The Logical Blog by IconLogic

Articulate Storyline 360: Rescue Corrupt Projects

When I teach my vILT Storyline 360 classes, I tell my students to avoid editing the project file over a network drive. Because Storyline projects are a package of assets, those assets can get lost when the project is opened and edited over a network. To avoid the possibility of a corrupt project, always edit the .story files locally (on your local drive) and back up the project files to a network drive. (Or use the backup feature available when you publish to Articulate Review 360.)

 

I frequently hear from Storyline developers who either didn't know about the network issue, forgot, or IT requires developers to work off the network. Sooner or later, this message will appear when attempting to open the corrupt project:

 

If you receive the message above, the file is likely corrupt, and there is little you can do to fix it. However, all is not lost. It is possible that an earlier version of your project is on your local drive. Here's how you can save the day.

 

1. Open your hard drive in Windows Explorer
2. Open Users > your user name
3. Select the View tab and, from the Show/hide group, enable Hidden Files
4. Open the AppData folder
5. Open the Roaming folder
6. Open the Articulate folder
7. Open the Storyline folder
8. Scan the contents of Storyline folder for a tmp file that starts with the name of the corrupt project.
9. Copy the newest version of the tmp file to your desktop
10. Change the file extension of the copy on your desktop from .tmp to .story.
11. Double-click the .story file to open it in Storyline.

Stay off that network, and all will be right with the world!

Articulate Storyline 360: Background Audio Now Supported

Earlier this month, Articulate released an update to Storyline 360 (build 3.74.30180.0) that allows you to include background audio in your published eLearning project. 

To add background audio to a Storyline project:

1. Ensure you have the latest update. (To get the latest Storyline update, start Articulate 360. If there's an update available for any of the tools that make up the Articulate 360 suite, you'll be alerted via a drop-down menu to the right of the application name.)
2. Open a Storyline project and open a slide.
3. Go to the Insert tab on the Storyline ribbon and click the Audio drop-down arrow.
4. Hover over Background Audio and choose Create Playlist to open the Background Playlist window.
5. Click the Add Audio icon (the plus sign) and select Audio from File or Media Library to upload your audio. (Note: You can import the following audio formats into Storyline: AAC, AIF, AIFF, M4A, MP3, OGG, WAV, and WMA.)

Your playlist can contain as many audio files as you like. From the Playlist Settings area, it's ideal to fade the music in and out. From the Slide-Related Settings area, lowering the background audio if there's competing audio added to an individual slide is also a great idea. You'll need to experiment with the exact percentage for lowering the audio. In my experience, the default 50% setting isn't always enough. To avoid distractions, I've found that lowering the background audio by 80% or more works best.

If you need to remove audio from the playlist, select the audio from the list of tracks and click the Delete button (the trash icon).

Looking for Storyline training, development support, or mentoring? We've got you covered with vILT classes and one-on-one support.

Articulate Storyline 360: Indexing Scenes

When I teach my vILT Articulate Storyline 360 classes, we tackle scene creation right away. As the project grows and more scenes are added, students quickly realize that the scene numbers can get out of numeric order. For instance, scene 6 might end up becoming the starting scene and be listed first in Story View, scene 4 might be the next scene, followed by scenes 3, 5, 1, and 2.

In the example below, notice that the third scene is numbered 2, and the second scene is numbered 3.

I've never been bothered by scenes that are out of numeric order. However, I know that this bothers other Storyline developers. The Index tool allows you to quickly renumber your scenes.

Here's how it works. I've selected the last scene in the image below, titled Second Scene.

I want the selected scene to be treated as the second scene by Storyline and assigned the number 2.

On the Home tab of the Ribbon, Scenes group, I clicked the Index tool drop-down menu and selected 2. Remember, just previous to this, I selected the third scene. By choosing the number 2 from the Index menu, I'm telling Storyline to change scene number 3 to scene number 2.

And here's the re-indexed scenes. Note that non of the slide-to-slide jumps have been negatively affected by reindexing vs. cutting and pasting scenes.

Check out this short video to see the Index feature in action.

ARTICULATE STORYLINE 360: Slides Numbers and Percentage Completion Rates

We do a ton of eLearning development in Storyline. A recent client asked if there was an easy way to add a percentage complete area on each slide so the learner quickly knew how much content remained to be viewed. Thanks to a fairly recent addition to Storyline 360, adding such a feature to a project is simple (it's also easy to add slide numbers).   If you'd like to follow along with me, create a new Storyline 360 project and insert 10 slides from the Content Library. (I went with the Affinity template but you can use any of the templates.)  Each of the slides in my sample project are represented in the menu shown in the image below (at the left).

To add the slide numbers and percentage completion, I went to the parent master slide (View > Slide Master), inserted a text box and typed the phrase: of . | You’ve completed of the lesson.

Still working on the slide master, and with my insertion point to the left of the word "of," I went to the Insert tab on the Ribbon, Text Group, and clicked the drop-down menu next to the Slide Number icon.

I selected More options and the dialog box shown below opened. From the Insert drop-down menu, I selected Slide number in menu.

