ActivePresentation Designer* Support

Using Mouse Over to Automatically Hide Popups

This article explains how to automatically hide all popups within the current presentation during a slide show.

Scenario

Let’s say you have several trigger objects, each with their own associated Popup object.

The default user behaviour is that you have to click on the trigger to show the Popup and then either click the trigger or Popup to hide it again.

You may want the Popup object to be hidden automatically without the user making the second click, especially if you have multiple Popups on different layers on top of each other.

Solution

Follow these instructions to build a slide to auto-hide all Popups shaapes when the mouse moves over a spcific area of the slide during a slide show.

• Open PowerPoint and open your desired macro enabled presentation (.pptm) or create a new one.
• Using ActivePresentation from the ribbon, link two or more pairs of Trigger + Popup objects that you’ve created on your slide.
• Once your objects have been linked as Popups, add a new shape to your slide (often a simple rectangle) which covers all of your trigger shapes and has a good sized margin around your trigger shapes.
• Send this new shape to a layer that is behind all of your trigger shapes (right click on the shape and click Send to Back).
• Set the fill color to any color and 100% transparency, the outline to none and make sure all effects are turned off (you should not be able to see the shape now).
• With the above shape selected, go the PowerPoint ribbon and click the Insert tab.
• In the Links group, click Action.
• Click the Mouse Over tab in the window that appears.
• Click Run macro: and select HideAllPopups.
• Click OK.

Now, when you run the slide show, you will be able to show the Popups by clicking on their Triggers and when you move the mouse outside of the Trigger area, the Popups will be hidden.

Download an example PowerPoint presentation

Useful Tips

• PowerPoint can be slow to detect mouse over events so if you move the mouse fast enough, the Popups will not be hidden. A way round this is to make the rectangle behind the triggers cover the whole slide. You can also use other shapes and even make your own with PowerPoint tools such as theFreestyle Shape tool or the Combine Shapes tool.
• Because the new ‘hide all popups’ shape is invisible, turn on the Selection Pane (Home / Select /Selection Pane) to find and select it.
• If you have many slides and/or many objects in your presentation, the above method may introduce a visible delay for the presenter. This intermediate level article provides an alternative solution and requires beginner knowledge of the VBA environment.