Wait after last animation

HelpXplain is the exciting new animated infographics and screencast tool that integrates with Help+Manual.

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Kimberly Hitchens
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Kimberly Hitchens »

Martin Wynne wrote:
Kimberly Hitchens wrote:Are you guys saying that I cannot set the duration of display, for a slide? At all?
Hi Kimberley,

You need to deselect the Autoplay option for the slide. It will then wait for the user to read the texts. The user clicks the Next Slide icon or the Play icon when they are ready to resume the playback.

You can see such an Xplain at: http://templot.com/companion/catch_points.php

Or you can set a minimum slide display time for each slide, if you don't want users to have to make clicks. The slide will display longer if needed to complete the animations.

Select the slide, and then make these settings for that slide:
hx_autoplay.png
cheers,

Martin.
Hi, Martin:

ETA: I've tried, repeatedly, to make that delay work--what you show, in your post--and I can't. Nothing delays. I can't work out the WHY? What did I miss?

Vis-a-vis the click-to-advance: that's what I'd asked, but the problem is, my users will never do that. They'll get 3 slides in and stop. My challenge is, in a day and age in which everyone and their dog expects ALL software to be magic and intuitive, my customers are not very tech-savvy. They undertake to do something that doesn't have easy, intuitive apps. They have to download files (most don't know how to download from browsers; they think that "downloading" is clicking a Word file or a jPG in an eMail, you see); they have to download and install software to access the files and then, they need how-to guides to understand what they are seeing, once they have the files open. They do not educate themselves on any of this, before they hire us to create those files for them. My problem is, I give them a longer email with detailed instructions, in sections--as it's so much to convey. NONE of them bother to read it, even though we explain that they need to read the entire thing, top-to-bottom and THEN come back to the beginning and try to execute the instructions. I've been pulling my hair out about it for years, but it's getting worse and worse, customer-base-wise.

I thought I'd try again to address it; I thought I'd do a quick walkthrough of the email, showing WHY each section matters, yadda--and even though I have Stepshot pro, Camtasia, Powerpoint, etc., I thought I'd give HelpXplain a go. Not realizing that I couldn't set slide duration. Honestly...I'm shocked by this. I could have used Stepshot to do the screencaps and then exported that to Powerpoint, or to Camtasia, or, to Powerpoint and THEN to Camtasia and had something they'd probably sit through. But clicking to proceed?

I might as well shoot myself in the head now. That's just more of what they won't do. (And, of course, when they don't do it, I'm the one that has to answer all their angry, upset, whatever emails).

Urgh. If I can figure out why my delays aren't working, maybe it's salvageable.

Hitch
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Hitch,

I have the same problem with my users. I write stuff. Hardly anyone reads it. I'm sure Tim feels the same way.

There is a way to get Xplains to run continuously, and set a time for each slide, so I don't know what you have set wrong. I will go and have a look now to see what it might be.

cheers,

Martin.
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

p.s. Did you try this control, in the Publish dialog:
hx_autoplay_speed.png
I haven't tried changing it. I don't know how it interacts with the duration settings on each slide. Probably it is a global modifier factor.

cheers,

Martin.
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Hitch,

Have you set any animations On Exit?

I don't use any of those, because I don't understand what they are intended to achieve. The slide will jump to the next one before anyone can see what happened. It might be useful for a fade-out animation. All my animations are on slide Entry:
hx_slide_entry.png
Note that the times are shown out of order -- Delay comes first, then Duration, then Pause before the next animation.

cheers,

Martin.
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Kimberly Hitchens
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Kimberly Hitchens »

Martin Wynne wrote:Hi Hitch,

Have you set any animations On Exit?

