Can I clean up my slide due to my timeline being full of different bits of content?

Feb 04, 2015

Hello everyone,

I know that Storyline isn't Flash, but I have a question regarding the timeline and what I see on my slide when.

Basically I want to know if there is a way of viewing your slide in a live time basis. For example, when I used to work in Flash, I could drag the pointer on the timeline, and then I would only see what is visible at that point on the timeline and work on those elements. 

But with Storyline, the slides get very cluttered very quickly, as I see everything that is in the timeline all at once, which is a very big frustration, as I have to always go and switch off the visibility of some layers to see my work clearly, then switch them all back on when I preview the slide, otherwise they are invisible in the slide preview. But then I have to go and repeat the process all over again when I want to continue working on the slide and see things in a more orderly fashion.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

S.L.

9 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi SL,

There isn't a feature that would allow you to do that in a static way, but you could preview the timeline itself to see it in motion. You may also want to use the "eye" icon to hide elements while you're working - but just remember to unhide them when you're done or else they won't appear in your published output. 

Brett Rockwood

Hi SL. That would be a very useful feature. It kind of makes me wonder why SL doesn't work this way, i.e., place the timeline where you want it and have the screen update to show only those elements that are active at that point in time. (I haven't worked in Flash directly in some time and had forgotten that was how it worked.)

 

S L

@Ashley: Yes as I mentioned in my discussion above, I am using the eye elements, but it takes forever each time to hide them whilst working on the slide and un-hide every element when I want to preview it. And when I do play it in SL, then it also takes a very long time to view it, so I just  use the preview option instead. And this isn't just for this particular slide, but most slides in general as I have to work with very content-heavy and multi-layered projects.

@Brett: Yes that is one thing that I am also wondering about and one of the elements from Flash that I sorely miss. It would just speed up the production process so much more. :)

Kelly Auner

Hi, all!

I have some great news to share. We just released another update for Storyline 360. In Update 66, we’ve included important fixes and new features.

One of the features we’ve included is:

Scrub the timeline to quickly see when timed elements appear and disappear on the stage without previewing the entire slide.

To take advantage of this update, launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You'll find our step-by-step instructions here.

Please let me know if you need additional help!