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There are lots of reasons to control navigation in your courses. Like you want your learners to take the course in a certain order. Or maybe you don't want them to be able to search for answers or you're creating a branched scenario. Whatever the reason, Rise gives you plenty of options.

Keep reading to learn how to control course navigation.

Most navigation controls are found in the theme menu under navigation. Navigation changes are persistent across themes.

Disabling navigation is easy to do. Click Theme in the upper right corner of the course editor, then select Navigation. Scroll past the navigation options and toggle the Navigation option to Off. Once navigation is disabled, you can no longer select navigation display options. Menu options like search visibility, which are navigation-dependent, are hidden.

With navigation turned off, learners can only start the course from the cover page and won't see the course outline.

Click Save to commit your changes.

The sidebar is open by default and learners can close it as needed. On small screens, such as smartphones, the sidebar automatically collapses to give your content more room, and learners can open it when they need it.

To hide the sidebar by default, select Sidebar in the Navigation menu to see available options. Below the appearance options list, toggle the Begin with sidebar open option to Off.

Click Save to commit your changes.

By default, learners can move freely throughout a course. But sometimes you may need them to view lessons in sequential order. Just change the navigation mode!

With Restrict Navigation toggled to On, learners have to take lessons in order. Selecting this also disables search and the ability to mark lessons as complete.

Search is active by default in new and existing courses. To disable search, toggle the Search option to Off. If you've turned off the sidebar for your course, you won't see this option.

If you let learners navigate freely, you can also allow them to mark unfinished lessons as complete in the sidebar without viewing the content. You might allow this, for example, if you’re creating a refresher course and learners are already familiar with some topics. To enable this, toggle the Marking Lessons Complete option to On.

Note: Quizzes can’t be marked complete.

Playback speed lets learners select a playback speed that’s comfortable to them, from 0.25x up to 2x, they just need to click the icon to the right of the time remaining. It's enabled by default. Toggle the Video Playback Speed slider to Off to disable this option for all videos in the course.

Note: Disabling this option may affect your course's accessibility for some learners.

If, instead of using scenario blocks, you want to make your entire course a branched scenario, limit navigation to button blocks. It’s a fun way to create content where learners must make decisions in order to progress.

The key is to disable the default navigation buttons that appear at the top and bottom of each lesson. Select the Buttons tab, then toggle the Previous/Next Lesson Buttons option to Off. (When this option is switched on, the buttons show the titles of the previous and next lessons.)

To ensure the only way your learners can navigate your course is via your button blocks, disable navigation. Or, you can provide another way for learners to navigate the course by setting the sidebar style to not display automatically so it's still available when learners need it.

When lesson numbers don’t fit your course content, toggle the Lesson Count Labels option to Off in the lesson headers menu. This removes the Lesson # of # label at the beginning of each lesson. It's particularly handy when you’ve created a branched scenario that doesn’t require numbered lessons.

Use continue blocks to progressively reveal content or require learners to complete interactions before moving on.

Just insert a continue block in a custom blocks lesson where you want navigation to pause, then choose a Completion Type to determine how the continue block behaves. There are three completion types:

You can use continue blocks to require learners to complete carousel blocks, checkbox lists, audio blocks, video blocks, accordions, tabs, labeled graphics, processes, sorting activities, flashcards, knowledge checks, and scenario blocks. (Although button blocks and attachment blocks are interactive, you can’t require learners to click them.)

Use button blocks to branch learners to other lessons in the course. For example, if you reference a topic discussed elsewhere in the course, you might give learners a button that jumps to that topic.

Just insert a button block or a button stack in a lesson, then choose a Destination for each button. The destination can be another lesson in the same course or an external web page. You can also use button blocks to exit the course.