I don't use any of those, because I don't understand what they are intended to achieve. The slide will jump to the next one before anyone can see what happened. It might be useful for a fade-out animation. All my animations are on slide Entry:
hx_slide_entry.png
Note that the times are shown out of order -- Delay comes first, then Duration, then Pause before the next animation.

cheers,

Martin.
Hi:

I don't have anything set on exit, but I'm going to take another run at it tomorrow, after a bit of time away from it. I must be missing something--I'm going to check all the settings you've listed and shown me, and see if I can wrangle it again.

(What really frosts my buns is that my business is paid to provide the files, right? We're not paid to provide client education, but they behave as though they are. It's like...It's like we're being paid to sell them airplanes, and then they're mad that we didn't also agree to provide them with free flying lessons, on our nickel. No, actually--it's more than that. It's as though they plan to operate a small business with this airplane--but they've simply read about the idea. They haven't taken flying lessons, don't know how airplanes stay up in the sky, and somehow, that's our fault. I've now been at this particular enterprise for the last decade and it's ever-increasingly getting on my last nerve, ESPECIALLY when they refuse to read the instructions or use the detailed Guides that I've put together, on my time, my nickel--for THEIR benefit.)

I do want to very sincerely thank you, Martin, for all the help you're providing me. I genuinely appreciate it.

Hitch
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Tim Green
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Hitch,

Rather than trying to describe this in text the easiest thing to do would be to create a small demo Xplain with a couple of slides showing what you are trying to achieve. Then mail it to support AT ec-software.com (replace the AT with @) with a description of the problem and I'll have a look at it. Doing it like that is normally much faster and easier than describing back and forth without being able to actually touch the thing you're describing.

On supporting challenged users: Since only users having problems are contacting you it's very easy to fall into the trap of trying to write and develop for those users who don't even try to understand anything, which can make your material less usable and helpful for the majority of users who do make the attempt. Look at the total number of your users versus the number who contact support. The great majority who don't contact you are actually doing fine. Compare it to driving: Cars, streets and street signs are designed for people who have taken the trouble to learn how to drive. If your users haven't taken the trouble to learn the basics of using computers and the operating system they are on you can't help them. It's just not possible. :?
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Kimberly Hitchens
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Kimberly Hitchens »

Tim Green wrote:Hi Hitch,

Rather than trying to describe this in text the easiest thing to do would be to create a small demo Xplain with a couple of slides showing what you are trying to achieve. Then mail it to support AT ec-software.com (replace the AT with @) with a description of the problem and I'll have a look at it. Doing it like that is normally much faster and easier than describing back and forth without being able to actually touch the thing you're describing.

On supporting challenged users: Since only users having problems are contacting you it's very easy to fall into the trap of trying to write and develop for those users who don't even try to understand anything, which can make your material less usable and helpful for the majority of users who do make the attempt. Look at the total number of your users versus the number who contact support. The great majority who don't contact you are actually doing fine. Compare it to driving: Cars, streets and street signs are designed for people who have taken the trouble to learn how to drive. If your users haven't taken the trouble to learn the basics of using computers and the operating system they are on you can't help them. It's just not possible. :?
Hi, Tim:

I nearly laughed when I read your reply. I mean...no offense, but If I could make a demo Xplain, that would show you what I WANT to achieve, I wouldn't have this problem, actually. I can't show you what I want, using Xplain, because it doesn't DO IT. I'll figure out some other way, but in the meantime, I guess I'm going to try to run this and video it with Camtasia and use Camtasia to make this the way I need it to be. That way, while I'll lose some crispness and resolution, I won't lose the very few animations I've used.

My WANT:

Very simply: I want to be able to make a slide HALT and WAIT for as long as I think it will take someone to read it. So, if I've put a picture, that is just sitting there with an arrow saying "do this," with 3 paragraphs of text in the sidebar, I can give the viewer enough time to read it--that's it. Maybe I've completely and utterly misunderstood everything I've read in this thread, or the Help, or Martin's much-appreciated replies, but I do not see any place where I can say "this slide should display for X seconds." It seems a no-brainer that this should exist, but I do not see it. I've tried "Autoplay show for..." but it doesn't seem to work. Is there some OTHER setting that overrides that? Does the duration setting not "work" in the Preview? I mean, that doesn't seem right, either.

