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 Post subject: Show/Hide
PostPosted: September 24th, 2006, 6:18 pm 
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Location: Houston, Republic of Texas
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I've scaled back my immediate desires for this simulator while working on some leads on the reverse video issues. However, I am running into an issue with show/hide that is ruining my day.

As a concept demonstrator, I decided to simply have the levers show the action they would have when functioned. This requires 12 videos and one still (machine at rest). Programming the first lever (back/fwd) works fine. However, when I add another image on the next lever I start having problems with one or the other of the first two images not showing as the third seems to be visible even though it is initally hidden and I've not added a "show" command for it. Basically, what is seen appears to be a function of ordering regardless of the "show/hide" or "initally hidden" settings.

What am I missing about this?

Dave


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An objective is a description of a performance you want your learners to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent.
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PostPosted: September 24th, 2006, 7:18 pm 
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Talking to myself...

I figured out that order is important in these commands. That helped. However, I've found that layer order appears to override commands. Once the "hide/Show/play video" commands are in the right order things happen...except that a video that is told to be hidden appears anyway when the one behind is is given a "show' command.

That don't seem right...

What am I missing now?

Dave

_________________
An objective is a description of a performance you want your learners to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent.
Dr. Robert F. Mager, 1962

"If you can't measure it, it's crap."
David A. Mallette, 1980


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: September 24th, 2006, 8:09 pm 
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Joined: January 6th, 2005, 8:56 pm
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Location: Houston, Republic of Texas
Opus: 8
OS: W7 Pro
System: Dell Precision T5500, 8 core Dual Xeon 2.13 GHz, 24 GB RAM, All SSD drives
Well, I've been through the options. Changing video to "always on top" cures the issue of what is playing actually being on top...but the delay associated with bringing the summoned video to the top and hiding the rest is too great for it to be useful. Changing back to chroma key makes the action fast enough, but the "hide" command doesn't work if those you are trying to hide are ordered on top.

Sort of a show stopper at the moment and I am a bit frustrated.

Dave

_________________
An objective is a description of a performance you want your learners to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent.
Dr. Robert F. Mager, 1962

"If you can't measure it, it's crap."
David A. Mallette, 1980


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: September 24th, 2006, 10:37 pm 
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Joined: January 6th, 2005, 8:56 pm
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Location: Houston, Republic of Texas
Opus: 8
OS: W7 Pro
System: Dell Precision T5500, 8 core Dual Xeon 2.13 GHz, 24 GB RAM, All SSD drives
OK, big learning curve today. I ended with at least qualified success. I've learned how important command sequence is and that certain things are counter-intuitive. Hide/Show simply doesn't work as one would expect. I found that the only way to insure the correct video was on top was to use the "display only when playing" option. Also I found that mpeg2 kills Opus. Surprising and disappointing. mpeg1 is way too ugly for my needs and AVI, while really pretty, chokes the clunky way that Windows "handles" video. So I went with a maximum WMV file.

I've also learned that Windows Media Player 11 is supposed to be able to play certain video filetypes forward or reverse with user controlled speed.

I hope the Opus developers will take a look at that. It really surprised me that it did not seem to be an issue here as it is pretty fundamental to any serious simulator.

Anyway, take a look at the attached if you want to see the solution so far...and I'd be please to hear any suggestions. About all I intend to do to it at this point is to change the single state still image that all the videos refert to on "STOP" (center lever position) to ones a bit more realistically showing the state after that particular operation.

Dave


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_________________
An objective is a description of a performance you want your learners to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent.
Dr. Robert F. Mager, 1962

"If you can't measure it, it's crap."
David A. Mallette, 1980


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: September 25th, 2006, 1:06 am 
Dave

I don't know if this will work for you, but here is a suggestion which I find has worked for me when I need to show/hide a number of objects which are triggered by different actions. I don't know what you are trying to make specific suggestions, but I'm sure you can work these into your pub.

Rather than use show/hide in such cases, I find enable object/disable object works fine and allows me some additional control.

Rather than making the trigger act directly on the object, I set up a variable the contents of which change depending on the current trigger. I then use the resulting value in that variable to enable/disable the objects.

Might this work for you?


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 Post subject: No Objects Selected
PostPosted: September 25th, 2006, 4:01 am 
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Location: Naperville, Illinois (USA)
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Dave --

I downloaded your IMP file to try to see what you are doing.

