Digital Workshop

I use Opus for several important presentations however I have never been satisfied with the way it deals with bullet points.

Compared with Powerpoint; Opus appears to be a mess I always have to compromise my presentations to accomodate the way Opus works. So this time I tried to do exactly what the help files say and this is the result - see attachments.

I set up a simple bulleted list following EXACTLY the way described in the help files and it does not work!

Ideally I would like a SIMPLE way to display in turn and then grey out the bulletpoint as the next one displays - I can do this this but it is very complicated and time consuming process involving semi-transparent rectangles etc.

EDIT - I should have added the screen images as a resource, but it the result of running the program (see the image I posted).
Help please.

The Bullet Points feature of OPUS is one of my favorites. Here's what I do:

First, I create a Text Object, then I type my bullets. I allow OPUS' wrap feature to handle longer bullets, and I use the <Enter> key to start the next bullet.

When finished, I highlight all my bullets. From the Menu Icon for Bullets, I click the DOWN option to reveal my bullet choices. I next click on the color I want my bullets. All the revealed bullets will then change to the selected color. I click on my choice --> bullets now appear in front of each bullet point.

Indent
Normally, I like to have my bullet points INDENTED, so I re-highlight all the bullets, then RIGHT mouse click and select "Paragraph." Go to "Indents" and for Left Indent enter "30". If I want a Right Indent, I enter it in the next input field. When I click "OK" all my bullets slide 30 pixels to the right.

Graying
OPUS does not have an "auto graying" feature like PowerPoint. I use a Frame Object over as many bullet points as I want to "cover". I set the Frame's Background Color to gray, and I tick the Transpancy option, then set it to 50%. Under the General Tab, I select "Initially Hidden".

When I want bullets to be grayed, I use a Trigger (Timelines or Left Mouse Click both work great) and the Action "Show." Yes, you have to create as many "gray Frames" as you have bullets, but it's easy to do using the Duplicate option (select the Frame, then do a Right Mouse click to reveal a menu). I name my first Frame Object "Frame (1)". When I Duplicate, OPUS automatically increments the "1" to "2" (eg "Frame (2)"). This makes keeping track of the Frames easy.

Thank you demofred for your kind assistance,

I still think that the way Opus handles bullets needs considerable improvement. I find that I have bulleted paragraphs with identical paragraph-properties and identical properties and yet some will be properly justified below the first line whilst others will wrap below the bullet. I can see no rhyme or reason why this should happen.

I find the whole aspect of bullets in Opus confusing poorly presented in the help files and difficult to implement in a consistent way suitable for a production enviroment.

Most other aspects of Opus I find excellent, consistent and straightforward to implement but for me this is the Achilles Heel of the program.

For example if I create a text box with a short section of wrapped text and then introduce a bullet I get a nicely left justified column, however, if I then try to introduce an additional line or change the gap between the bullet and the text I seem to get unpredictable and variable results. I can eventually get the result that I want but the time taken is out of proportion to what should be a simple and straightforward task.

Perhaps I am alone with this difficulty, but it does cause a disproportionate amout of wasted time in a busy environment. This is the prime reason I cannot currently recommend Opus to organisations that I work with. This is a shame as otherwise the program is excellent.

I've been using OPUS for a long time. When there's something I want to do, but haven't tried it before, I find I can sleep on it overnight, and wake up with the answer. I even have a coined a name for it -- "Think in OPUS." You've been using PowerPoint for a long time, so you "Think in PowerPoint." Once you have started to "Think in OPUS" things will make more sense, and become easier.

After re-reading your post, I am quite sure your Text Object has multiple Paragrah settings, which is why some text lines look one way, while other text lines look different. Try highlighting the entire text (top to bottom), then set the Paragraph with INDENTS and SPECIAL INDENTs.

The SPECIAL INDENT handles the number of pixels on the wrapped (second) line AFTER a Bullet Point. The default (NONE) has the wrapped line be the same as the bullet, but I prefer to use HANGING with 30 pixels which causes the second (wrapped) line to be pushed under the first (bullet) line. FIRST LINE pushes the wrapped/second line back to the original far left margin.

If you are a power user of PowerPoint, then you already know its limits. OPUS will take you far FAR beyond what you've been able to do with PowerPoint. Once you start to "Think in OPUS" you will never want to have to build a presentation in PowerPoint. You will feel totally constrained by its very limited capabilities. No, you can't become an OPUS expert/power user overnight, but it is far easier to learn, and more logical/consistent than Director or any other OPUS competitor.