/End my want; now about WHY I'm doing this:

In terms of users--you grossly misunderstand. It's not a handful. It's a bloody daily occurrence. They Do. Not. Read. They assume that everything will be "intuitive," meaning, they don't have to know anything. Most of my users don't understand that, for example, a "file" can't work if it doesn't have an associated program to make it "go." They don't know how to download files from browsers. They think it's my job to somehow reach through the Net and fix their issues. (And it's not me or my company. Every other individual I know, in the same line of work, has the same problems.) We have between 80-135 "projects" in production at any given moment, and at least 20% of those people will be unable to follow the instructions at all. Another 20% will call me and laugh, saying 'oh, well, I'm really BAD AT INSTRUCTIONS," like that's funny, and I end up reading the damn things over the phone to them. (Yes, really, because God FORBID that they read them.) At least half of the remaining will be unable to do something in the instructions--maybe not all of it, but some.

The bigger issue is quite simply that if they have never used this product before, they have to do several things:
  • Download the product files;
  • Download programs that will run the product files;
  • Download and USE (biggie there) PDFs that show them what to expect, when they run the product files, and,
  • Download a Word file that has a table in it, that they use to give us comments on said files, once (ha) they have them open and working.
I am very simply trying to tell them, in some way that will make a dent, that if they actually bother to read the instructions, and use what we tell them, that they'll have fewer issues and frustrations. (Not to mention, me having fewer anger issues.) The single biggest issue is that they read the first paragraph and then blithely ignore everything else and without fail, that causes problems, which I then am forced to deal with, wasting my time. And of course, they blame us. We just had a client that was hysterical, two days in a row. He was hysterical the first day, because he didn't bother to read the instructions past the first section and of course, he couldn't figure out how to do X, which was explained in detail, further down the email. That was 3 emails that had to be dealt with. Yesterday, it was something else--and he was IRATE with my staff--because he couldn't figure out where some progam was, at Apple/iTunes. Of course, apparently, his Google Finger is broken. This is the stuff that's driving me insane.

Equally, as I think I mentioned, we get people that don't download the guides and will spend many hours, writing up comment forms about "mistakes" that aren't. They waste their time and then I have to address it, because they're FURIOUS that we've screwed up their project--not understanding that of course, we didn't make a mistake. They simply don't understand how it works. I'm now at the point where I care a lot less that they wasted their OWN time, but I'm forced to address it, and make a video or screenshots and explain everything that they don't understand because they didn't RTFI and view the Guides and do what we tell them in there, so that they'll understand how the thing works.

Seriously, Tim--if this were a once-a-month or twice-a-month thing, I wouldn't bother. But it's DAILY. Quite literally, daily. And it's not our instructions--every client that actually follows them compliments us on how thorough and helpful they are. And again, it's not just my firm. Everybody in the same business is struggling with the same issues. It's pandemic in this line of work, for some bizarro-world reason.

Sorry...none of this is your issue. But you commented, so...that's why I'm struggling with this. I don't have a large enough staff to sit there and drip-feed the instructions, in steps, to these people, so that I can FORCE them to "go here, download this, then tell us you did it, and we'll then send you step 2," etc. I can't. And honestly, I'd lose my mind if I had to do that, because I'm already here 11.5 hours/day/6/days/week.

so--how can I slate the DURATION of a slide, without messing with making all the animations ridiculously longer?????? That's all I want to know.

Thanks, sorry for the rant,
Hitch
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Kimberly Hitchens wrote:but I do not see any place where I can say "this slide should display for X seconds." It seems a no-brainer that this should exist, but I do not see it.
Hi Hitch,

Make sure you have selected the slide, and not the image it contains. The way to select a slide is via the list on the left, if it contains a full-frame image. Clicking the slide itself will select the image.

