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Adapt User's Guide version 4.5

Trickle

The Trickle extension determines what portion of a page is presented to a learner and when the learner may advance to the next section. Using Trickle, a course author may hide/lock the portion of a page that follows an article or a block. A button may be displayed at the end of the visible portion; clicking this button releases the lock and scrolls the page to the next portion. If no button is displayed, the next section will unlock automatically once the current section has been completed by the user.

Trickle requires a fairly large amount of thought and configuration before use. It’s best to prepare your course content first, then enable trickle and configure the settings.

Under the Trickle item in Configuration Settings there is only one setting Completion Attribute, which should typically be left set to its default _isComplete, as the other options are provided for older components.

Trickle, by default, is configured at the Block level, locking the course until each block is completed. In most cases, you’ll want to stick with this behavior and avoid turning this on in Articles.

If you are using Parallax Articles, however, you may want to have Trickle lock at the Article level, as you may find that some block locations split the article, breaking the parallax effect.

In either case, you should only enable one type of locking at a time. Locking both article and block can have unexpected results.

Will require that the user complete this block before they can continue to the next. Default: Enabled on Blocks; Disabled on Articles.

When checked, Adapt will scroll the user to the next Block or Article. This option is highly recommended; Without the scroll, it may be difficult for the learner to know that new content has been revealed. Disabled by default.

Duration of the scroll animation in milliseconds. Default is 500. This setting has no effect when Scroll Automatically is not enabled.

Articles Only: Instead of setting values on the each block, this setting allows you to set values on the article itself that applies to child block. May behave erratically when this is checked and Trickle is enabled on child blocks. This must be unchecked on the article to use trickle at article level.

Determines the location where Trickle will stop scrolling. The default is @block +1, which will scroll to the next block. Can be set to @article +1, which will scroll to the next article.

Enables the “Continue” button, which will appear after the user completes the block or article. Default: Enabled on Blocks; Disabled on Articles.

Determines whether the Trickle button is visible even while subsequent sections of the page remain inaccessible. The default is “hidden”. This value should be set unless there is specific reason to change it.

Determines the properties of the Trickle button after it has been clicked. “hidden” hides the button. “disabled” applies the “disabled” CSS class. The value “scroll” will cause the button to maintain its visibility allowing the user an alternative method for scrolling down the page by using the button (even after all sections have been revealed). The default is “hidden”.

Ensures the button spans the full width of the browser. Checked by default.

Hides the button when it is not in view. This is only useful for values other than “hidden” for Initial Visibility and Final Visibility. Default is checked.

Developer only: Applies custom HTML class attribute to the button.

The text label of the button.

Text label of the button the first time it appears. Applies only on articles that have ‘Enable on Child Blocks’ set to checked, and if Trickle is enabled on Articles.

Text label of the button the last time it appears. Applies only on articles that have ‘Enable on Child Blocks’ set to checked, and if Trickle is enabled on Articles.

Defines the Trickle plug-in which should handle the interaction. At present only “trickle-button” is available.

Allows Trickle to truncate the page at the step until the user is allowed to move forward. Note that if Full Width is set to true (see above), Enabled will be forced to true regardless of what you set here.

Forces the user to complete the block/article before the step is unlocked. If the block/article is reset on a page revisit, the lock will be reapplied. This is checked by default.

On every page revisit the step will be relocked. This is unchecked by default.

Best Practices

  • When you add the extension, Trickle will be enabled on all blocks. Be sure to go back and turn it off where it’s not needed.
  • Ensure that there is a final, summary item at the end of the page that does not have Trickle enabled. If this is not done, there will be one final “Continue” button that goes nowhere.
  • Choose a method: Blocks or Articles. Both work, but mixing them can cause buttons to appear for no reason and greatly confuse the learner.
  • Enable Scrolling. You will have to do this to each block or article, but it’s worth the effort.
  • We’re a little skeptical of the accessibility of Trickle. It does work, but we’ve noticed some odd behavior that allowed us to tab past the “Continue” button. If you’re set on using Trickle, listen to your learners and be prepared to remove the extension.
  • Save Trickle for those instances where it’s useful. Assessments are one of the few uses we felt it was necessary.