Delete uneeded scenes vs. import needed scenes into new .story file

Jul 13, 2016

We have  a Storyline "starter kit" .story file which has several scenes containing various techniques (closed captions, etc.), slide masters, variables, standard slides, and other things to be used when developing new courses. 

The way we use it is to open the starter kit, then "save as" with a new file name, and develop the course.

When the course is ready to be published, which of the following is the better practice and why?   Is it better to delete all of the scenes from the starter kit then save and publish the project?  Or is it better to save it, create a new Storyline project, and then import from that saved project only those scenes that are needed for the course?

7 Replies
Walt Hamilton

Save, then delete, then save.

Unless it makes a HUGE difference in your project size, keeping those extra scenes offends only your own sense of rectitude. They don't (as far as I know) hurt the project, and serve as an extra backup of the scenes.

I can't remember the last time I was hurt by having too many backups, but too few ...

Brett Rockwood

This is an interesting question and I'd love to hear how others deal with it. And whether one way or the other creates a "cleaner" and smaller file.

I will say that one disadvantage of importing scenes into a new project is you lose any and all of the custom guides you may have set up in your original course. When I create a course I set up a very detailed set of guides that I use to align virtually everything on my page. Importing those scenes into a new file blows all those guides away.

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