Christmas Advent Calendar in Articulate Storyline

Nov 18, 2015

I am trying to create a Christmas advent calendar in Articulate Storyline. The idea is to have 24 ‘windows’, and when the user clicks one of the windows, a piece of content will appear. My plan is to have something different behind each window (e.g. link to websites, quizzes, images, videos). On day 1, the user will be able to see this content, but the other windows will be ‘greyed’ out. This will continue until day 24 when all the content will be available.

One of the main things that I am struggling with is whether to create a separate scene for each day, or whether to keep some of the content hidden in layers.

I have scoped out a plan, but I wanted to see if there is anything out there like this at the moment because it seems like a mammoth task! I’d be really grateful for some expert advice.

Hannah

6 Replies
Hannah Christian

Hi Ashley, thanks for your reply. Yes I have searched for examples and the one you linked to is great! I see that this example uses layers very effectively for links to videos, however with more complex pieces of content (e.g. quizzes), I'm unsure whether to create a separate scene because there will be multiple layers.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Hannah,

Scenes vs. slides are really dependent on your personal preference in terms of organizing the content. Here's a link to a thread where someone asked a very similar question and another one about when to use scenes

You'll find there's no one right thing to do. As many in the above threads have suggested, the main purposes for scenes are organizational, and to break a file up into smaller chunks for easier previewing. If a scene makes it easier for you to track those elements or see the parts/pieces then I think that would be the way forward! 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Hannah, 

Are you using date variables based on the computer system's time or a Javascript element? Both of those aren't accessible in Preview so you'd need to publish a test version, but as for how you'll be able to look into those elements in the published version if it's based on a date - perhaps you could change the system time to check them? I'm guessing a bit here - as it's a little outside my area of expertise. Hopefully someone in the community is able to share some additional info with you here. 

Michael Hinze
Hannah Christian

Hi Ashley,

Thanks for your help! My advent calendar is coming along nicely :)

I have added date variables, and I was wondering whether there is anyway of previewing/seeing a test published version, that will work although the dates are set to open on certain days in December.

Thanks so much!

Hannah

For my advent calendar, I created a simple test slide with a bunch of buttons that force the date variable to a specific day number (1-24). That way, I could preview and test that the correct 'door' opens as per the day number.

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