Articulate Studio 13, iPad, and Articulate Mobile Player

Nov 05, 2013

Two questions that are stumping me:

1. Has anyone been able to locate instructions specific to Articulate Studio 13 about how, step-by-step, to upload published output to an LMS so that iPad users can successfully view the course?

Apparently the help pages haven't been written/loaded to the Articulate site yet, since I get nothing but "page not found" messages when I click on help, and all the info I find in tutorials and forums is Storyline-specific.

The instructions I can find say to "upload your published presentation"--so I am assuming that I do the same zipping, select SCORM package etc. that I did in Studio '09.  And clearly Safari is showing me html5 output on my iPad, so I know that the package works to identify the OS.

While I can view Moodle courses in Safari, the screen is truncated on the right by about 30%. I'm working in Moodle 2.4.3, and I can configure the course to play at various sizes (by percentage or pixels) but changing size doesn't change how the course displays--always truncated.

2. Is there a trick to getting the Articulate Mobile Player to play a course?

I downloaded the app to my ipad4 which is running OS 7.0.2. It displays with two tabs, Library and Favorites. It tells me there is no content in either, of course--but I see no instructions, no help, nothing that tells me how I would add a course to it.  Do I need to publish to Tin Can for any of this to work? Without any instructions/help, I can't proceed. 

15 Replies
Leslie McKerchie

Hi Karin! Sorry that you were having trouble finding documentation. We have a tutorial here specific to publishing Presenter for iPad or HTML5.

Then we have this document which will help you understand how the content will display once distributed.

Your published course would be distributed and then your iPad (because you have downloaded the app) would launch the course in the player if it had been published with the Articulate Mobile Player option selected.

Karin Albright

Thank you for your response, Leslie, but I had indeed read the documentation to which your refer, and neither piece answers my question. The former tells me how to publish but not how to package/upload, which is what I asked about; the latter states that  "If they're using an iPad and if you chose the Articulate Mobile Player option when you published, they'll see a launch page that allows them to view the course in the iPad app. "  I'm trying to understand how that launch page opens the Articulate Mobile player, because you have to be in a browser to reach the LMS, and clicking launch from the browser took me to a blank screen. It isn't working.

Dan, good to know that 2.6 will better support the iPad--I'm stuck on 2.4 because the plug-ins we need haven't been updated to run on 2.6.  :-(

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Karin! It sounds like a compatibility issue with your LMS and the Articulate Mobile Player because browsers cannot pass security credentials to iPad apps unless the LMS supports Tin Can API.

How can I track and report on mobile learners' progress?

To track your learners who view your iPad or HTML5 content, you'll need to do any one of the following:

  • Deploy your course from an LMS which supports the Tin Can API: Tin Can is a communication specification which allows learning management systems to receive tracking data from mobile apps. When you publish, choose LMS as your publish option, and mark the checkbox to “Use Articulate Mobile Player on iPad.” (If your LMS provider doesn’t yet support Tin Can API, we recommend that you urge them to do so.) Find out more about publishing for LMS here.
  • Deploy your course as HTML5 content, and have learners access it from your LMS with a browser that supports HTML5: This is a good option if you’re using an LMS which does not support Tin Can API and if learners will use an iPad or other device which doesn’t support Flash. When you publish, choose LMS as your publish option, and mark the checkbox to “Include HTML5 output. Find out more about publishing for LMS here.

I have seen other threads about this and you can follow them here and here, but it appears that they are using a plug in to accomplish this.

Hi Paul! I tried to see if you have asked about this in the past, but could not locate anything. Can you give us some details as to what your situation is? How you're publishing, etc so that we can assist you as well.

Paul Mitchell

Hello, my position is that  I am using Articulate 13, to build a portfolio of training material, from which I want, then to go into the market. I have the material, and at the moment busy building my training, I am working alone trying to get into the e-learning business, I am looking to put my material on the iPad plus the normal routes.

I have been using Articulate  for a few years, and I love it, but about a year ago my laptop failed causing me a lot of problems, and I have waiting for the introduction of Studio 13 for about 12 months thinking this was going to be the answer to my dreams, but wrong! I am no computer ace, I work hard at what I am trying to do, I assumed that once I ran my presentation I could pick up my iPad and start looking at my work. My lack of computer knowledge is now kicking in.

