Forcing Web Object Update in Storyline

Jul 28, 2022

I have a working web object in a folder on my hard drive titled "webobjects". I keep my index.html files there, for use in my Storyboard courses. Each index.html file is in its own subfolder within "webobjects".

In my Storyboard file, when I create a web object, I set the address to point to the relevant web object, in its folder. And when I publish the course to test it on the articulate 360 review site, Storyline usually copies the correct index.html file into its Storyline output/story_content_WebObjects folder. And when it does, the web object works properly.

But: I'm finding that sometimes when I update the index.html file in my "webobjects" folder, making sure I save it properly, and then publish the course to the articulate 360 review site, Storyline does not copy the updated index.html file into the Storyline output/story_content_WebObjects folder. The previous version gets used instead.

What is necessary to force Storyline to copy the updated index.html file into the Storyline output folder?

Thanks in advance,

Robert

 

5 Replies
Robert Edgar

Tested and found that Storyline 360 is not checking the index.html file in the URL saved in the Web Object address in Storyline, when it saves and publishes a new version (say, to a LMS version). So the problem can be found locally on your drive, and not just when you try to load the course into the Articulate 360 review site.  This has been confusing me, when I make changes to a web object, and then try to test it to see if the changes work.

Has anyone else found this to be the case?

Math Notermans

Basically Storyline never updates the WebObjects. It copies them at creation internally and uses those. So when changing anything on the files in the folder your WebObject uses...you need to remove your WO from Storyline and add it again. Thats dreadfull i know, but thats the way it is.

Robert Edgar

Hi Math,

Thanks for the confirmation. It's a hassle to keep deleting and adding, but nowhere near the hassle of not knowing that your changes aren't being loaded, so you think that they just didn't work...

Here was my workaround to the "no updating" problem, when I figured it out. I think your solution of deleting and recreating the web object is simpler. But for anyone that this might help, here's my workaround. Note that this method uses SCORMCLOUD, and not the 360 Articulate review site:

1. Publish Storyline as lms.
2. Update the index.html file in the source folder where you have created it.
3. Delete the previous version of index.html file in the Storyline webobject folder.
4. Copy the updated index.html file from its source folder, and paste it into the Storyline webobject folder.
5. Select everything in the Storyline course folder, and create a .zip file.
6. Create a new course in SCORM Cloud, and upload this zip file.

Best of luck, all!
Robert

Robert Edgar

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Math Notermans

As i use WebObjects mostly to load external Javascript libraries i want to use...your solution aint for me ;-) When publishing Storyline creates a weirdly named folder... something like this path...
 Storyline output\story_content\WebObjects\6Wmqd2qQb5k
The latter string-number is for any WebObject unique. As long as you leave the WebObject in Storyline...it will use the original files and data you had in your folder. I use that number in my code to see what and when WebObjects are loaded properly and trigger scripts with it.
If you change anything in your original folder...Storyline ignores it. Only when you delete the WebObject and add it again Storyline updates whats in the folder and uses it. Offcourse the path for the folder will change too with some weird string-number and you need to update that in your code :-)

Robert Edgar

Yes, I should have provided the detail of the weirdly named folder, which is where you need to put the index.html file in my method. Also, note that I don't republish the Storyline file, so this is just for updating the index.html file.

Thanks again for taking the time to articulate both the problem and your solution! Extremely helpful.

Best

Robert