Action Buttons - Changing colors

[Guest]

I am using PPT 2003, and am creating a Jeopardy! style game. I am trying to
get the buttons to change or dim after someone clicks them (say if they chose
wildlife for 200, when they return to the main page it is dimmed or hidden).

I have tried a few different methods, all of which did not work. I tried
action buttons and adding text, but that did not work. I tried to make just a
text box with a hyperlink to it, and that did not work (it never underlined
the text!).

I attempted to play with the color scheme and changed the color of the two
hyperlink options to the opposite of the current buttons, but it does not
change when I click it.

Can someone help me?

 

[Bill]

Your best bet is to use a macro to do this. If you go to
the slide in question, click once on the object and the
go to Shows -> Custom Animation, this will give you the
object name/mumber. Assuming the shape name is "Picture
1" and it is Slide #1, write a macro as below:

Sub DimLink()

ActivePresentation.slides(1).Shapes("Picute 1").Visible =
msoFalse

End Sub

The above will hide the shape, but you must make it
visible again or you will not see it again. You can
review other properties like .blackwhitemode for example.

To have this action work, click on the link you ant to
active the shape, and set actions to the macro above.

Good luck.

 

[Bill Foley]

I do mine with VBA code. I have two-team and three-team game files at the
below address (same zipped file with instructions) that you can download and
use.

http://www.pttinc.com/ppgame.htm

 

[Guest]

Thanks Bill

I created the macro (I am no in means good at programming with those, I only
know web codes (php, java, and asp)). The setup I have, is there are 6
categories to chose from, each has 5 buttons, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500. Each
action button is linked to a slide. The presentor would click on say,
category 1, button 100, and it jumps to that slide. When they click the
return button, i need that category 1, 100 to be gone or show its been used.
So maybe not hide it. When i tried making a text box the hyperlink, it would
not show it as underlined, and when you clicked it and came back it wouldnt
show it as visited.

Maybe this helps to understand what I am trying to achieve more.

Thanks again!

 

[Guest]

What Bill and Bill said and ...

Getting all the details of Jeopardy to work is probably best done with code,
but you can get a lot of it to work with basic features, especially since you
are using PPT 2003. You might want to explore Bill's example (he gave you a
link), and you might want to explore other examples by searching for
PowerPoint Jeopardy on the Web.

For your specific problem, only hypertext links automatically change color,
but if the text is in a button, and the button is assigned the link, the text
won't change. If you really want the text to change without code, you have to
highight the text and set the link to the text itself, not to the button.
However, I don't recommend this because then someone can click on a part of
the button that doesn't have a link and not get anything to happen, which is
confusing.

Instead, you might want to explore animation triggers. You can set a shape
(your button) to have an emphasis effect (such as changing color). This
effect can be triggered by a click on the same shape, so that shape can
trigger itself to change color and link to another slide. Alternatively, you
can have a dimmed shape underneath and trigger the first shape to have an
exit animation so it goes away. This would be helpful because if the original
shape is gone, no one can click on it again to go back to an already answered
question (or is that an already questioned answer).

If you know VBA, getting this all to work in VBA would probably be easier,
but if you don't know VBA, the learning curve might be too high to bother. Of
course, once you know VBA, you can do all kinds of other neat things. Check
out the Programming PowerPoint section of the PPT FAQ:

http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/#PROGRAMMING_POWERPOINT

--David

David Marcovitz
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[Guest]

Thanks David! I will try your suggestions and let you guys know what I come
up with.