I think I am right in thinking that there is an interface between my presentation before it can go onto my iPad, I do not want to pay more money to get my work on the iPad, I just want something simple, cheap and easy, from this point I am disappointed in Studio 13. Saying that the package is good and I am pleased with Studio 13. I am a one man band trying to get myself in the training business, for my own pleasure, I have a lot of experience but my knowledge around computers is slowing me down at the moment. 

Please advise, thank you.......................

Russell Still

Hi, Paul. Yep, it's a long trek going from step zero to a fully deployed course. We're all in the same boat here - iPad support is becoming more of a necessity, but problems in implementation remain. My company has several online courses that have been very successful over the last 7 years. When the iPad appeared, I immediately recognized that it would soon become the primary medium for consumer content. Another manager disagreed, but that's another story. It has become fact.

Anyway, I'm not sure exactly what your question is, but I do agree that iPads are quickly becoming a prime factor in this business of knowledge transfer.

Nancy Woinoski

Hi Paul, you are correct in that you cannot upload your presentation directly to the iPad. This is not unusual - nothing can be loaded directly to an iPad because the iPad does not have a mechanism for loading files directly.  This is not an limitation of Articulate Presenter or Storyline it is just the way  iPads are designed.

To keep things simple, there are two basic ways to view or interact with content on the iPad.

  1. The first is via an application (app).  Apple has a tight control over the distribution of these apps. If a company creates an app (for example, your bank creates an app for online banking) they have to submit it to Apple. If Apple approves the app then they allow it to be downloaded to your iPad through their AppStore. 
  2. The second way is to access content via the internet using the web browser on the iPad itself.  This works pretty much the same way as the browser on your desktop computer although the browser on your iPad only likes websites that use html5 markup.

Okay, so now on to Studio Presenter. Articulate has built an App that users can download for free from the Apple App Store. It is called the articulate mobile player (clever eh). Articulate Studio also supports publication in html5 format for viewing via the web browser on the iPad.

If you want users to use the app, you have to select the "Use Articulate Mobile Player on iPad" option when published your Studio 13 presentation. If you want them to use the web browser on the iPad, you have to select the "Include HTML5 output" option when publishing the presentation. Publishing at this point is only producing the formats suitable for running on the iPad.

After you publish your presentation, you have to upload the published output to a web server and then make the link to the story.html file available to your users. This could be as simple as emailing them the link . If they open the link from the email on their iPad, the course will either play in the browser or open in the app (depending on how you published and whether or not they have the app installed).

Articulate has a temporary site that they have put together which allows you to upload and test out your courses online. Here is a link with some information .

http://community.articulate.com/forums/p/12163/136544.aspx

Dan Vetter

I have been able to successfully play one of my courses on the iPad both via the Safari browser and the Articulate Mobile Player.  I did this by copying the links to the html5 presentation and the ios launcher in my public Dropbox folder.  When the links are clicked from an email (or anywhere else on the iPad), they launch the presentation in Safari and Articulate Mobile Player, respectively.  Note: if you use the link for the normal launcher (generic: 'launcher.html'), your iPad will default to the Player if you have it installed, but if you don't I assume it would just play it in Safari. 

The graphics in the Player are far better and you get a larger viewing field without the browser bar taking up space.  Also, I found animations worked more smoothly than in Safari; and certain animations worked (period) that DIDN'T in Safari (wipe and wheel to be specific).  There was also an absence of phantom white outline boxes around .png's that were present in Safari.  I also had some similar quality issues in the PC-browser version, but I'm hoping that if I publish a second time without html5/iPad Player enabled, I will get better quality with straight Flash.  Is this true?  Do you sacrifice quality in the Flash portion of your publish if you choose the HTML5 option?

There is one MAJOR PROBLEM with the Articulate Mobile Player (for me): There is no 'Resources' Tab!  (Which I had renamed 'Attachments')  Why why why?  I make references to this tab all throughout my courses.  Can Articulate please add this functionality???

Jeb Hoge

We have been trying to determine why our Presenter course (published to HTML5, no Articulate Mobile Player option) will not run in either iOS Safari mobile browser or Android's mobile Chrome browser (tested on iPad & Galaxy Nexus). Am I correct that Tin Can API is not required to run courses in mobile browsers? Our LMS does not support Tin Can, but beyond that, the course would not even run in those mobile browsers.

Amy Blinkhorn

We currently use Articulate Studio 13 using HTML 5 since our LMS (SFDC/Cornerstone) is web based. The quiz functionality does not always mark the quiz question answer correct when the user is submitting the correct answer. This happen more with the iPad than it does using a laptop. Does this happen to anyone or we the only ones having this issue?

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