I agree that the Autoplay For setting doesn't seem to work as intended. I have just now set a slide to show for 30 seconds, and I gave up waiting after it had been stopped for 5 minutes (in the Preview).

Try adding a suitable Pause time to the last animation on the slide. That is working for me, and the timing is accurate. The animations sequence are numbered in orange, and there is a drop-down on the Animations ribbon to Reorder Animations.

p.s. just to clarify:
hx_slide_entry.png
Delay is the time before an animation happens after the previous animation has finished.

Duration is how long the animation takes to happen.

Pause is the time to wait after it happened before the next animation starts, or the slide exits on autoplay if there are no more animations.

cheers,

Martin.
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Last edited by Martin Wynne on Mon Sep 02, 2019 5:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Alexander Halser
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Alexander Halser »

Hello Hitch,

What Tim meant was to just send us the .xplain file that actually has the problem. That's probably much faster than just talking about it. Please send us the file (an .xplain is a zip, so you don't need to zip it) and let us know where exactly in the presentation you face a problem, or what you want it to do, respectively.
Alexander Halser
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Tim Green
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Tim Green »

If I could make a demo Xplain, that would show you what I WANT to achieve, I wouldn't have this problem, actually.
You missed the point. You would just need to create a little Xplain with two or three slides that doesn't do what you want, but does include the texts that you want to display, for example. Then mail it with a brief explanation of what you want it to do, and where. Then I would easily be able to show you what to do, and where. 8)

However, as Martin explained, you should be able to achieve this by adding your pause to the last animation in the slide where you want to have the delay before moving to the next slide. However: Unless the text you are displaying is really, really short, working with a delay to allow people to read is a bad idea. It doesn't work, no matter how carefully you plan it. It will be too long for some and not long enough for others. Instead, do this:
  1. Animate the appearance of all the items in the slide, using delays to allow a reasonable time to read.
  2. Select the slide from the slide list on the left, then in the slide properties on the right look in Position and Timing and activate the option to stop autoplay at that slide. That prevents autoplay from continuing and lets people go on reading for as long as they want.
  3. Make the last item to appear in the slide a shape with "Click here to continue" or something like that on it. Select it, and in the Properties pane on the right look in Link and Interaction and select "Execute a Script". In the script field select or type in xplain.play(). That will restart autoplay instead of just continuing to the next slide.
Doing it that way should make it obvious what you need to do, because the Click to Continue shape actually appears at the end of the slide. That will work better than having a Play icon there all the time, which your intellectually-challenged users may not notice. :)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Kimberly Hitchens
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Kimberly Hitchens »

Hi, guys:

THANK you to all of you, and Tim, that sounds like a plan. Maybe I can get them to click to continue, in a...sneakier way than the usual. That might work.

Sorry to be nuts, guys, but I really am at the raw edge of my last nerve on this stuff. 4500+ "products" since 2009-10, and I'm losing my mind. It wasn't like this, in the earlier days but it seems to get worse by the day. I don't THINK it's me, in that, I don't think it's just that I can't take it any longer or that I'm more impatient (altho, sure, some truth to that). Everyone I speak to in the same biz agrees; it's getting arithmetically worse. You have NO idea what I've invested in how-tos, handouts...it's endless. But what good all that labor if they will. not. read them? I can only convey info in pictures to a certain point. How pathetic is it, that I'm creating a video/slide/thing that says, "PLEASE RTFI?"

Thanks--I'll try all of the above suggestions.

Hitch
Kimberly Hitchens
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Kimberly Hitchens »

Martin Wynne wrote:
Kimberly Hitchens wrote:but I do not see any place where I can say "this slide should display for X seconds." It seems a no-brainer that this should exist, but I do not see it.
Hi Hitch,

Make sure you have selected the slide, and not the image it contains. The way to select a slide is via the list on the left, if it contains a full-frame image. Clicking the slide itself will select the image.