I repeated this process two more times. On the second pass, I added Total slides in menu to the left of the period. On the third pass, I added Progress through menu (%) after the word "completed.".   The text box on my master slide looked like the image below.

When I previewed the scene, this was the result.

Because I added the text box to the parent master slide, the text appeared on every slide in the project. Alternatively, the number can be added to a text box on a layer (and use triggers to make the layer appear or disappear based on what the learner does throughout the lesson).

***   Looking for Storyline training, consulting, mentoring, or development? We've got you covered. Give us a call at 877.754.2662. We've got an awesome collection of live, online classes. You can learn more here.

ARTICULATE STORYLINE: Publish a Portion of a Project

When publishing a Storyline project, it’s often preferable to publish a small section of the project instead of the entire thing (a single slide for instance or an individual scene). Fortunately, Storyline 360 makes quick work of this task, if you know where to look.   Open Storyline’s Publish dialog box by either using the Publish tool on the Ribbon or choosing File > Publish.   From the Properties area of the Publish dialog box, click the link to the right of Publish to open another Publish dialog box.

From here you can elect to publish the entire project, a single scene, or from the A single slide drop-down menu, specify any slide from any scene within the project.

Click the OK button and then click the Publish button to publish the selection.   Need to learn Articulate Storyline? Want to save on travel? Consider our live, online, and 100% interactive and hands-on Storyline classes.

ARTICULATE STORYLINE 360: Three Cheers for Text-to-Speech

by Kevin Siegel, CTT+, COTP

During our live, online Articulate Storyline Beginner classes, we teach students how to import and record voiceover audio. The most common question we get about voiceover audio is “Can Storyline convert text to audio files?” The answer has always been "no." However, “no” became “yes” thanks to a recent Storyline 360 update.

 

If you select the Insert tab on the Ribbon and click the Audiotool (located in the Media group), you’ll find Text-to-Speech. Yayyyy! (If you don't see Text-to-Speech as shown below, and you're using Storyline 360, start Articulate 360 and see if updates are available.)

 

 

Before using Text-to-Speech, I suggest a little pre-work. If you’ve created a voiceover script (or have access to it), you will save yourself a lot of extra work in Storyline because you can copy and paste the script text into Storyline’s Notes area (instead of typing). The Notes can easily be converted to Speech.

 

 

Next, choose Insert > Media > Audio > Text-to-Speech to open the Insert Text-to-Speech dialog box. From the upper left of the dialog box, you can select from an awesome number of languages.

 

 

Choose your narrator and, if you'd like, use the Preview Voice option to get a feel for how your narrator is going to sound.

 

 

 

You can type the script text manually if you're into that sort of thing (the typing I mean). But remember the Notes I encouraged you to create earlier? Click the Copy From Slide Notes button and those notes will instantly appear in the panel (there's no extra typing required... I love that).

 

Click the Insert button and you're done, done, done. The resulting audio file appears at the bottom left of the slide.

 

 

If you'd like to hear the resulting audio (and who wouldn't?), right-click the speaker icon and choose Preview.

 

 

After you've added the Text-to-Speech, you can change to a different language or Narrator by visiting the Audio Tools tab and clicking Text-to-Speech and clicking the Update button.

 

Thanks, Articulate for making the whole Text-to-Speech thing so fast and easy!

 

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If you are looking to learn all things eLearning, including Articulate Storyline, check out these live, online and awesomely interactive classes.

 

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Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the U.S. Coast Guard and in private industry, Kevin has spent decades as a technical communicator, classroom and online trainer, public speaker, and has written hundreds of computer training books for adult learners. He has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

ARTICULATE STORYLINE: Removing Built-In Slide Navigation

by Kevin Siegel, COTP, CTT

I received an email from an Articulate Storyline developer who was adding interactivity to her project via buttons. She wanted learners to click on the buttons for slide-to-slide navigation.

 

The developer easily added the buttons she needed to the desired slides (via the Insert tab on the Ribbon, Interactive Objects). She then added the appropriate Triggers to each of the buttons so that when learners clicked the buttons, they moved forward, backward, or jumped to different slides.

 

Upon previewing the project, she was dismayed to see built-in Prev and Next navigation buttons that weren’t on her slides when she was working on the project. (The image below is a slide I created for demonstration purposes... the developer mentioned above created slides far more elegant, but she was not able to share them.)

 

 

The developer wanted to know if there was an easy way to quickly hide the navigation buttons on a slide-by-slide basis? The answer? Yup!

 

Right-click a Storyline slide and choose Properties. From the Buttons area, deselect Prev, Next, or both, and then click the OK button.

 

 

Preview the content and you'll notice that the built-in slide navigation is gone.

 

 

If you'd like to remove the navigation buttons from multiple slides, that's easy too. From Story View, select as many slides as you like (you can shift-click to select contiguous slides; control-click to skip around). On the Slide Properties panel you'll find Multiple slide navigation controls allowing you to show/hide the buttons for the selected slides.

 

 

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Looking to learn the hottest eLearning tools such as Articulate Storyline or Adobe Captivate? Check out these live, online, and highly interactive classes.

