Adding objects to nested MSOs

- In our last movie we added an MSO to a state in order to create a master state but now we need to add some navigation to make it work, so let's see what's involved in adding content to a nested multi-state object. I've got my page open here and let's come on over here, and I think we can just pretty much easily select this nested MSO, and there it is, and I want to be able to add buttons up here in the corner to go to next and go to previous states.

So, let's just think back and remember the fact that we can't just add these actions and then just add the buttons, so we need to create the buttons, add them to the states, and then add the actions. So, let's start off by creating the buttons with a rectangle frame tool, and we're just gonna use no fill, no stroke, because we have the artwork already in place. So let me just draw out one here, and then I'll draw another one right here, and they don't have to be any exact sizes as long as they're big enough to click on.

And I need to get them both selected, so I'll get my selection tool and "Shift+Click" on the second one. I've got them both, and let's go over to the Buttons and Forms Panel, open that up and let's just click on Convert to Button. And sure enough I got two buttons here, and I wanna get those into each state here, so I think I can close up the Buttons and Forms Panel for right now so that I can see what I'm doing, and if you recall it becomes a little easier if we group things when we add them to a state.

So let's go ahead and use "Commad+G" to group those two buttons, and let's try and select this MSO with it, and... Well, that's just not working, I'm clicking, you can't quite see that, but it's not really working. So, let's see what else we can do here. Let's go to the Layers Panel and open that up, and let me pull this out so we can see what we're doing, and I'll expand the layer itself. And I've got the group selected, right? And here's the Explore California MSO and we're gonna need to drill down a little bit, I'm just expanding here, and let's see, here's the text frame that the MSO is anchored to and I've got that selected, so let's open this.

So let's click on the SF Top 5 MSO to select it, and I'm gonna scroll back up in the Layers Panel and here is that group of buttons. Now, let's see what happens if I "Shift+Click" on that. Well, that's not gonna work, which tells me that I cannot use the Add to Visible State action for adding objects. That leaves me with the choice of copying or cutting to the clipboard and pasting it in.

So let's go ahead and cut that to the clipboard with "Command+X", and now I can select my SF Top 5 MSO by clicking on the icon in the Layers Panel. And now that I have that selected I've got the Object States Panel showing me my MSO, and I do have this Paste Copied Object into Selected State, so let's see what happens. We got a little flash there sometimes but sure enough that worked, so let's click on the "Cable" state and do that again.

And we'll go to the Wharf and let's do it one more time. And Alcatraz, and let's paste those in. And finally, Chinatown is the last one. Now, this is all well and good but these buttons still don't work, so now we've got a little bit of work cut out for us but again it's pretty straightforward. I'm gonna come on over here to my Layers Panel and let's expand this, and I can see my "Chinatown" state is selected, and I'm gonna open that back up and here's the group, those are the buttons, you can see they're selected, let's open this up just one more time and you can see I've got the two buttons here.

And again, InDesign just likes to give numbers to buttons so that explains the 89 and 90. So, let's just select this one and see which one we get, and this is going to be the previous state so let's go ahead and add an action for that using the Buttons and Forms Panel. I'm gonna open that up and I'm gonna pull this out. Let's see here, I'm gonna move the Layer Panel out of the way and use the Buttons and Forms Panel a little bit closer so I can see what I'm doing.

And I'm going to just add the Go To Previous State action to that button. Now, because that button is in that multi-state object it's the only MSO that's gonna be displayed, so we're just gonna go with that. Okay, so I've got that one done, and again, I just need to come on over to the Layers Panel to select the other button, and again, I can just click on the "+" sign to add an action, and this is going to be the Go To Next State.

I'm gonna go ahead and do the rest of these. If you wanna watch go ahead and I'll be talking to it, but if you wanna go and fast-forward I'll understand and I'll see you at the end of the movie. So, I'm just gonna go ahead and I'm gonna select the MSO in my Layers Panel so that I can get to another state, and sure enough I've got the MSO selected. I'm gonna go to Alcatraz this time, and again, I have to expand this choice in the Layers Panel, and there are the buttons here in this group.

