Dear Father Christmas ...

Dec 20, 2019

Dear Father Christmas,

I know my letter is rather late but I hope your clever elves may be able to bring me a few small gifts which I have been asking about since oooh, around 2012 when I first unwrapped my new Storyline toy. 

I hope you won't think I am being greedy but who knows, there may be other children around the world who would really, really like some of these little presents to make their own Storyline toy a bit more fun and easy to use. Here goes, Santa ...

  • Let me jump to a point somewhere on the toy's timeline. One of your elves must know how to do this? I mean, they know where 'Cue Points' are, don't they?
  • Give me a variable with the frame number that a playing video has reached so I can really control how video is used. 
  • While the elf has the SL3 source code open, could he or she please send me variables I can use that contain today's date, the time, plus start and end times for an action.
  • Also, when I am playing at building quizzes I'd like to be able to set your 'Results.ScorePoints' to equal my OWN score variable, so I can send back my learners' performance data from my OWN assessment exercises. Are you perhaps worried we will break it?
  • Oh yes, would you mind letting me change the text size of the video closed-captions? And while he/she is in that particular source cupboard, perhaps let me place captions where I want them to appear, not you. And that ugly black box the captions appear in? Perhaps that could be optional too - just wrap it with the same present - no need for a separate gift.
  • Last Christmas you gave me animations which orientated objects to their path as they turned. Wonderful! But when I unwrapped it, I was a bit disappointed to find that you had only given your development elves protractors marked every 30 degrees. Please let them know that other increments are available, such as 5 or 10 degrees. This would stop the aircraft I animate from jerking their way round their taxiing paths like an animated dog.
  • While I am on 'things moving around' on screen, a really special gift would be to let me directly place an object at a specific X and Y location. You know, an initial location when the object appears and then a Trigger to send it somewhere else. Just like I used to do with my Authorware toy in 1989 ...
  • And also - I know I am being a little cheeky here - please could I have a variable I can read which gives me the X and Y location of an object on screen? YOU know where they are sitting - just let US know too.
  • You know those paths you let me create, the ones where an object moves along them? Very nice. But what would really make my Christmas this year is if an elf could let ME move an object along a path! I know, I know - this is outrageous but I would also like to be able to MOVE that object to a specific location along that path!
  • I don't use the built-in SL3 menus but I might if I could change their text size and style. I recently had to ship an eLearning course (to a client who had demanded your standard menu panel) with a box of 7 inch magnifying glasses to conform to his local accessibility laws.
  • Just one last request please Santa, if it's OK. I'm sure there must be an elf with a few minutes spare who could send me some extra functions and again, just send them in the same gift box:
    • A little device to convert a quiz score such as 86.429 to 86? A bit like the INT function I used to use 50 years ago. 
    • A few bells to go on my Trigger toy, like the ability to subtract a variable from a number?
    • I was going to ask you for a 'scripting language' but Mummy says that's far too ambitious and that your elves and profit centre managers would have a fit. So I won't. 

I hope this isn't too much to ask for Santa. My Storyline 3 toy does give a me a lot of pleasure. It's dead easy to use, very flexible and there are thousands of other children who share their gift requests on this Forum which is very useful. 

Looking forward to opening my prezzies! Happy Christmas. 

 

Pinned Reply
Eric Santos

Hi everyone,

I have some great news to share. We just released another update for Storyline 360. In Update 86, we’ve included important fixes and new features.

Two of the new features we’ve included: 

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

Please let me know if you have any questions.

10 Replies
Tim Neill

Hi Leslie,

Thanks for your response - you are always so quick and constructive when replying on the Forum. The community is one of this product's greatest assets.

Closed-caption text size control - yes, this is what I have been doing in the Player. It's a good job I don't use the default SL3 menu or navigation buttons because although the font can be different, they all get bigger too! Caption text really ought to have its own controls for text size, alignment, colour and background colour.

Best regards, Tim

 

Vincent Scoma

Hi Tim,

I am happy to share that a new prezzie is here for you to open! 

We just launched the newest version of Storyline 360 (Build 3.38.21779.0) this morning, which brings the Jump to Time Trigger! This feature allows you to create unique interactions by using triggers that jump to different times or cue points on the timeline. For more details on this, please check out this knowledge base article

The next step is to update Storyline 360 by heading to your Articulate 360 desktop app and clicking "Update" next to Storyline 360.

As always, we are happy to answer any questions you have by posting in this discussion, or you can contact our Support Engineers directly.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Tim, 

I appreciate that this is a crucial feature for you, and you're right that folks have mentioned needing a jump to timeline trigger for some time, but at this moment we're not planning any new feature updates for Storyline 3. 

We'll be sure to keep you and other Storyline 3 users updated if anything changes around that! 

Walt Hamilton

Just now found this discussion, but this is for those who are waiting for:

While I am on 'things moving around' on screen, a really special gift would be to let me directly place an object at a specific X and Y location. You know, an initial location when the object appears and then a Trigger to send it somewhere else.

Click on a color name to send the light bulb to that location (a specific X and Y location.) Unfortunately, it only works for predetermined locations. We're going to have to wait for the elves to fix it so we can use variables to send it to changing locations.

In SL2, so it is available to all.

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Tim,

Great news!  We just released another update for Articulate 360 and included some new features a few important fixes you'll see in the release notes.

The item you'll be interested in is:

New: Make closed captions easier to read. Increase the captions font size up to 200% in the modern player.

Just launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button for Storyline 360. Details here.

Please let us know if you have any questions, either here or by reaching out to our Support Engineers directly.

Eric Santos

Hi everyone,

I have some great news to share. We just released another update for Storyline 360. In Update 86, we’ve included important fixes and new features.

Two of the new features we’ve included: 

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

Please let me know if you have any questions.