Articulate Master Slides

Fabrice, have you ever used master slides in PowerPoint?  If so, the principle here is the same, i.e. you can create a set of slides that contain objects (e.g. images, text, references to variables, buttons, etc) that appear usually at least twice or more in your course.  That way, you make a change to the slide master (or appropriate layout) once instead of making it to each slide individually.

You can also have multiples masters, e.g. chapter one has a particular style so you create a master for that, and chapter two is entirely different so you create one for that too.

Feedback masters do the same for quiz feedback.  You can stick with the traditional Quizmaker-style popups etc, or tweak them, or even opt for a blank slide and create your own.  

With variables, you just insert them (Insert > Reference > select variable).

It's up to you how you choose to use them.  Some rely on them a lot, others far less so.  It's your call ...

Hi Fabrice,

We have some tutorials on using Storyline's slide masters and using themes to control image and text alignment. 

Here are a couple screencasts I put together on using Storyline's slide masters to manage text and image placement. 

Using placeholders to ensure consistent image alignment

How to maintain consistent alignment of text and headings

Simon's correct that Storyline's slide masters work pretty much like they do in PowerPoint. The concept is you're creating layouts with placeholders (text or images). Here's a look at three ways you can use PowerPoint's slide masters to create icon-based navigation:

Production Techniques: Icon Navigation

Fabrice, it's good that you've asked about placing variables on slide masters because this is a great tip for debugging them during testing.  Simply add them to the relevant master(s)/layout(s) and you can keep a constant eye on what they're doing.

There's already a feature request for a debug window that takes this another step further.  But for now, the above is pretty handy.