Automatically type in text entry boxes

Oooh this is basically the backbone of the whole project I'm working on. I'm working on a software simulation that is about old mainframe software, and since you cant click around the screen in the actual software I didn't want the learner to click around the course either.

So this is the way I get this to work.

The only way to have it auto focus so that you don't need to click into the text entry field is to have it as the last thing on your timeline.

The problem I have with this is that usually I have a lot of objects on the screen, so if its at the bottom of the timeline it gets covered up by lots of different elements and the learner cant see what theyre typing!

How I get around this is by utilizing the slide master. I create a new slidemaster that is just an empty page and a new empty layout. In the layout I put in a layer and have a trigger that shows it at the beginning of the timeline.

On the layer you can put the text entry field you need and since it is the only thing on the screen it will auto-focus and the learner does not need to click it to begin typing. Since its in a slide master layer it will appear on top of everything else on the screen.

Now if you exit the slide master view and set the layout of your slide to this new master layout your text entry will appear on top of everything and will be auto-focused.

You may not need to go through all these steps if you don't have a lot of objects on screen, but if you do this is a reliable way to do it. If you need your text entry box in different locations you can keep making new layouts identical to the first one but with the entry box in a different location.

I included the .story file so you can see exactly what I did, I hope this helps!

Hi Jackson,  thanks so much for this feedback. I have given this a go and the autofocus does work. However I have built all my slides as fill-in-the-blank question slides, with the option to retry. I can't get the new text entry field to correspond with the question slide? Any ideas?

Hi Tania, 

There isn't a way to set up a fill in the blank question on a slide master, and if you've placed the text entry from your slide master on your question slide, you likely now have two text entry fields? Have you tried adding a trigger to set the value of fill in the blank to the value of the TextEntry slide master field when the control loses focus (typically the user clicking outside the box or using the enter key)? I'm not certain how that'll work based on this set up - but if it does work, you could also look at hiding the initial fill in the blank field. 

Ashley has the solution, you can move the fill-in-the-blank text entry field off screen and add a trigger to adjust that variable when the variable on the slide master changes.

Also if they get to retry the question you'll probably need to add a trigger to manually reset the master slide variable when the timeline starts. You can add that to the slide master slide layer so that whenever the learner returns to the page the field doesn't have their last entry in it. 

I've attached the .story file if you want to check it  out.

Good reminder about the review/reset Jackson - and thanks for sharing the file. 

Thank you guys so much for all your help!!! It took a while to get my head around it but I got it working in the end and it is amazing! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Please check out the new version :)

http://www.taniavercoelen.com/NZ%20Quiz/story.html

Thanks for sending your Storyline file through! This helped a lot with getting my head around it. Please check it out :) I posted link down the bottom of the thread.

Thanks Tania for the update - and really cute quiz! I did not know any of the answers... :-)

I'm trying to recreate this in Storyline 360, but the auto-focus on the slide master does not seem to be working? Is there a workaround for this? 

Hi Tania,

Within Storyline 3/360 we reported to our team a change in the auto focus behavior that used to occur in Storyline 2. I'll share this forum discussion as a part of that report so that we can update you here once there is any more info or a change in this behavior. 

Hi Ashley, thanks for letting me know.

Hi Ashley,

I am in the same boat as Tania. I am trying to do this in 360 and it is not working for me either. Would be very interested to learn of any improvements in this feature.

Found this post: https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/how-to-get-textbox-to-auto-focus-on-screen-entry-in-storyline-360

May be useful to those wondering about this topic. Seems the HTML5 vs Flash can make a difference in the behavior of text boxes...internet browser may as well.

Thanks for sharing this post Jenny, that is useul to know. 

Thanks Jenny - and this is something we've reported to our team as a possible software bug, so we'll keep you posted on that as well here. 

Hey folks! I'm happy to let you know that we just released Update 12 for Storyline 360, and you can check out the new features and fixes here!

Specifically included in this version is a fix to address some issues with data entry fields:

• Data entry fields that should have focus when slides load weren't immediately accepting learner input.
• Text entry fields didn't always have scroll bars when learners entered overflowing text. 

Simply update Storyline to the latest version and republish your project to see the fix. Here's how updating Storyline 360 works.

I'm happy to hear how you make out!