I have a general question to the development of storyline.
I have to create e-learning content for a learn-management-system. Therefor it´s necessary that the module is running in lots of diferent browsers and diferent tablets.
Because of this I want to know if articulate is planing to make their modules run on other tablets and browsers.
And I want to know, if they would run in browsers, not in Apps becaus we want to hold the modules in our LMS.
Another question I have is the development of moving objekts from one point of the slide to another point of the slide. Will there be a function like this in one of the next updates?
As far as I know, Articulate runs on basically every browser, IEx, Safari, Mozilla, Chrome,... In some cases you'll need to have certain settings set. E.g. in Safari the 'private mode'- may not be set. By running the applications (courses) from your LMS, your browser is just used for rendering whatever the LMS sends it. Therefore a lot depends on how your LMS is configured (MIME...).
As with regards to your second question. Storyline has already an animation feature, which allows you to move objects. It is not as complete as the animations you find in powerpoint... If you want to have animations and you're not sure how to achieve something, put a post on the forum, surely there will be eHeroes who like to help out. BTW check out the link, it was posted a few days ago. It give a nice impression of what SL can do for you...
First I perhaps have to make my question more precise.
I know that storyline is running on every browser as long as you use flash. But also knowing that flash is an retiring approach it is necessary to have the modules running with HTML export.
I built a module with a drag and drop action an this is not running in firefox when the flash player is not active.
The same is on my nexus 10.
I asked a question about this and the eHero answer was, that the nexus is not supported. In the same answer you can see, that HTML5 is only supported for chrome and Safari.
Becaus of this I asked if there will be more support for other browsers.
The second question isn´t answered aswell. I don´t want to know if you can fly in an objekt I want to move it on a path.
In the module I am building at the moment I have an image of the circulatory system. In this image I want to show the running way of an erythrozyt from the heart to the body, from the body to the heart, from the heart to the lung and from the lung to the heart again.
Therefor I have to move an autoshape that is already existing on the slide from its initial position along a rounded arrow to another position stopping there and on the next click again to another position and so on.
I searched in the forum and the only things I found to solve this problem is: "realise it in PP and import it as a movie" or "copy and paste a lot of your smatshapes and fade them in and out."
The problems doing this are the following:
I have no PP 2010 and I am not sure if the video is running in an HTML5 exported module.
fading in and out an autoshape is only possible with 4 pictures a second, because the shortest time for showing an object is 0.25. In this case you dont have the ilusion of motion.
I've seen it indicated that the Articulate Dev Team is working on better animation capabilities for version 2.0. No details have emerged so I wouldn't be able to speculate on what kinds of features this might include. I'm crossing my fingers for programmatic movement (trigger - move object 10 pixels to the right and ease out) as well as path-based movements.
There has been lots of feedback on both animation and HTML 5 browser support. It wouldn't hurt to add your voice to the feature request line-up.
Flash will be here for a long time yet. Storyline HTML5 is targeted to work in Chrome and Safari other browsers will work at varying degrees. Where users can they should use flash.
The only mobile device officially supported is the iPad other devices will work to varying degrees but they are not trgetted and therefore not supported.
As Steve says you are unlikely to get a response on what new features are coming, but we have been told they are working on better animations, I would echo Steve on this I am hoping for much better animations than Powerpoint offers.
I hope android devices get support at some pointt,but at the moment you must work within the limitations of the tool, which as I am sure you are aware all tools have limitations.
Yes, you are right, I have to work with the limitations and all tools have limitations.
But at the moment I am surching für the right tool and I must say, if there is no possibility to move objekts on a path, not even in the nearer future, I am not sure if the tool is worth it's realy high cost.
I really like, how storyline is working. The handling is easy and very clear. There are lots of things I am missing in other tools. And there are many many good charakters to work with. All these are reasons to buy storyline. But I also think, that interaktion and animation is so important for e-learning-modules that I don't want to miss it's possibilities. If I only want to give text to the learner I can work in much simpler ways than building an e-learning module with an extra tool and I don't even have to pay for it. In every LMS it's possible to build text-based e-learning-modules without animation and interaktion. And it is possible to integrate animation with flash in an i-frame. So, why buy storyline, when interaktion is not possible in a way I need it and if storyline isn´t working well without flash in many browsers?
Storyline will do animations they are just the weakest part of Storyline at the moment.
It is one of the best rapid elearning tools available and it is only version 1.
Storyline offers much more than just animations, triggers, layers variables will allow you to build complex scenarios and most things can be built easily using Storyline.
If you need a tool that utilises motion paths then storyline is not the tool for you.
As far as interaction goes I have not seen an interaction I cannot build in Storyline to some degree.
Interaction is not animation and animations do not make elearning good, animation can enhance an elearning course and in some cases make a good course better but cannot save an inferior course.
One thing you might consider is producing your animated content in another tool (AfterEffects, Powerpoint, Keynote) and importing to composition the animation with overlays and interactions. Animation is a weakness for Storyline but with video you have an artifact that can be used in the future that isn't constrained to a specific tool.
