Digital Workshop

I've done this before, but now can't make it work...

I have a master page with four buttons... Prevous page, Next Page, Home, Exit.

Every page in the presentation uses these buttons.

So, on the last page of the presentation, I want to hide the "Next Page" button.

So.... I set a variable on the last page, called "end_page". The first action, on show, is to set "end_page" to yes.

On the master page, I put an on-show If end_page = yes to hide the Next Page button.

But it doesn't work... I guess the master page info is read before the end page is.

Can someone remind me how to get round this? For the minute I've just duplicated the master page and used a different version for the end page, but that's a scrappy way of working...

Thanks, Linda

Linda --

You know me -- always do it the "easy way (when possible)."

Forget the Programming and Logic. Just create a Frame, then select a matching background color. Go into Properties - General, and tick "Stop mouse clicks passing through." On your last Page, place this over the location of your Next Page Button.

Knowing you, you probably have a fancy, artistic background instead of a simple "color (colour for those in the UK)." Fear not. On the Master, make the Next Page Button "Hidden" (just for this exercise), then do a Preview. Press the Print Screen button to capture the entire screen/Page. Now go into PSP and do a Paste. Use the Cropping Tool and select the area where the Next Page would normally show. Save this clip. Now go to the Frame you created in the beginning, and under Image, put this clip. It will now cover the Master Page's Next Page Button, yet when you click, nothing will happen.

PS Don't forget to UN Hide your Next Page (see, you forgot it already).

Ah, well.... I actually did all this before I ever wrote, as it seemed the obvious answer..... but what I found was this:

As you appreciate from the other "button" thread, I have four buttons on the master page, each with a mouseover that reveals some text.

So on the last page I put a square of blank over the button, and stopped the mouse click passing through.

BUT... it didn't stop the mouse OVER action.... so when I moved the mouse over the blank, I still got the hand curser, and I still got the button's text. An unwanted feature, I think... I probably haven't explained that too well, so I'll just go and run up a test pub to prove the point....

Ok, Fred... try this for me. Preview the pub, get to the end page.... the mouse-over action is still there on the covered button.

Multiple master pages could be an implementation you might want to consider.
Have added a second master page (copy of master minus the next button).

Yes, the changed cursor and mouse over actions are still there.

I worked on your example, adding my "touches." Take a look at Button2.imp (attached). It has your original work, plus I added what I would do.

I used Programming; Setting Variables, Frames, MultiFrames, and lots of experience and testing.

Your example has a Back Button Action of PREVIOUS. You should use "BACKWARD" not "Previous." Previous is ONLY used in special situtations, like a Help Page which can be accessed from any Page, but you want to go "back" to the Previous Page where you came from. Backward goes to the Page before the one you are on. OPUS keeps track of where you are at in its memory. When you keep using Previous when you really mean Backward, OPUS is wasting memory -- eventually there is a limit (I've seen 99 times in older software), after which it shouldn't go anywhere. (Sorry if you already knew that... See what happens when you start me thinking like a Programmer.)

Fred, thanks very much for taking the time out to look at this. I've studied your example with interest... there's always so many ways of doing stuff!!

One comment... the "previous" command is necessary... the pub is a main menu of 8 sections, with each section containing 8 pages. Once in a section, I don't want people being able to go backwards into other sections. I merely want them to have the choice of returning to where they came from. I think people would expect a Back button to work in this way, having been conditioned by the internet.

Second comment... am I right in thinking that your pub works because you're setting the variable to hide the button on the last page, ON THE PAGE BEFORE... so what that means is that any page with buttons that point to the last page must also contain that code?

That answers the question that I started in this thread... because I had the action on the last page, it wasn't read until after the Master Page code had been read, therefore it didn't work.

Putting it on the page before solves the problem.

However, ensuring that the code is on every page that links to the end page just means another level of testing, complicating a large presentation... so I'm tempted to go back to the original idea of a separate master page for the last page!

Linda -

"Yes." You are correct. You could customize the first screen in each section by having a real Back Button on top/over where the normal Back Button appears. That Button could use PREVIOUS, while the Master Page Back Button uses BACKWARD.

Another idea is to have 3 Master Pages: Back, Normal, Last Page.

