A Hot Spot button is an invisible button. It is used to make an area of the screen "active". This means that you can respond to situations where the trainee clicks or moves the mouse over the area of the Hot Spot button.

It is important to remember that the Hot spot button is invisible to the user, but is placed over an area on the screen which may contain another Action such as an image. Users are not normally inclined to click images or text unless you provide them with encouragement or request they click a particular part of an image.

A Hot Spot button can be used in a number of ways:

  •  Place a hot spot button over one or more words contained within a Feature Text action that you have added to the Information section of the Element. If the user clicks on those words, the Lesson will move to the Response section of the Element where you can test which hot spot button the user has clicked on. It appears to the user that they had clicked on the text when in reality they had clicked on an invisible hot spot button.
  •  Place Hot Spot buttons over video and image Actions to create a similar effect.
  •  A Hot spot button can be used in a key press interaction. That is an Element where the trainee must press a certain key to provide their response. The key(s) property on the Hotspot tab of the Hot Spot button dialog defines which key(s) the trainee has to press.
  • Hot spot buttons can work in tandem with Drag Drop Buttons. The idea is to create an Element in which the trainee moves Drag Drop Buttons (which display an image) around the Lesson screen and drops them on top of a certain Hot Spot to provide their response. (The Hot spot button can be placed over a Feature Text action or Image action that identifies where the Hotspot is located on the screen).  This can be useful for testing that the trainee has learned to visually identify a particular item or location and can match a label or image to that item or location.

To create a Hot Spot button:

  •  Click in the Interaction list to highlight the position where the button should be added.
  •  Click the Hot Spot button on the Interaction toolbar.

A Hot spot button locator will appear on the displayed Lesson Screen and the Hot spot Button dialog will be displayed with the Hot Spot tab active.  Remember that the Hot spot button is invisible to the trainee - the locator is displayed on the screen only during development of the Element.

Dialog controls

See The Interaction Toolbar  for information about the dialog controls displayed at the bottom of the dialog box.

 

General tab

The General tab of the Hot Spot button dialog contains the value and key properties that  Check the Foreground check box make the button persistent.

Name, Value and Key(s)

Function identically to those in the Custom button dialog, see Custom button for more information.

Drag Drop
Target

To make a Hot Spot button the target for a Drag Drop button ensure that the Drag Drop Target checkbox is checked.

The two options within the Drag Drop Target frame determine how the Drag Drop button is positioned when dropped inside the current Hot spot button.

Responses tab

The Responses section of the Mouse Over tab contains properties that specify how the user interacts with the Hot spot Button.

Response
section

If the Click check box is checked the Lesson will move directly to the Response section of the Element when the user clicks within the Button.

With the Drop check box checked, the Lesson will move directly to the Response section when the user drops a Drag Drop Object within the Hot spot button position.

Mouse Enter/Leave

With the Mouse Enter/Leave check boxes checked, you can provide feedback to the user when they move the mouse cursor over the surface of the Hot spot button and again when they leave the Hot Spot area by setting a different Value and handling this in the REsponse section.



Examples of Hot Spot buttons

See Response EXAMPLES for more information.