7 Replies
hi Svenja,
As far as I know, Articulate runs on basically every browser, IEx, Safari, Mozilla, Chrome,... In some cases you'll need to have certain settings set. E.g. in Safari the 'private mode'- may not be set. By running the applications (courses) from your LMS, your browser is just used for rendering whatever the LMS sends it. Therefore a lot depends on how your LMS is configured (MIME...).
As with regards to your second question. Storyline has already an animation feature, which allows you to move objects. It is not as complete as the animations you find in powerpoint... If you want to have animations and you're not sure how to achieve something, put a post on the forum, surely there will be eHeroes who like to help out. BTW check out the link, it was posted a few days ago. It give a nice impression of what SL can do for you...
What we all need to do is 'Think out of the box'
Cheers
Geert
Hi Geert,
i am a bit surprised about your answer.
First I perhaps have to make my question more precise.
I know that storyline is running on every browser as long as you use flash. But also knowing that flash is an retiring approach it is necessary to have the modules running with HTML export.
I built a module with a drag and drop action an this is not running in firefox when the flash player is not active.
The same is on my nexus 10.
I asked a question about this and the eHero answer was, that the nexus is not supported. In the same answer you can see, that HTML5 is only supported for chrome and Safari.
( http://community.articulate.com/forums/t/30759.aspx )
Becaus of this I asked if there will be more support for other browsers.
The second question isn´t answered aswell. I don´t want to know if you can fly in an objekt I want to move it on a path.
In the module I am building at the moment I have an image of the circulatory system. In this image I want to show the running way of an erythrozyt from the heart to the body, from the body to the heart, from the heart to the lung and from the lung to the heart again.
Therefor I have to move an autoshape that is already existing on the slide from its initial position along a rounded arrow to another position stopping there and on the next click again to another position and so on.
I searched in the forum and the only things I found to solve this problem is: "realise it in PP and import it as a movie" or "copy and paste a lot of your smatshapes and fade them in and out."
The problems doing this are the following:
In this case you dont have the ilusion of motion.
As you can see in the articulate support : http://www.articulate.com/support/kb_article.php?product=st1&id=vilad7faispm
"Articulate Storyline doesn't currently support motion paths." and
"Note: When you import a PowerPoint presentation with motion paths into Storyline, the motion paths will be removed during the import process."
Because of this I asked if it will be possible to work with motion paths in the future.
Sorry, if my questiones weren´t precise enaugh it´s not so easy for a non native language speaker.
Hi Svenja -
I've seen it indicated that the Articulate Dev Team is working on better animation capabilities for version 2.0. No details have emerged so I wouldn't be able to speculate on what kinds of features this might include. I'm crossing my fingers for programmatic movement (trigger - move object 10 pixels to the right and ease out) as well as path-based movements.
There has been lots of feedback on both animation and HTML 5 browser support. It wouldn't hurt to add your voice to the feature request line-up.
Flash will be here for a long time yet. Storyline HTML5 is targeted to work in Chrome and Safari other browsers will work at varying degrees. Where users can they should use flash.
The only mobile device officially supported is the iPad other devices will work to varying degrees but they are not trgetted and therefore not supported.
As Steve says you are unlikely to get a response on what new features are coming, but we have been told they are working on better animations, I would echo Steve on this I am hoping for much better animations than Powerpoint offers.
I hope android devices get support at some pointt,but at the moment you must work within the limitations of the tool, which as I am sure you are aware all tools have limitations.
Thank you very much for your answers.
Yes, you are right, I have to work with the limitations and all tools have limitations.
But at the moment I am surching für the right tool and I must say, if there is no possibility to move objekts on a path, not even in the nearer future, I am not sure if the tool is worth it's realy high cost.
I really like, how storyline is working. The handling is easy and very clear. There are lots of things I am missing in other tools. And there are many many good charakters to work with. All these are reasons to buy storyline. But I also think, that interaktion and animation is so important for e-learning-modules that I don't want to miss it's possibilities. If I only want to give text to the learner I can work in much simpler ways than building an e-learning module with an extra tool and I don't even have to pay for it. In every LMS it's possible to build text-based e-learning-modules without animation and interaktion. And it is possible to integrate animation with flash in an i-frame. So, why buy storyline, when interaktion is not possible in a way I need it and if storyline isn´t working well without flash in many browsers?
Storyline will do animations they are just the weakest part of Storyline at the moment.
It is one of the best rapid elearning tools available and it is only version 1.
Storyline offers much more than just animations, triggers, layers variables will allow you to build complex scenarios and most things can be built easily using Storyline.
If you need a tool that utilises motion paths then storyline is not the tool for you.
As far as interaction goes I have not seen an interaction I cannot build in Storyline to some degree.
Interaction is not animation and animations do not make elearning good, animation can enhance an elearning course and in some cases make a good course better but cannot save an inferior course.
One thing you might consider is producing your animated content in another tool (AfterEffects, Powerpoint, Keynote) and importing to composition the animation with overlays and interactions. Animation is a weakness for Storyline but with video you have an artifact that can be used in the future that isn't constrained to a specific tool.
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