The first thing I noticed was on your RESET Button Object under Actions:
You have a Left Mouse Click Trigger -- That's fine. Look at the first "Stop Video & Reset" Action. Notice in the window on the right there are three Videos (Up, Forward, & Back). NONE of them are highlighted. So OPUS will do NOTHING. You MUST highlight one of those Videos.

Same thing for your next Action - "Show". Again when you click on it, a window appears on the right showing all the Objects on the Page. NONE of them have been Ticked, so again, OPUS will done NOTHING.

Ditto for your "Stop Video & Reset" and your "Hide." You MUST select the Objects you want to Stop, Show, Hide, etc. You haven't selected anything, so OPUS isn't going to do anything.

I'm baffled how/why you created three "things" (GIF, Buttons, Videos) with three small squares on the Organizer. You inserted Objects in each. Why not just have the Objects on the Page? You've used Frames to Hide things, but you've not really made sense with any of this.

I'm leaving for out of town, so I don't have time to re-do this Page for you, but from what I'm seeing -- it's the way you are trying to do things, not OPUS that's the problem. You are trying to make it too difficult. I'll post a working sample when I return. Have faith. This will work very nicely.

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Fred Harms, Extraordinary Demos
Naperville, Illinois (USA) 630/904-3636
demofred@aol.com


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: September 25th, 2006, 12:56 pm 
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Joined: January 6th, 2005, 8:56 pm
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Location: Houston, Republic of Texas
Opus: 8
OS: W7 Pro
System: Dell Precision T5500, 8 core Dual Xeon 2.13 GHz, 24 GB RAM, All SSD drives
Fred, Ray:
Excellent. I've no ego, only needs. Also a lot of faith in Opus as I've used it off and on since version 1 of Illuminatus. As I said, my relearning curve is steep, but I don't give up easy.

As to the reset button, it is from early experiments and has no function at all.

On the object enable/disable track I'd need more info as I don't follow it all that well.

Most all of what I've done with this is just do it, do it, do it until the right combination appears. Ya gotta have faith!

Still, the worst problem is the lack of a control to reverse video in Opus. I've had programmers to handle this in the past and I don't recall it being that much of an issue. Of course, we were dealing with non-MS OS that handled video as video rather than like a spreadsheet so that may have been part of the reason. However, as I have mentioned, I know there are routines to handle this in Windows and I hope the Opus folks will take a look. This stuff I am working on is for a 3 billion dollar drilling company that has extraordinary training needs for field-usable interactive. So much so that they made me an "offer I couldn't refuse" to become an employee...something I've not been for nearly 20 years. I am primarily a software designer rather than developer and use Opus to prototype things. However, in this case I'd like to standardize on Opus for a lot of the packages we will need. For those things where it is not the best tool it can still be used as a front end to call routines.

Anyway, thanks again and keep the suggestions coming! This is going to be FUN!

Dave

_________________
An objective is a description of a performance you want your learners to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent.
Dr. Robert F. Mager, 1962

"If you can't measure it, it's crap."
David A. Mallette, 1980


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 Post subject: Please send GIFs
PostPosted: September 25th, 2006, 2:36 pm 
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Location: Naperville, Illinois (USA)
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Dave --

Well, the first leg of my trip today was cancelled, so I was going to play with your project to try to help you. Please email me the GIF files because without any visiable Objects, I'm not able to "see" what you are trying to accomplish.

Using Layers can make some project easier to edit, but in this case, the "above" or "below" positioning which occurs with Layers may be limiting what you want. I'm not sure why you have Frames which must "cover" things. I'm hoping it will be more visually obvious if I have your GIF files. OPUS tells me there are 8 missing when I load your project. They look small and therefore should be easy to ZIP & email.

I'll be glad to help you.

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Naperville, Illinois (USA) 630/904-3636
demofred@aol.com


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: September 25th, 2006, 4:03 pm 
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I'll do that shortly. The enable/disable function looks useful, but there doesn't seem to be a way to load objects in a disabled state. I am messing with that now. The thing is basically functioning as I need, but I can't get the sequence quite right to show the stills I need when a video completes and disappears without there being some dead screen delay.

There are about 20 or so objects in the "GIF" layer. Do you have a list of which are missing? I suppose I could send the all...

