Articulate Feature Request - is DEAD?

Jan 07, 2015

Mehdi Kasumov
By Mehdi Kasumov

Hello, community, and especially Articulate staff. :)
for the past several days my team has spent almost 8 hrs daily researching various thread and discussions pertaining to variables,especially slideNumbers etc.

 

And to our dissatisfaction practically each and every thread  ends up with something like this:
" It does sound like something you may want to share in the form of a feature request. "

We have seen that simple

"slideNumber",

"slideTitle",

"sceneTitle",

"sceneNumber" 

automated insertion into the slide( master or otherwise) was being requested each month for the past 2 years and NOTHING has been done.

Really, guys? for 2 years no one dared to fix these issues?

we have been laughing at the suggestions to
"re-educate our CEO" about using slide numbers, or to teach our clients how to make a screen shot, use snagit and other capture devices to demo to us what is wrong with our "stories" and direct us to the slide in question, or how we shall explain differences between linear and non linear  builds etc. to our clients because we simply cannot use certain articulate features  non-linearly.

Please, guys, automated display of the slideNumber on a slide is USEFUL to all, contrary to  developer's common belief:

1. to the e-developers,

2.IDs

3. Reviewers

4. Clients

5. even CEOs - who do not care that we have to do the slide number of 100 insertion manually.

to what extent shall we learn deep coding to implement  these features? Or shal we finally move to Captivate or flash CS6

We have been waiting for Articulate Storyline 2 and were shocked to see 3 major innovations(motion paths, slide triggers etc) and 1 correction to the text editor.

Now we are AFRAID even to ask what is coming to us in version 3 and do we really want it if our feature requests from past 2 years are not even implemented?

Thank you

17 Replies
david mckisick
over 9 years ago01/07/15 at 6:38 pm (UTC)

As much as I dislike the tone of this post, I do agree about Storylines inability to have automated slide numbering. This is a feature that Adobe Captivate can do (ie. your competition Articulate), and has been able to do since at least version 5, if I remember right. I know I have put a feature request in for it about a year ago as well.

As far as an SL3. SL2 still has a lot of bugs. Why is there even talk about an SL3 before SL2 is 100% stable and 100% bug free?

Kevin Brake
over 9 years ago01/07/15 at 7:42 pm (UTC)

I have been running around in circles and have even provided a detailed explanation of how to implement a dynamic non-linear page numbering solution.

In absence of a variable that can be implemented with ease, I have created two working samples with a break down of really why the two options are not really even viable.

https://elearningshow.wordpress.com/2014/12/23/articulate-storyline-2-page-numbering/

It is time for page numbering, not time for excuses as to why no page numbering has been provided.

At least a target release date goal that would include some sort of solution.

Kevin 

david mckisick
over 9 years ago01/08/15 at 3:29 pm (UTC)

Does Articulate have a tracker that can be accessed via this website for looking at the various feature requests that folks have put in anywhere? This would be quite helpful to see if others have already put a feature request in that I want so that I don't have to put yet another one in. It would also be quite helpful to see the feedback on these feature requests so that we all can have a clearer understanding of how the Articulate management is handling them or what the plans are to address them.

Mehdi Kasumov
over 9 years ago01/08/15 at 3:45 pm (UTC)

hi, David,

in a separate thread I got this reply from STAFF:

Hi Mehdi,

We don't have a public listing of all feature requests, and we'd want duplicate requests to know how many users really would like to see new features. 

Our development team doesn't get in the forums, but sharing the set up and .story file here is helpful for community members and staff, especially those who focus more on design. 

 

As I understand now from this reply, they have NO idea what we want , and we have no way knowing what is coming to us...that sucks.

Justin Wilcox
over 9 years ago01/08/15 at 4:23 pm (UTC)

Hi guys. We have not ruled out having a public feature request page but we currently do not. Feature requests are reviewed by members of technical support, quality assurance, development, product management and our executive team. We receive thousands of feature requests every year. Not every feature request makes it to release. There are many reasons that we don't have a public facing feature request page but one is simply that features get added/removed/delayed throughout the development cycle. Many of the added features in Storyline 2 came about as a direct result of customer feedback. We do take feature request seriously. I appreciate your desire to have specific features added to Storyline, such as slide numbering, but not every request will make it to the final product. That doesn't mean we aren't listening.

Mehdi Kasumov
over 9 years ago01/08/15 at 4:28 pm (UTC)

hi, Justin,

thank you for the reply, but look at this:

your direct competitor and partners Captivate, Lectora, iSring, Powerpoint - ALL have slide numbers.
We have been asking for this feature for the past 2 (two) years , can you explain to us what the reason is for this important feature being overlooked for so long?

 

I can explain to you my frustration: we are building training materials that are 70 to 220 slides long - requirement of our clients. we cannot ask our clients/employers to make screen shots to send us numerous corrections, we cannot manually add slide 1 of 250, 2 out250,  3 o250 and so on anylonger.

This delays our production times, and we lose business - a s a result we ARE looking at other vendors.

If you at least gave an alternative in a form of COURSE progress bar(not the slide progress bar that has numerous bugs) , but you aren't.

 

the only reason why we are using articulate still is the accessibility ( i.e that the product built by articulate is being recognized BETTER that all competitors(except ispring)by Jaws, zoomText and Dragon Naturally speaking

thank you

 

david mckisick
over 9 years ago01/08/15 at 5:11 pm (UTC)

Hi Justin. I understand and agree with you. However, I think it would be a good thing for everyone to see what is going on with the various requests. I can definitely see that not every request will make it into Storyline, or may make it into a future version, or even a distant version. The problem is that right now, nobody knows what is going on. A lot of us are putting requests in because we love Storyline and want to make it better, or fit better in with what we do on our jobs. I would certainly feel much better knowing that a feature I requested may not make it into Storyline for a while, but that it was at least addressed, and had developer and management comments attached with some type of status. At least this way I know that my concerns have been addressed.

Justin Wilcox
over 9 years ago01/08/15 at 5:44 pm (UTC)

Hi David. 

I definitely hear you about being able to see the status of feature requests. This is something we have discussed quite frequently. We definitely see the value in a customer facing feature requests page. I can't make any promises that this will happen but there has been spirited debate internally regarding a public facing feature requests page.

Brian Gil
over 9 years ago01/08/15 at 5:54 pm (UTC)

Hi everyone,

Please be assured that this has bubbled up to the right level here in our product team. We have evaluated this in the past but are investigating the viability of this feature request again with the new information provided in these forums.

I will respond once we have further information to share.

Thanks for your patience,

Brian

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