Editing Slide Master for Question slides

Apr 01, 2015

I must be doing something wrong here.  I'd like to adapt the Master for question slides so that for some questions I can use a different arrangement of where the question and the answer choices appear.

To do this, I went into Master view, duplicated the Question Layout, renamed it and then moved the existing placeholders to new locations. I also added a background image and a new placeholder text box where I want the slide title to appear. My assumption was that when I created a question, I'd be able to select this master and everything would be inserted into the new arrangement.

It doesn't seem to be working. When I create the question it defaults to the original Question Layout. Changing to the new master layout is no problem but the question and answer don't move into the new arrangement.

Please see attached images for a better idea of the problem.

22 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Fiona,

If you set up masters for individual question types, they won't be applied when adding questions of those types - it'll always default to the main question master and then as you mentioned you can change the layout. But if you're not seeing elements move based on your master set up, we'd likely want to take a look.

Also there is some helpful information here in regards to working with slide masters. 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Fiona,

Thanks for sharing your question slide here with the master slide set up. I see that in your file, I'm unable to apply the layout and have it applied correctly, so I tried to recreate your slide in a new Storyline file and although it's not a perfect match - it did apply correctly, can you take a look at my attached example (again sizing and other elements are off). Can you confirm that you're working on local project files as described here? 

You mentioned duplicating the question master layout, but I only saw that one in your file? Did you delete the other one? In my example I just made changes to the original instead of duplicating. 

Fiona Macelli

Hmm. I see that it is working in your file now. Is that because you adapted the question master layout directly instead of adapting the duplicate? Does that mean that I can only have one master layout for question slides and that it must be an adaptation of the original?

Since I had anticipated needing several different layouts for question slides within one .story file, I had first duplicated the question master layout and then adapted and renamed the duplicate, leaving the original.  I had tried to apply the new custom master layout to the question slides, which as you saw, didn't work.

Can you see if you are able to create multiple master layouts for questions and apply the new master formatting to different question slides?  If you can, then I'm still doing something wrong. If you can't, then it is a limitation of the software.  In that case, I guess I can create the questions without using the "question slide procedure", but just as regular slides. At least, I think so.

Regarding your question about using local project files, yes I do try to keep the files local as explained in that article but since I don't have the ability to put the MyDocuments folder onto my local drive (a problem described here: https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/change-default-location-for-storyline-templates# ) it isn't the default location and also isn't the location of the "My Articulate Projects" files. Still, I try to make sure I'm always saving and opening the files I create on my C drive, but I guess things could still be going wrong there.

Emily Ruby

Hi Fiona!

I worked off Ashleys file and i duplicated the question master, then renamed it, and changed the placement, fonts and formats of the placeholders.

When creating a new slide, the default question master was assigned, but upon changing the layout to the new duplicate, it did update.

See attached.

Fiona Macelli

Thanks for trying to figure this out Tanya and Ashley.  I think if you take a closer look at your file Tanya, you'll see that the placement of the question and answer boxes isn't actually changing to match with your "duplicate master".  The formatting and the other elements you've added has changed, but the position seems to be defaulting to the formatting on the  "new-original" question master that Ashley adapted.  At least, that's how it's appearing on my end.  I suspect that if you try moving these elements more dramatically on your duplicate master you'll experience what I'm talking about.

I've attached a screen shot of how your master appears compared to your actual question, in case there's a difference in how they're appearing on my computer. The placement of the question placeholder in your master would indicate that the question text should be immediately under the red box and it is not.

 

Fiona Macelli

Ok, I think I FINALLY figured out what's happening:

1. I think you have to use a question layout for a question slide - meaning that if you want a customized quiz layout, you have to adapt the default question master itself and not duplicate the question layout, adapt it, create the question and then assign the customized layout. I'm not 100% that this is true but it seems to be the case. If you want to have several master layouts for quiz questions, you can add other masters, each of which will have their own question layout that you can customize.

2. I believe there is a bug that restricts the placement of placeholder elements on a master such that the resulting choice element (text entry box / answer choices, etc) always appear below the lowest part of the resulting question text.  This is easier to see in the attachment. As I move the question placeholder down in the master, the resulting answer choices appear to move downwards until they are below the bottom of the resulting question text. This is keeping me from creating a master where the question text and the choices are side-by-side.  This only appears to be the case when using a master however, because if I start a new file and create a question with the default master, I can move the question text so it is beside the choice text. I've attached an image of this called "untouched master". If I then move the placeholders around in the master, the question text will again demand to be on top and I'm unable to arrange them side by side without starting a new file.

Lee-Ann Williams

OK, thank you. I wasn't really asking for a timeline, just hoping it would be soon.

On a related note, is there any way to simply export/import question banks from one file to another without bringing along the formatting? If I could just do that, I could possibly make new Draw slides to place them in, right?

Lee-Ann Williams

Not exactly. If I import them this way, they are still formatted as in the original document. I'm trying to change the visual layout of all my questions. Applying a new or revised master layout doesn't work, because the position of any revised placeholders doesn't apply to the actual slide. If there were just some way to bring in ONLY the question text and then draw on it for the Draw from Master slide, I think I'd be good. In other words, if the questions were just data, with no formatting. I could insert new Draw slides and just tell them where to pull their questions from. With the question pool slides being formatted, I'm stymied from that approach.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Sarah,

This discussion is a bit older - are you also using Storyline 2? The issue was  that when editing Question Title Style and Choice Text Styles via Slide Master, if you were positioning them side by side, the Answer Choice (Choice text styles) is always forced and placed below the Question placeholder.

I haven't seen reports of this yet in Storyline 3 or 360, so if you're seeing something similar I'd love to take a look at one of your sample projects to test what's happening.

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