Basic Questions

Hi Stacy -

Welcome to the community! Here are some answers to your questions:

If you want an element to appear on all of your slides, you’ll want to add it to the slide master in Storyline, similar to how you’d do the same in PowerPoint. See here: https://community.articulate.com/series/4/articles/using-slide-masters-in-articulate-storyline-2

Scenes are essentially groups of slides. Think of them as you would scenes in a movie - that is, containing the setting (background), actors (elements), and plot (interactions/content) for a particular part of the movie (course). A simple course may have only one scene, whereas a complex course would have multiple scenes. More on scenes here: https://community.articulate.com/series/4/articles/using-story-view-in-articulate-storyline-2

Layers let you display, reveal, or hide content on a slide depending on the interaction you are creating. You can find information on layers here: https://community.articulate.com/series/4/articles/working-with-layers

You may want to check out the full Storyline 2 user guide located here:

https://community.articulate.com/series/articulate-storyline-2

You can also get to it by clicking the Help question mark icon in the upper-right corner of the Storyline application window. The user guide contains really useful information and goes deeper than the tutorials.

Hope this information helps - best of luck!

Hi Stacy,

It looks like you've gotten some great help from Scott here and I did also want to share another thought in regards to your buttons. You could add it to one slide and then look at duplicating/copying that particular button to add it to each slide. When you copy or duplicate a button it'll also grab all the states and triggers associated with it. Here is some additional information on working with buttons.

Thank you so much, Scott!  I appreciate the extra resources.

Thanks, Ashley!  I appreciate your help as well!

Hi Stacy..yes, the Storyline 2 user guide is an amazing resource of help.  I keep it bookmarked on my browser and use it frequently.  

Hi, Stacy -- So glad you've been given lots of great resources, and as you mentioned that are hoping to get into an instructional designer position in general, I thought you might find the following to be of interest also:

3 Things Every New Instructional Designer Needs to Know

Top Instructional Design Tips

4 Instructional Design Tips To Create Awesome E-Learning Scenarios

And our lastest e-Book, Go from Zero to E-Learning Hero with Our New E-Book for Beginners, is a really great tool, as well! :)

Thanks, Bobby.

Wonderful, Christie!! These additional resources look great!

Because I am trying to create examples to build a portfolio, I downloaded the free trial.  Unfortunately, there are a few things I cannot seem to do with the trial (such as adding a text variable for the user's name and incorporating a variety of characters- there is only one available).  Is this normal for the trial or is it possible there was an issue while I downloaded it?

Hi, Stacy -- Thanks so much for your reply! The trial version of Storyline 2 should be a fully functioning version, with identical capabilities as the purchased version. 

Please see this article on how to Add and Display a User’s Name in Storyline, and here is some additional information on characters from the Character Pack FAQ sheet:

Are Character Packs Included with Articulate Storyline and Articulate Studio '13?

Articulate Storyline and Articulate Studio '13 ship with one photographic character pack and 40 illustrated character packs, so you can add more than 47,500 combinations of characters, expressions, and poses to your courses. You can purchase more photographic character packs and bundles here.

Please let us know if you have any other questions! :)

Christie,

When I am on the "Insert" tab, I cannot find the option for a "Dialog Box" to insert a name variable. Is there another way to insert this variable?

Hi, Stacy -- In this section on Introduction to Variables, a part of our Getting Started with Storyline 2 series, to be really helpful! 

Please see below:

Practice Activity: Working with Text Variables (NOTE: You will need to download the practice files accordingly)

In this exercise, you'll use a text variable to dynamically display content based on text entered by the user. 

1. Open the 03G_Variables.story project from the practice files. Go to slide 2.4 Practice.
2. Insert a text-entry field on the right, just above the Submit button. Format it so it has white text, a white outline, and no fill.
3. Notice in the Triggers panel that Storyline automatically created a Text Entry trigger.
4. Click Manage project variables in the Triggers panel. When the Variables window opens, double-click the TextEntry variable you created above and rename it to YourName.
5. Next, add a text box to the slide and insert a reference in it that displays whatever name the user enters. 
6. On the next slide (2.4 Practice), click inside the text box and position your cursor at the end, just before the period. 
7. Insert a Reference to the YourName text variable. Tip: You can also insert a reference by typing the name of the variable surrounded by percent signs (%). For example, %YourName%.
8. Preview the scene to see how everything works. 

Thank you.  I am sorry for bothering you, but I really appreciate the help!

Certainly, Stacy -- no bother at all, and we're here to help! Did that information do the trick for what you needed?

Yes. Thank you very much.