Applying Triggers to the Jeopardy Game

Triggered animations in the Jeopardy game hide the cells that have already been clicked during the game. This article will show how it’s done.

There is a transparent button (shape) over each dollar value. It triggers the appearance of the overlapping rectangle on the upper level. This tile image may look like a piece of background, color or some texture depending on the shape fill settings.

The image below features three layers:

1. Game board
2. Transparent button (FORMAT > FILL: No Fill)
3. Overlapping shape (FORMAT > FILL: Slide background fill)

Note: In this image, the pink button is slightly transparent, while in reality it has 100% transparency and is not visible, but still active. This is also called a hotspot area.

Step 1. Add a shape pair

Display the Selection pane (HOME > Select > Selection pane) to see layers and hide objects when necessary.

1. Add a transparent rectangle just above the dollar value as shown below. Set No Outline and No Fill for this shape to make it transparent in the FORMAT tab. Alternatively set Transparency to 100%.
   
2. Name it 1-1 alpha in the Selection pane. Alpha suffix means that this layer is not visible. Use Selection pane to select it later.
3. Add an overlapping rectangle over the entire cell. Set a background fill (FORMAT > FILL: Slide background fill). Set No Outline if you like.
4. Name it 1-1 in the Selection pane.

Note: In the image above, the overlapping rectangle is shown on the second row just as a preview.

Step 2. Repeat

1. Create rectangle pairs for all cells.
2. Rename all objects with distinct names in the Selection Pane as you create them using this pattern:

Renaming is very important, otherwise you will mix everything up. This example uses the COLUMN-ROW order.

Note: The traditional naming method in math is ROW-COLUMN for matrix indexes, but Jeopardy is a column-oriented game, so it makes sense to break this rule here.

The layer concept in the Selection Pane is similar to Photoshop. It’s very easy to hide and show objects, drag them over the scene and select by clicking on their names.

You will end up having a separate layer per shape. Keep in mind the three general layers for the gameboard, transparent buttons and overlapped shapes. For better readability, most objects are hidden in this screenshot.

Click Show all objects on the Selection Pane before going to the next step.

Step 3. Add triggered animations

Now switch to the ANIMATIONS tab and turn on the Animation Pane.

1. Select the overlapping rectangle and add an Appear animation.
2. Double click on the animation in the Animation Pane to see the properties.
3. Switch to the Timing tab and set Start effect on click of the respective transparent button.
   
4. Manually repeat for all overlapping objects.

Step 4. Test

That’s it! When you finish adding, naming, animating and assigning triggers to animations, you can make all objects visible. Click Show All on the Selection pane.

You will see the end state of the game in the editing mode. When you start the slideshow, either by hitting F5 on your keyboard or using the button on the ribbon (SLIDE SHOW > From Beginning), you will see the initial state of the game board.

Test every button and publish for the web!

Note for iSpring 8.5 users

There is a known issue in the current version (8.5), which doesn’t keep triggered animations visible in the HTML5 output when you go back to a previously visited slide. It’s okay with Flash publication.

The good news is, we’ve almost resolved the issue, and this fix will be included in the next update.