And again, I'm going to expand it, and again, you know, InDesign likes to give numbers and here is 88 and 87. So let's see if we get 88, and that's gonna be our previous state. So let's go ahead and click on the "+" button, and click Go To Previous State. And again, it's only going to give us this MSO, so we'll just keep on going here. And we'll get the Go To Next State action, and we'll come back up, select our MSO, and go to another state.

We'll go to the "Fisherman's Wharf" state, and again we do have to just simply open up this choice. I've got the buttons here, let's get this one, and this is the previous button. You can see them highlighting as I'm working, so let's click Go To Previous State. And let's get the other button and add the Go To Next State. Again, we'll come on up, get our MSO selected in the Layers Panel and go up to one more state we've got, and then the last one will follow.

So, let's go ahead and expand the "Cable" state, and this group that has buttons in it, and we'll go ahead and click on this one, then you can see that that's highlighting the previous state, so let's go ahead and give that action there. And we'll get the other one by selecting that, we'll click on the action button, and we'll hit the Go To Next State action. And finally, let's go right ahead and get the MSO selected, and get this last state done.

I'm going to just expand that and let's get this group open, and let's select this button for the Go To Previous State, and we can go ahead and click on that. And for the next button we can go ahead and click on the Go To Next State. Okay, so, take a deep breath here, and let's get these panels out of the way, let's talk that over and we get this out of the way, and let's see how this is gonna work out for us.

From the bottom of the Object States Panel let's see how it works in an EPUB. And we've got our MSO displayed, let's just go ahead and click on San Francisco to get to that page. And so far so good, let's see what happens if we click on our navigation buttons, and sure enough the cursor is changing when I go over them, and it's working on that one also. Now comes the real suspense, let's click on these buttons and see how they work.

Oh! What a relief. It's a lot of work, I admit, it's tedious, but it's pretty straightforward and it does get the job done, and as you can see everything is working nicely, the background stays the same. So we effectively have our master state, and we have our Top 5 highlights showing up as well. Now, I'm gonna show you this in DPS as well because I wanna bring something to your attention. But first let me go ahead and click on this popup video.

We added this earlier. You can see that's behind this Top 5, and unfortunately in EPUB that's gonna happen with the layering effect. If I had put this behind the popup video these buttons would not work. So let's just close this up and I'll show you what I'm talking about by opening up this Layers Panel here and I'm gonna just go ahead and close up these selections from that text frame, and this is the text frame that I have it anchored to.

And in the Layers Panel you can see the layer order, that that is on top, right? And here's the text frame that I have the popup video anchored to. Let's go ahead and change the order, I'm gonna drag this up, okay? So everything sort of looks the same but in this now the popup video is in front of the Top 5. Let's see what happens we go over to our Object States Panel and bring up the EPUB in our Activity Preview Panel again.

Okay, so far so good, let's click on San Francisco and see what happens. Now, let's go over to the buttons for the Top 5, and as you can see nothing is happening to the cursor, it's being covered up, even though you can't see that popup video MSO the entire MSO does take up the whole page, and so it's sitting on top of this, and you can see what I'm talking about when I come down to the video link and click on the button.

Now we get the popup video and everything is fine here, but it does cover up everything in these buttons. Now, you'll just need to make some design choices if you're going to use two MSOs in an EPUB. Now, let me show you it to you in DPS as I alluded to earlier. So let's just close all this up and let's launch this using the Folio Overlays Panel. You have to click on the Preview, Preview on Desktop.

Okay, so we've got our page showing here and let's just go ahead and click on San Francisco. Again, in the Adobe content viewer you're not going to get any visual cues with the cursor, so you just need to know where your buttons are, so let's just go ahead and click that. And that is bringing me to this page, and let's see if this video does pop up when we click on it. And it does, and let's go ahead and close it up, and let's see know if these buttons work for the Top 5. And they do.

So, DPS is just a little bit different and I really don't know what else to tell you except be aware of the issues with stacking order with more than one MSO. Now, back to the topic of the movie, which was just adding content to a nested multi-state object, well, it is a bit more involved than just adding content to a regular MSO. Adding content to embedded MSOs can be fairly easily now that you know how.

Now, if you want it to be just a little bit easier Object States Assistant, which we took a look at earlier, can also be a big help here, and we'll take a look at that next.