As you and I have said, OPUS gives you multiple ways to perform most operations.

You're only too right Fred! ...Opus is so versatile!

Using Linda's initial IMP, here is yet another way, by using a little bit of script only on the Master Page. The script gets the name of each page and stores it into a variable. No other actions are required on any other pages, which can be a relief if you have many pages.

The only other slight IF modification is on the previous button, as Linda wishes to retain the Previous button.

The pub's quite simple really, thanks to OpusScript.

Neat job, Steve. Something I always wanted to do for my templates. Actually I added code so that the previous button is not seen on the Home Page as there is no Previous page to go to.

Steve, I really like this solution (because I understand it!!!)

Can you figure out one refinement for me?

When the user keeps their mouse over the Next button, clicking from page to page, then when they get to the end page. the words "Next page" are still visible until they move their mouse.

I had some code that cured this once (by getting the Next button to set a variable) but can't find it now.

So... if the Left Mouse trigger on the Next button set a variable called nextpage to yes, then how would I adapt the script on the master page to say if nextpage =yes then hide text_nav_next?

many thanks, Linda

In the first post in this thread, Linda wrote:



I've followed the progress of this thread with interest because there have been some neat solutions. However, what really surprised me was that no one thought to mention what to me seems obvious because it is what I always do in similar circumstances.

1. Create a master page with four buttons... Prevous page, Next Page, Home, Exit. Call it MP01.

2. Duplicate that master page. Call it MP02. Remove the Previous page button, and if you like (for aesthetics only ) realign the remaining buttons.

3. Apply MP01 to all the pages except the last page.

4. Apply MP02 to the last page.

Many people seem to forget that we can use multiple master pages in a pub. I think the most I have ever used was about 120.

We can also layer master pages, where, for example, MP04 might consist of MP03 which consists of MP02, which consists of MP01. Of course, this layering is only effective where each successive master page contains uniques features that differentiate it from the other master pages.

I don't know if there is an upper limit to the number of layers we can use. I can't see why there would be. The most I have needed to include was 4. I have to add a caution here: I used the 4 layers with Opus 281. I haven't tried it with 04. It should be OK, but sometimes a new version springs unexpected surprises.

HTH

Hi Ray,

Apart from your excellent response, which shows how versatile Opus is, I prepared these answers and new IMP offline in response to Linda's questions, so I will paste them in here...



Hi Linda,

One simply answer is "don't use a mouse over cursor" -- but that's not the answer you want.

So, yes this is indeed annoying!! DW need to PLEASE look into this for the next version. I tried many different approaches to try and stop this occuring...from complex to basic. Even if you do a basic On-Show frame with a different cursor, it will not activate until you move the mouse.

The workaround, is to make the last page NOT linked to the Master Page. Using the same format as the previous example, see the ammended IMP. I have inserted some more 'middle' pages for sake of demonstration. The bonus of using the GetName() script, each page name automatically can be displayed if you want.



I dare say this was when you were not using Master Pages, but normal pages to navigate a pub.



You don't have to worry about this now.

Linda --

In this thread, I mentioned about using BACKWARD instead of PREVIOUS. I have received information from Robin, which I'm going to share:

--------------------------------
The Previous page functionality is limited to 20 pages as demonstrated by the attached publication. Try previewing this publication and keep clicking on the Forward button until you reach Page 21. Now keep clicking on the Previous button and you should find that you are only able to return to Page 2 before a Page Not Found error is displayed.

This limit should prevent any unwanted increase in memory usage.
----------------------------------

So be advised, you can ONLY have 20 Pages using PREVIOUS, after that you'll get an "Page Not Found" error message.

I'm going to have to modify my trade show presentation which was going to use PREVIOUS and Timeout (which, after xx seconds goes to a specific Page, like Main Menu). Since after several users, there's a good chance I'll be at 20 pages, the presentation will lock up, so I'm going to have to create code instead of PREVIOUS.

Fred,

Thanks very much for passing this on... you're right, it does now make a lot of difference to my thinking too. I'd not considered before that there might be a limit, and even if there was, that it would be so small.

As ever... just as I get my head round one thing, the rules are changed again.... !!!