Button (called a Mouse Over), then you can set an Action of going to a specific frame in your new MultiFrame. Create a second Frame within this MultiFrame, and put Text Objects where you want them.

If they click the first Button, your animation happens. If you don't want it to happen again, then add a Disable Action as the last item on the first Button. You can then have a second Button appear, with another Mouse Over which shows a third Frame.

Try working with those suggestions. I'm sure the answer you need is within my answer (somewhere).

If I'm understanding you, you want something like an "autofocus" action. So that the cursor automatically jumps to the new button when it is displayed.

I don't think Opus provides for that. It'd be nice though. On for the wishlist?

Rereading your post I had a few more thoughts:

As I understand your program...

1) You hover over the button. A text box "username and password" appears.
2) You click the button. An animation plays and the text box is replaced by another reading "authentication"
3) After the animation has played the next button appears.

If at this point you reclick the first button the animation plays but the text boxes are not reset.

At present the only way to reset the text boxes is by moving the cursor off and back onto the first button.

Am I following so far?...

With only the exe file and no publication it's hard to know what triggers you've used and troubleshoot, but the only thing that springs to mind as a possible worksaround is using a variable to record whether the button has already been clicked once.

If is hasn't then you only play the animation bits (from step 2) (because the intial text has already been displayed by the mouse over in step 1)

If if has been clicked once, and you're just reclicking it then you repeat the whole sequence of actions starting with hiding and reshowing the text boxes from step 1.


Now I'm not sure if I'm making sense... Good luck.

Hi leiafee

Thanks for your answer! The autofocus does not really solve my problem I am afraid. What I want is more like a reversed 'move object to cursor' option, so 'move cursor to object'. Unfortunately, I could not open your .imp (I have Opus Pro 2.81, yours was made on a newer version). Instead, I have attached the specific page again in .imp format (and deleleted some of the 'commercially sensitive' details) :-p.
Meanwhile, I have also created an alternative for the first button; it moves to the side when pressed, and comes back in again after the animation (triggered by a button press) has finished. This makes the cursor hover over the button again, thus showing the initial comment and colored blocks again and the animation can be shown again. From that moment on, the user may press button 2, but may also want to press button one again. Cosmetically, I don't really like this horizontal move alternative.
Every button triggers different comments and actions. You will see that I have disabled all of the other buttons while one button is pressed to prevent other animations from starting while another one is still running.
Sorry, it's a bit of a long story, but I hope you are still with me here! Please keep sending me ideas on how to solve this puzzle!