Foreground Slide Master

Aug 07, 2014

So I though I would share something worthwhile here and see if it of use!

A possible Foreground Slide Master (with limits)

Sadly Storyline does not have a foreground master feature! If you want to have images or buttons overlayed on all slides you cant do it. Anything you place on the slide covers the slide master. So if you want the same object or shape in the foreground on multiple slides you must have many copies of it.

But there might be away I believe you can force shapes on master to the "foreground" in front of the contents of your slide.

I have tired the following method.

On your Slide Master you will need to add a layer called Foreground. Place what ever you want on the foreground here. Now on the Slide Master base layer add a trigger to show this layer. The triggers should be "On timeline start show layer: Foreground."

So now on your slides the slide master will show on the background and slide master layer foreground will show in-front of whats on the slide.

Amazing !

Now for the short comings. (you knew there were coming) You can't really uses layers on your slide once you do this. The slide layers will cover or hide the Foreground layer of the slide master.

Order of layers

I could untick the box to "Hide other slide layer" so the foreground layer is not hidden but this wont always do what I want. As this means none of layers can be hidden (unless I start using more and more triggers). And still the slide layers will appear in front of the slide master foreground layer.

Well it is part of an approach that I still found useful in a limited way.

4 Replies
Steve Flowers

I do! Here's how I do it:

1) Create number a variable called showForeground.

2) Create a trigger on the master slide base layer that shows your Foreground layer when this variable changes.

3) Create a feedback master (layer master) and add a shape to that master off of the slide area. On the shape add a trigger to add 1 to your showForeground variable when the timeline of the shape starts.

This will pop your foreground layer to the front whenever a layer that uses this feedback master is shown. You might need to play around with the timing and there might be a slight flash as the layers are arranged on some machines. But it's pretty easy to create a "master layer sandwich" using variable listeners to "remote control" the layer trigger.

Steve Flowers

Hi Trav - 

This just makes it so that if you have "hide other layers" turned on and show that layer, it doesn't pop your master slide layer "top sandwich" to invisible. Adding this to a feedback master and applying it to your layers makes it so that you don't have to add the shape to each layer. The master takes care of it. If you add it to the default master for layers, it's automatic.

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