 

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Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the U.S. Coast Guard and in private industry, Kevin has spent decades as a technical communicator, classroom and online trainer, public speaker, and has written hundreds of computer training books for adult learners. He has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

Articulate Storyline: Enhanced Multiscreen Support

by Kevin Siegel, COTP Articulate recently released Storyline 360, part of the Articulate 360 suite of products available through a subscription on Articulate's website. If you've spent any time using Storyline 2, you'll find that Storyline 360 is just about identical. And while it's true that little has changed between Storyline 2 and 360, there are some subtle improvements in the new version. For instance, there's access to the Content Library (I wrote about the Content Library last week). There is also enhanced support for multiple screens. In the image below, check out the five icons in the upper right of the preview window. By default, projects preview as a desktop user. However, Storyline 360 projects can be used by learners on several types of devices (such as desktops, tablets, and mobile devices). You can now use the Preview window to get an idea of how your content will look on those devices.

I'm curious to see what my layout will look like for tablet users. All I need to do is click the Tablet Landscape icon.

Not only does the slide resize to accommodate a Tablet, the Player (which was at the bottom of the Desktop version of the slide) becomes a mobile Player (it’s smaller and changes screen position).

I love the fact that it's now an easy process to get a reasonable peek at what my slides will look like on multiple screens/devices. I'm also happy to see the Player behave so responsively and reposition appropriately on different devices.

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Looking for training on your favorite eLearning tool? We've got you covered with an assortment of half-day and multi-day courses.

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Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the US Coast Guard and in private industry, Kevin has spent decades as a technical communicator, classroom and online trainer, public speaker, and has written hundreds of computer training books for adult learners. He has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

Articulate Storyline 360: Content is King

by Kevin Siegel, COTP

Articulate 360 is a collection of Articulate tools including Storyline 360, Studio 360, Replay 360, and Peek. One of my favorite things about the suite is the Content Library, a robust collection of eLearning assets. The Content Library includes hundreds or beautifully designed slide templates. The templates contain interactions, scenarios, infographics, several layouts, and some awesome content tips. You'll also find thousands and thousands of photographic and illustrated characters. And if you can't find what you're looking for when you look around in the Library, just wait... Articulate plans to constantly add new assets... in theory, this thing will never stop growing! You can easily access Library assets from within Storyline or Studio 360. For instance, in Storyline 360, select the Slides tab on the Ribbon. From the Slide group, click Content Library (shown in the image below).

The Content Library dialog box opens. In the example below, I selected Closings from the list of categories at the left. From the Vibrance group, I selected Contact and then clicked the Insert Slide button.

The resulting slide looked really good. It contained images, placeholder objects, and even tips for effective eLearning content. I was able to quickly replace the placeholder content with my own content. Honestly, you can have a slide done faster than you could have ever hoped for. What will you do with all of that extra time?

If you're looking to learn Articulate Storyline or Adobe Captivate, check out these live, highly interactive online classes.

___ Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the US Coast Guard and in private industry, Kevin has spent decades as a technical communicator, classroom and online trainer, public speaker, and has written hundreds of computer training books for adult learners. He has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

Articulate: A Complete 360

by Kal Hadi, CTT, COTP  

 

The long anticipated Articulate Storyline upgrade was announced recently by Articulate and came not as Storyline 3 (as many expected) but rather in the form of the subscription-based Articulate 360, a suite of tools that includes every tool that Articulate makes.

Articulate has decided to change the way upgrades to their products are going to work in the future. There will no longer be traditional upgrades to the licensed products that one has purchased and installed on their desktop. Upgrades will be made to the Articulate 360 tools. You can continue using the desktop version of Storyline 2 and Studio '13, but don't expect any future upgrades to these tools.

With the new subscription model, you pay an annual fee of $999 ($599 for the first year if you are an existing Storyline or Studio customer). To edit existing projects, or create new content, you will need to keep your subscription active. Although the pricing seems a bit steep, consider what you get. For instance, there is a robust Content Library that has a vast array of professional templates and a huge number of characters and other eLearning assets.

Other components include access to Replay 360 (a screen recording tool useful for making video demos), Rise (a template based online authoring tool for creating very simple and responsive courses), Articulate Review (online based course review process where many can comment and provide feedback), Preso (an iPad app that lets you create and annotate slides, add video and turn to a movie), and Peek (a desktop app that let's you record either Mac or PC screens).

And of course there's Storyline 360, which is very similar to the current Storyline 2 in look and feel. However, there are some additional features in the 360 version. For instance, there's a major focus on support for mobile output by, among other things, making HTML5 the primary output and support for touchscreen and gesture interfaces. There is also a new dial control similar to a slider and a couple of new trigger events.

One thing to think about before taking the plunge and going with 360 is backward compatibility--there is none. If you upgrade a project from Storyline 2 to 360, there's no going backward to version 2. This can be a major issue if you share files with other developers or content creators who cannot or will not upgrade from version 2 to 360.

In the coming weeks I'll be showing you some of the ins and outs of the 360 tools I mentioned below. And keep in mind that if you need training or help with Articulate Storyline or Studio, we've got you covered with these awesome live, online Articulate classes.