Actions & Conditions

Actions and conditions allow you to create complex and interactive projects. Actions are necessary for you to receive input from the user (pressing a keyboard button, clicking the mouse, etc.) and produce some kind of result (playing a sound, going to the next page, etc.) Here is a basic example: you can create take a normal image object and turn it into a button that moves the user to the next page when it is clicked. Actions can also occur automatically or for other reasons besides user input. Conditions give you advanced control over the reason that an action occurs. For example, you can use conditions to create a button that displays an image the first time the user clicks it, and then moves the user to the next page the second time it is clicked.

Actions and conditions can be set in the Actions tab in the Object Properties window.

The Actions tab

This is a brief overview of the Actions tab. The Actions tab is located in the Object Properties dialog box and is the main interface for adding and modifying actions and conditions.

To open the Actions tab

• Do one of the following:
  • Right-click an object and click Action.
  • Open the Object Properties window and click the Actions tab.

Action Settings

1. Action List: The Action List is a list of all the actions currently associated with the object. As you add actions to the object, they will fill this list. Up to 50 actions can be added to each object. It has 6 columns: the action number, Skip, Step, IF, Condition, and Action. You can double-click the various columns to change their settings (except for the Action column - you must click the icon in the Action section below). For more information on skipping and stepping actions, see Skipping and stepping actions. For more information on creating conditions and actions, see Creating an action and Creating a condition. For more information on conditions and action types, see Types of Conditions and Types of Actions.
2. Enable object dragging: When this option is checked, the user can drag the current object (the object for which you are setting the actions) around the window during play. You can use this function to move around words or pictures during play. This option cannot be applied to TextBox, WebBox and Media objects.
3. Act Time: The act time is the time or event at which the action begins. This can be when the mouse is clicked, when the mouse is focused on the object, or when object is shown or hidden. For more information, see Setting the action time.
4. Condition: Click this button to set the conditions that must occur before actions can take place. For more information on setting conditions, see Creating a condition. For more information on condition types, see Types of Conditions.
5. Action: Click the type icon to choose the type of action you want to use. For more information on setting actions, see Creating an action.

Creating an action

Actions allow you to give objects functionality, so that they do things rather than just act as visual decoration. Examples of actions are causing the project to move to the next page, or causing another object to be hidden and then shown again. Below are the basic steps for a creating an action using the Actions tab in the Object Properties window. When you create an action, you will see that it is added to the action list in the Actions tab. You can repeat this process to add up to 50 actions. For specific instructions on how to use each type of action, see Types of Actions.

To create an action

1. Add an object to the canvas.
2. Right-click the object and click Action in the context menu.
3. In the Actions tab, click (Type) in the Action section.
4. In the Select Action Type dialog box, click one of the icons.
5. If necessary, adjust the settings for the action in the dialog box that appears and click OK.
6. In the Actions tab, click OK.

Below is an example of creating a basic action. Here, you will make an image object, and then add an action to it so that the viewer moves to the next page when the image is clicked. After following the instructions in the example, play the project and test the action.

An example of creating an action

1. Create a project with at least 2 pages.
2. On the first page, create an image object.
3. Right-click the object and click Action in the context menu.
4. In the Actions tab, click (Type) in the Action section.
5. In the Select Action Type dialog box, click (Goto Next Page).
6. In the Actions tab, click OK.

Creating a condition

The basic function of a condition is to check if something is true or false and then decide whether to perform an action or not. Conditions allow you to control when and if actions occur. Most conditions involve three things: the condition type, the compare value, and the compare operator. The condition type is some aspect of the program's current state. It could be the name of the current object, the number of objects on the screen, the value of a database column, or one of many other different varieties. The compare value is the value that the chosen aspect is compared with. For some conditions, you will need to choose a compare operator.

To create a condition

1. Add an object to the canvas and create an action for it.
2. Right-click the object and click Action in the context menu.
3. In actions list, click the action you want to create a condition for.
4. Double-click the Conditions column in the action list, or click the Settings button in the Condition section.
5. In the Type 1 drop-down list, select the type of condition.
6. If other drop-down lists appear, select the condition sub-type.
7. If needed, choose a Compare Operator from the drop-down list.
8. Select a Compare Value from the drop-down list and click OK.
9. In the Actions tab, click OK.

Compare Operators

Compare operators are used when you are creating conditions that compare the value of the condition type with the compare value. For more information on this process, see Creating a condition. Case sensitive operators distinguish between capital and lowercase letters while non-case sensitive operators do not.

Case Sensitive Operator

Non-case Sensitive Operators

Creating multiple conditions

For each action, up to three conditions can be created. In the Condition Settings dialog box, you can see three tabs labeled Condition 1, Condition 2, and Condition 3. Normally you just create one condition under the Condition 1 tab. But if you want to create an additional condition for the same action, click on the Condition 2 tab and create a condition just as you did for Condition 1.

When you create multiple conditions, you must decide if they all must be true for an action to be performed, or if only some of them must be true. This is done by checking the AND and OR checkboxes at the top of the Condition 2 & 3 tabs. If you check AND, both conditions must be true for the action to be performed. If you check OR, either condition can be true and the action will be peformed.