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Home > Interactivity > Edit Zone

Edit Zone

Edit Zone objects are extremely useful in creating high quality presentations and tutorials as they allow two-way interactivity between your movie and your end-users. For example, in conjunction with Demo Builder's other objects, you can use an Edit Zone to hold the correct answer to a question that you want to ask your users.

At movie run-time, the user will be presented with the question and the movie will pause, awaiting the user's response to be typed into the Edit Zone.

Demo Builder will then check the user's response against the correct answer as specified by you when you built the movie. Demo Builder then offers Events ('On Pass', 'On Error', 'On RollOver' as described below) which determine the next action (or path) taken by the movie.

Set the following properties and options for Edit Zones:

  1. Name
    The default name for an Animated Text Area is 'Text Animation X' ('Text Animation 1', 'Text Animation 2', 'Text Animation 3', and so onward), and this is visible in the name property of the object. You can change a text animation's name by deleting the default name and typing in another one. Ensure the text animation is selected before attempting to change its name property.
  2. Rotate, Scale and Location
    Adjust the rotational angles, scale or manually change the location of the Edit Zone on the Canvas. Rotations on the X and Y-axis are ignored when the edit zones is attached to the image.
    Learn more...
  3. Style
    The style property allows you to change the appearance (style and color) of the Edit Zone. The default style is 'Classic'.
    Learn more...

    Note: Demo Builder version 5.0 introduces an additional Edit Zone style - 'Transparent'. You might use an Edit Zone with a transparent border style when you want it to blend in (invisibly) with the rest of your scene's background image. You could then use the new 'On RollOver' Edit Zone event (see below) to display a message (in a balloon or text) to your users when they position the mouse cursor over your 'transparent' Edit Zone.
  4. Correct Entries
    The correct entries property is were you specify the list of correct responses expected from your users. When a user enters text and presses the defined Shortcut key on the keyboard (either Enter or Tab), Demo Builder checks the user's response against the correct list of entries and takes the action for the 'On Pass' event or the 'On Error' event as appropriate.
    Learn more...


Using the Edit Zone Object Events

As described above, you can use Edit Zone Events to interact with the users of your demonstration or tutorial and totally control the behaviour of your movie based on responses and entries made by your users. The Edit Zone object offers the following 3 events that can be used to achieve this.


  1. On Pass Event
    Add objects, actions and/or audio to this event to define how your movie will display and behave in response to a correct answer from your user.
  2. On Error Event
    Add objects, actions and/or audio to this event to define how your movie will display and behave in response to an incorrect answer from your user.
  3. On RollOver Event
    Add objects, actions and/or audio to this event to define how your movie will behave when the user positions the mouse cursor over the Edit Zone object. (For example to display an explanatory message or tip in a balloon or text as to the type of response required from the user).

Important: Each individual Event has its own Timeline to define the separate sequencing of display and behaviors for that event.

Adding Actions and/or Audio to control the behavior of Edit Zone Object Events.


For each of the above events, you can assign the desired behaviour of your movie by adding an Action to take and/or Audio to be played.

To add (or edit) the action to take or audio to be played for a certain Edit Zone object event, ensure that the Edit Zone object is selected in your movie scene. This Edit Zone's individual TimeLine will be shown at the bottom of the screen. Click on the event to which you want to add an action and/or audio and note that the Edit Zone properties panel (at top of screen) will change to show additional options. The following options are available to be added or edited for Edit Zone events : Stop Movie , Loop Movie, Close Movie, Go To URL, Run EXE,Go To Movie, Execute JavaScript

For further information on how to incorporate Demo Builder Events and user interactivity into your movies, demonstrations and tutorials, please see this fully worked Example .


Note: Users of earlier versions of Demo Builder may be familiar with Error and Success Messages. Demo Builder version 5.0 introduces fully featured Event functionality that provides additional user interactivity and total control over the behavior of your movie in response to user actions. This builds on and replaces the Error and Success Messages functionality of previous versions of Demo Builder.


See also