I agree that the Autoplay For setting doesn't seem to work as intended. I have just now set a slide to show for 30 seconds, and I gave up waiting after it had been stopped for 5 minutes (in the Preview).

Try adding a suitable Pause time to the last animation on the slide. That is working for me, and the timing is accurate. The animations sequence are numbered in orange, and there is a drop-down on the Animations ribbon to Reorder Animations.

p.s. just to clarify:
hx_slide_entry.png
Delay is the time before an animation happens after the previous animation has finished.


Duration is how long the animation takes to happen.

Pause is the time to wait after it happened before the next animation starts, or the slide exits on autoplay if there are no more animations.

cheers,

Martin.
Martin:

When I go into the objects list, and select a given animation (e.g. "spotlight 1"), for which I have set a "follow cursor" animation, I see no ability to add duration, delay or pause. I have it selected; I can play it; I see the wee green number, telling me it's the 1st animation. So...I don't see your image, anywhere. Whether I select the slide, in the SLIDES panel; or I select the slide in the OJECTS panel, I do not see a selection like you're showing in your hx_slide_entry.png image. In my Slide Properties panel, when the slide is selected in the OBJECTS panel, I see a transition option. None of those options, no matter what dropdown I choose, looks like what you have. So, I don't see the ability to do what you've suggested with a slide. (Perhaps it's because I'm boring, and the slides, themselves, don't animate? I mean, the base slide?)

In the upper menu, obviously, under "animations," nothing is available (like your image) because the slide, itself, is not animated. When I switch it up to a spotlight animation (again, in the OJECTS panel, selecting the spotlight, which I've animated with "follow cursor,"), I get no option to start on anything. Not slide entry, or exit.

I can see those options on some of the other animations, like a 2nd cursor. If I simply add an element (like a numbering sequence) that is NOT animated, there's no delay available. Or Duration, pause etc.

Does that all sound right? No slide duration, delay, pause, unless there's some sort of overall slide animation? (I didn't even know you COULD animate the overall slide...shows ya what I know.)

Would "autoplay mode-->Show Duration" do what I'm seeking? On the Slide transition menu? Or does that only affect the length of the transition itself? I continue to explore here...

Thanks, guys...

Hitch
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Hitch,

If you set the spotlight animation to Follow Cursor, the timings are copied from the Cursor. The spotlight is simply linked to it. You need to change the Cursor timings to get the result you want.

("Follow" here means "at the same time" not "take place afterwards".)

To set separate timings for the spotlight only, you need to use some other spotlight animation other than Folllow Cursor.

You asked a lot of questions, I will try to answer them one at a time. :)

cheers,

Martin.
Last edited by Martin Wynne on Tue Sep 03, 2019 7:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Hitch,

What you called "animating" a slide is called a "Transition". The slides are laid out on a canvas as in the Overview frame (click the top item in the list). You can drag them around on the canvas, rotate them, etc. The transition defines how you get from one slide to the next, and the transition duration setting is how long it takes to get there. You can choose to gently pan (sweep) across the canvas to the next slide, or zoom out and back in, etc. That is in the Transition drop-down. Or choose Show which means no transition, in which case the display simply jumps straight from one slide to the next. The transitions are a separate function from the animated objects on a slide -- there are no delays or pauses available for transitions, just the duration time. Ignore the word "animation" in the Transition drop-down, it confuses the issue. They are also not part of the Autoplay functions.

Part of the confusion may arise because the "Autoplay" caption appears to be missing:
transition_autoplay.png
cheers,

Martin.
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Wait after last animation

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Kimberly Hitchens wrote:If I simply add an element (like a numbering sequence) that is NOT animated, there's no delay available. Or Duration, pause etc.
Hi Hitch,

If you add an object without applying any animation to it, it simply displays as part of the slide, for the full time that the slide is displayed.

cheers,

Martin.
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