Dave

_________________
An objective is a description of a performance you want your learners to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent.
Dr. Robert F. Mager, 1962

"If you can't measure it, it's crap."
David A. Mallette, 1980


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: September 25th, 2006, 4:10 pm 
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Joined: January 6th, 2005, 8:56 pm
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Location: Houston, Republic of Texas
Opus: 8
OS: W7 Pro
System: Dell Precision T5500, 8 core Dual Xeon 2.13 GHz, 24 GB RAM, All SSD drives
OK, I DO want to take advantage of your kind offer, but I figured out a thing or so that may get it to at least basically functional. I'd like to wait and send it to you then (should be a couple of hours) for your comments on how to make it more efficient.

Regards,
Dave

_________________
An objective is a description of a performance you want your learners to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent.
Dr. Robert F. Mager, 1962

"If you can't measure it, it's crap."
David A. Mallette, 1980


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 Post subject: Enable vs Show
PostPosted: September 25th, 2006, 5:01 pm 
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Dave --

Show & Hide perform different functions than Enable & Disable. You would use Disable, for example, to stop a Button from working -- like graying it out. Look under Properties, and you'll see the different States for an Object (Normal, Mouse Over, Disabled, etc). You can customize the Disabled State (appearance) to be partially transparent, or with a flare, or a shadow -- something that will distinguish the fact the Object has been set to Disable by an Action. The Button will not work when disabled.

Just a reminder, if you Hide an Object, then it's Triggers are no longer possible. For example, if you had a Mouse Over on a Button make that Button Hidden, then the Mouse Exit can't make the Button reappear (Show). Make sense? Learn from my mistakes (LOL). I did that and couldn't at first figure out why the Button wouldn't reappear. I solved the problem using a Frame over the Button. The Frame didn't disappear, so the Triggers and Actions always worked.

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Fred Harms, Extraordinary Demos
Naperville, Illinois (USA) 630/904-3636
demofred@aol.com


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: September 25th, 2006, 8:57 pm 
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Joined: January 6th, 2005, 8:56 pm
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Location: Houston, Republic of Texas
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Well, even without the videos the elements are 22 mbyte. I used a bunch of bmp frame grabs I did not compress as I knew Opus would do it on publish. In fact, the whole thing packages to 14 mbyte videos included.

I'd certainly like for you to see the structure and comment, but no more time today. It's working pretty smoothly though still has some rough edges. If and when I get the money taps turned on there will be plenty to smooth it out.

I presume you can be hired? :lol:

Seriously, I will be looking for good codeheads pretty soon and hope I can turn some up through the grapevine. Opus will not do everything I need done, but I have faith it can do 90% as well as provide a framework for most of the rest.

Regards,
Dave

_________________
An objective is a description of a performance you want your learners to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent.
Dr. Robert F. Mager, 1962

"If you can't measure it, it's crap."
David A. Mallette, 1980


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 Post subject: Object Size
PostPosted: September 25th, 2006, 9:54 pm 
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Joined: October 25th, 2004, 2:20 pm
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Location: Naperville, Illinois (USA)
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System: P4 3.2GHz 1GB RAM 2-TB HDs + 4 more
Normally we would take this discussion to Private Message, but that feature has been disabled due to abuse, so I apologize to other readers.

Dave --

Considering the small height & width of the Images you have in your IMP file, 22MB is HUGE. I'd suggest you use PSP to re-size them to fit the needed dimenions. Use JPG file format. I'd estimate all those small Images won't be more than a couple of hundred KB. This will also make OPUS happier, because it doesn't have to RESIZE everything on a Page.

Please ZIP and send the smaller images direct to me: demofred@aol.com

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Naperville, Illinois (USA) 630/904-3636
demofred@aol.com


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: September 26th, 2006, 12:52 pm 
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Location: Houston, Republic of Texas
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System: Dell Precision T5500, 8 core Dual Xeon 2.13 GHz, 24 GB RAM, All SSD drives
As I (think) I mentioned, the whole thing including video publishes nicely to 14 mbyte. The video is max size WMV as I hate compressed video in general and do so only enough to satisfy Windows massively inefficient way of handling video. I've a very fast (Windows) dual core machine with 4 gig of RAM, so I sort of consider using large graphics and such a pretest of runability on lessor machines once Opus has compress all for distribution...which it does very nicely.

Do you have an ftp site or other place I could upload the distribution file to? That way you could see what it is intended to do and I could upload just the base program file so you could see the code.

Regards,
Dave

_________________
An objective is a description of a performance you want your learners to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent.
Dr. Robert F. Mager, 1962

"If you can't measure it, it's crap."
David A. Mallette, 1980


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