Test Articulate Storyline App for Android

Hi Torgrim and welcome to Heroes!

You could easily publish one of your courses from Storyline 2, and test within the Articulate Mobile player app on your Android device, even if you only have the SL2 trial as it's a full version of the software. You may also want to look in the Building Better Courses forum as that is where many of our users share their examples.

I've also seen a few threads pop up with examples, although I don't know if they enabled the Mobile player options.

Thank you for your answer Ashley, but would it not be better if you published an example in the mentioned Articulate FAQ/support article?

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Get the app here [AppStore link] [PlayStore link]

Go to www.articulate.com/mobileaxample.html to see for yourself right now!

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Found this link:

http://dev.keypointlearn.com/xcl73_SL2/Sliders/V1/story.html

Works perfect (allthough small) on my Samsung Note 3!

Is there an option to package course and Articulate Mobile player, and publish to AppStore and PlayStore for others to purchase the app, or do you have to ask customers to install player and then buy course via website?

Hi Torgrim,

I'm glad you found an example to test out. I don't believe we've ever shared a sample course to test in those environments, but it's a good suggestion for the future - also, I suspect as Storyline 2 becomes more popular you'll see a lot of more from our Community team in terms of blog posts or examples on specifics.

In regards to the mobile player, your users will be prompted to download the mobile player (if you'be published for such, and they're accessing on a device that supports it) when clicking on your course link. This is described a bit further here.

This is a little off topic, but I was curious to see if our Storyline 1 courseware would work in the new Articulate Mobile Player (AMP) on Android. I'm SO glad it has been released, by the way!

I quickly realized that even with the AMP installed on a few different android devices, accessing the story.html file kept launching things in HTML5. I then realized this is because the javascript code in our output (again, from Storyline 1) is only looking for iOS devices. So, thanks to the slider demo project posted above, I was able to take a look at its newer story.html file and see how things work under the hood.

I compared its code to our old ioslaunch.html file (the file that historically has launched the AMP on iPads), and it led me to a new file called amplaunch.html. This file has seemingly replaced the old ioslaunch.html file and handles both iOS and Android cases. After updating a few more lines of code to match this new amplaunch.html file, I was able to create my own amplaunch.html file that successfully launches a Storyline 1 project in the AMP on Android.

Note that we're still running Storyline 1 - Update 5: 1401.2415. I am still waiting on approval from our IT folks to install the latest update (version 6) to our Storyline 1. Can anyone tell me if the Storyline 1 Update 6 replaced the ioslaunch.html file with an amplaunch.html file that will launch the AMP on android? If not, then I'm hoping another patch will be released soon for us Storyline 1 users. I really want to get my hands on Storyline 2, but it will probably be a while before we get funding approval for it.

I may have just answered my own question because I just saw the below statement on the Storyline 2 - What's New page.

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Hi Chad -

The player is a bit different including the text renderer. I would be really surprised if SL1 content would run in the Android AMP but I like surprises. If you manage to run a test, can you post your results here?

Steve,

I have already run a test, and my Storyline 1 (Update 5) output works in the new Android AMP as long as I force the browser to use the amplaunch.html file that I made. Everything seems to be working, to include it being added to the AMP library and everything.

The only item not working (that I can find) is a custom link I added to the top right of the player that should open a PDF file. The file is located in a custom /resources folder that I made and dropped in the main output folder containing the story.html file. My URL/link trigger points to /resources/file_name.pdf and works fine when viewing the flash output on a desktop.

When I click the link on my android phone I get a Chrome browser error saying "The webpage at file:///data/data/air.com.articulate.articulatemobileplayer/cache/app/long-random-string-here/assets/resources/file_name.pdf might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address." This leads me to believe that the link to my PDF file may only work in the desktop output, as I'd never tried it on the AMP before. Perhaps it will work on the iPad, though... but I can't test that at the moment.

But again, the rest of the output seems to work!

Oh, and I might need to point out that the Android AMP doesn't fill the width of the older Samsung Galaxy Tab I'm using. The interface has some letter boxing on the left and right of the AMP. I thought maybe that was just with my Storyline 1 output, but the Slider demo above did the same thing.

Hi Chad,

Thanks for sharing that here and letting us know how it's working. Storyline Update 6 did not include any additional elements for launching on Android, and currently it's only a feature or option within SL2. If you're able to use the modified file and have success, that's great to hear and I'm sure plenty of other community members would like to know how to set up the same thing.

What version of the Samsung are you running, and what operating system? I'm still learning Android with this launch, but we currently support viewing in the following: Android OS 4.1 or later (optimized for tablets)

Ashley,

Thanks for info on Update 6. I'd love to see Android support officially make its way to SL1 with an update, as it would allow SL1 users to get their courseware out to more learners and not continue to be so limited to Apple users. As more and more SL1 users find the Android AMP, I think many will be confused to find that their "mobile output" only works with one AMP (for iPad) but not the another AMP (for Android), when both look and feel almost the same. There is also the situation where the iPad AMP will run either output, but the Android AMP only runs SL2 output... how does that make sense? Who is ready to answer the question "Why this AMP but not that AMP?"

With all that said, I know a lot of effort has been put into making HTML5 support better, but it's still a very different experience from the AMP. I also realize a lot of effort has certainly gone into making SL2, and I realize business is business and the train moves forward. I just hope it doesn't leave people behind in a harsh way. Adding Android AMP support to SL1 would sort of be like looking back and waving at those who can't get on the train yet, as opposed to not looking back at all. I'm sure many people (like myself) will get SL2 as fast as possible, as it certainly has many appealing new features.

As for your question (and sorry about the rant), the work tablet I have access to test things on is an older Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (model GT-P7510) running Android OS 4.0.4. The Android AMP also works on my phone, which is an HTC One (M7) running Android OS 4.4.2. There is letter boxing on the left/right sides of the AMP interface on both devices. I currently do not have access to a newer Android tablet, but I will try to get my hands on one soon. I'm happy to post the specifics on how I got it to work and to get feedback on anything I may have missed. I will try to do that soon.

Hi Chad,

Rants are totally ok - and sometimes cathartic for you and helpful for our team to "hear" so thanks again for sharing. I can't speak to the future of an AMP for Android that supports SL1 - but if you have the information on how you changed it, you're welcome to share with the rest of the community here. I'd suggest sharing the changes you made within the file, and all the steps you had to go through along with a sample SL1 course that you've tested in the AMP on Android.

Nice to know it worked on your phone as well - although it's optimized for tablets so that should be kept in mind regarding any sizing issues you run into.

Hi,

Is there any way I can calculate the numeric responses in the numeric entry fields?

Hi,

After publishing my file how can i view it on my android phone. I have already installed the articulate player, and already tried to paste the published folder onto my phone memory and then clicked the file 'story.html' but it didn't open in the articulate player.

Hi Aman,

You'll need to place the published story output within a web server or LMS and point the users to the story.html file - when they access that link on their iPad or Android device, they'll then be shown the course within the mobile player or a prompt to download. Here are directions on how that happens. 

Chad, those are excellent points, and Im quite surprised to see a solution  similar to the one you've tried didn't make it to SL1 users. Making SL1 iOS only is a really bad business decision by Articulate. Thanks for the great work Chad, I'm really sorry not to see suggestions such as these come from Articulate themselves.