This Discussion Forum is an excellent place to learn more (and eventually become the covetted "power user.") I'm still learning new things about OPUS. Trust me; it becomes easier once you start to "Think in OPUS." And it's amazing how when I finally understand an OPUS feature, the HELP section for that feature makes far more sense! Hang-in there!!!!

Thank you demofred for your patient attention.

I have two issues with the way Opus treats bullets.

The first is the supposed sequential display and hide of bullets as described in the help files. I simply cannot make this work. I open a new Opus file I open a page template, set paragraph settings and tabs to get nicely formatted paragraphs see screen shot.

I then test the publication and as expected start with a blank screen I then press the space bar to supposedly show the first line of text as explained by the help file but all I get is the nonsense shown in the next screen shot.

The second issue is the way I am forced to format the bullet points. Under properties ->text I have the following controls: Margins, Paragraph and Tabs. Margin is OK as it moves all the bullets and text as expected. However, under paragraph I have a number of controls, spacing works OK, left indent works similarly to margins but only on selected lines. Special indent – hanging works on all lines in a paragraph after the first line so with a bit of fiddling I can get a justified paragraph.

And then there is the tabs control, I think that what this means is that whatever value I set in the Default tab stops box will be the number of pixels/ems (?) that the text in the top line will move. So I control the top line with tabs and the rest of the text with paragraph -> special indent -> hanging. What position, set, remove and alignment do I haven’t a clue except that if I fiddle with them strange things happen to the position of the text in each paragraph.

What I woud have liked in the help file is a simple explanation of what each control does and also a clear explanation of the way the script works in the "show paras in turn template". Plus of course script that actually works in the way it should.

Martin

PS at the moment I cannot seem to upload .jpg's! I keep pressing 'add an attachment' navigating to the jpg files, adding comments but nothing seems to happen. So I compressed them into a zip file and that seemed to work OK.

I have attached a simple file that shows the instructions in the help file do work. If you run this you will find the bullets appear one at a time and when the second appears the first will fade etc. The page action is set to 'Show in Turn' the other actions applied to the text objects.
Please note that I had some no shows using text boxes but you can produce a block of formatted and laid out text as an object and it should be no problem.
I agree it is not as user friendly as PowerPoint but this took me five minutes this morning. Click anywhere near the bottom of the page to start, then check out the properties and actions for the text objects. Hope it helps.
NB. I am nowhere near expert level with OPUS but I do a lot of presentations so I have used this technique a few times.

John --

Thanks for reminding me about the "Show In Turn" feature of OPUS. I'd forgotten about it. Yes, it gives you the ability to "dim" bullets after they display.

If I remember correctly, you have to have all the desired Text Objects set for "Initially Hidden." If you DON'T then when you try to use "Show In Turn" there will be nothing to select from. You can move the order in which items appear within this feature which would allow you to bounce back and forth across columns instead of just down a list.

Within the Properties -> Text options you set the Margins for the entire Text Object. Using the highlight then Right Mouse Menu -> Paragraph, you are only controlling selected portions of the text.

Thank you for your help. I can use the method you described here and it works well. What contines to bother me is that the method in the help file is different, uses some script and relies on using a page template, I have still not been able to make this work -I will just use the method you described.

The help file says:

1. Each bullet can be displayed one after the other on a page in Opus either by clicking on the Left mouse button or pressing the space bar. Clicking the Right mouse button or the Backspace key will hide the last bullet displayed.

2. By default any page on a Page Template that has a bullet list are preset to display one bullet at a time. However, if you create your own text boxes containing bullets on a page, the bullets will not display one after the other.

3. Click on your bullet Text box. A bounding box will surround the text box.

4. Click on the Initially Hidden button on the Object Properties toolbar.

5. Double right click on an empty space on the page. This will open the Actions dialog box for the page.

6. Click on the Show In Turn action in the Actions Organiser on the left side of the dialog box. This will open the Show In Turn tab on the right side of the Actions dialog box.

Note:

Every Page Template you add to your publication has preset triggers and actions. The actions include both a Show In Turn and Hide In Turn action that displays content objects. If the page includes a bullet Text box, each bullet will be displayed in turn when you preview the page.

If you have created a blank publication (i.e. not from a template provided), you will need to add the BulletText script from the Script Templates option in the QuickBuild menu – see Script Templates for more information. Follow the instructions in the BulletText script to make the bullets in your text box appear.

7. Click on the checkbox beside the name of your Text box in the Object list until a tick appears in the checkbox.

8. Click on the Apply button to save your changes.

Thanks again

Martin