In writing a course, you may find the need to halt the learner until they have completed a component. The Trickle extension alters the page scrolling behavior so that when a learner scrolls to a Block or Article you specify, they will be unable to continue until they complete the components there and click “Continue.”
To enable Trickle:
- From the Dashboard, double-click your course.
- Select Manage extensions from the Sidebar
- Locate the Trickle extension in the list and click Add
- Click Back to menu to return to the Menu Editor.
Once you’ve added Trickle to your project it will be applied automatically to all Blocks in the project.
Configuring Trickle
Trickle is enabled by default at the Block level, so most of the options have been set for you. However, there are a few best practices you should follow to ensure that the course remains easy to use.
First, you should ensure that the last item on the page is not interactive and that Trickle is not enabled on the last block on the page. If you do not remove trickle on this item, the user will scroll to the last item on the page and immediatly be presented with a “Continue” prompt that does nothing. In addition, you may not want to stop the learner’s progress on non-interactive blocks, such as Graphic, Text, Blank, and Go To components.
To disable Trickle on a block:
- Double-click the block you want to configure.
- Scroll down to the Extensions section and expand the Trickle block.
- Uncheck Enable Trickle
- Save your changes to the block.
Next, you want to alter the Trickle settings for all of your blocks to ensure that they automatically scroll to the next active block. Without this scrolling behavior, the learner may not know that additional content has been revealed. You can do this by:
- Double-click the block you want to configure.
- Scroll down to the Extensions section and expand the Trickle block.
- Check the Scroll Automatically option.
- Save your changes to the block.
You will need to repeat this process for all Blocks in the course where Trickle is enabled.
Conclusion
Trickle is a complex extension that can make powerful changes to the way a learner moves through your project. Its complexity is a direct result of how much control it gives to you. There are many settings within the configuration that can modify the behavior in additional ways. See the Trickle documentation for additional settings.