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Part of the simulation experience involves letting participants move about the scene as they would if they were actually there. You can simulate the navigation if you are using PowerPoint to sequence the visuals--just make one slide for each view, and make buttons to take you from one to the next based on the direction chosen. If you are using HTML pages to sequence the visuals, you can do the same with links embedded in the HTML page. However, both of these options require an attention shift from the visual at hand, and are unable to handle the navigation naturally if you are using a scrolling picture.
We have addressed this situation by providing a Flash extension (the Navigation Arrow, picture in the Components panel below) that lets you specify a file to load if the viewer clicks on it. You can rotate, transform, modify, or even replace the arrow completely with a graphic of your choice. This arrow can sit on top of a standard picture or within a scrolling picture (regular or 360). In this way, viewers click on the arrow in the direction they want to move, without having to shift their focus away from the visual itself, and Flash loads the corresponding visual you have set.
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| Navigation Arrow and set CommandSim file path are the two elements used to add navigation to your visuals |
Using the Navigation Arrow is simple -- open the Components panel and drag a token from the panel to the Stage. Right-click on the arrow and choose the option "Free Transform" to scale or rotate it to the desired size and orientation:
When the black boxes appear along the edge, move close to (but not on) a corner and a circle with an arrow will appear. Clicking and dragging at this point will rotate the arrow. Putting your cursor on a corner and clicking-and-dragging will enlarge or shrink the arrow.
When you are done, open the Properties panel (Window > Properties), and choose the Parameters tab:
Type in the name of the visual you want to load when the viewer clicks on the arrow. If you want to reveal a movie clip, such as a label, when the cursor moves over the navigation arrow, and hide the clip when the cursor moves away, enter the movie clip instance name in the slot marked show label.
Important: By default, the arrow looks for the visuals in the current folder, i.e., if you do not use the file path component described in the next section.
If you do not want to put your visuals in the current folder, you have to tell the arrow where to look. This has to be a full location specification, for example, C:\My Visuals\Owner\... (and so on).
We have provided a component called set CommandSim file path (see the topmost picture on this page and you will see this component right underneath the Picture Scroller component). If you drag-and-drop one of these tokens on your Stage, then open the Properties panel, you will see there is one property, "path to files":
This property gives the location of your visuals. Follow the pattern given by the default value, and give the full location specification, including the drive letter. The navigation arrow(s) will see this token when the movie is running and look in that folder for the visual. While you see it during authoring, you will not see the file path component when you run your movie because it hides itself automatically.
Note: when you change the location, it applies to all visuals for the current Flash file and any others you link to using the arrow navigation.
Important: if you want to reference files in the same folder, use the set CommandSim file path tool, but clear the path to files (clear the value out of that space). When the system sees this, it looks in the current folder for the files, instead of the specified path.
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