Issue with client's IE browser sizing and time SL2 Trigers not working when browser window is resized
Nov 30, 2017
Hi All, I am stuck on a settings issue that is either an error with the Storyline 2 (SL2) player settings and / or with my client company’s setting with their exchange IE Browser opening window size. I wish I could be more brief, but I have to provide some detail (below) to help save you all time with suggesting basic solutions that have not worked. Thanks a million if you can help.
Environment & Situations:
I am producing SL2 courses. I am uploading 1080 HD videos on Vimeo, and using the embedding link function on Vimeo, I insert the iFrame embedded link into SL2 slides via the “Video from Website” Insert window. The videos stream perfectly.
The first and less important issue is that the initial IE browser window that opens when you launch the course from the LMS is a smaller window than the size of the player’s “story size” (which is set to a ratio of 1250p x 780p in the design settings - the IE browser opens to about 70% of that size so only the upper left corner of the course player screen is visible). The result of this is that viewers can not see the whole screen and they have to scroll to view the lower right corner to click on the “next” trigger button, both results are of course are not acceptable.
The MUCH BIGGER issue is that SL2 behaves in two different ways depending on the screen resizing scenario, if the viewed uses the IE browser zoom function and sizes the browser window to say 65% so they can see the full SL2 player screen, the function button in the lower right part of the screen do not work, including the next / back buttons on the player. Follow me here, the manual re-sizing of the browser (below 100% zoom) apparently also DECREASES the size of area where SL2 recognizes the trigger buttons. If a button / hotspot is positioned within the area that originally displayed when the IE window opened (the upper right corner), the button works, and the buttons in the lower left do not work and the cursor changes from a pointer (that activates the button) to a text cursor that does not. However, in some cases, if you choose to “maximize” the original IE small window instead of manually resizing the window (dragging a corner to make it bigger and/or zooming down below 100%), the cursor remains a pointer and the buttons on the whole screen works.
FYI 1 - The client company’s IT group uses IE with versions 10 & 11 as the native browser in all machines. In most cases they have set the LMS URL (www.csod.com) as a saved URL in compatibility mode.
FYI 2 – As mentioned above, the fact that these videos are streamed in 1080 HD appears not to be the issue, because this window sizing and button activation issue is the same regardless of the video file size, and as I mentioned, the video plays fine.
FYI 3 - I’ve set Vimeo to stream the content in a 1000 pixels x 563 pixles frame in courses, slightly smaller that the course’s 1250 x 780 iFrame size, so it looks good and does not seem to be causing the problem because the same sizing issue occurs when there is no iFrame embedded in a course.
If this issue is rooted in the client’s Exchange server IE settings, I need advice on how to coach IT on the proper setting for IE so the videos play in the various settings. If I am missing something with SL2, or if if this a setting in Cornerstone On-Demand (CSOD), please let me know.
Also, and other insights on how to maximize this video streaming option would be appreciated.
Sorry for the long discussion post, but thanks again for any assistance, and happy holidays, Bruce
3 Replies
Hi Bruce,
I may not be the best one to weigh in on the IE specific settings - but I had some ideas to help you look at how this is behaving and what could be contributing to it.
You mentioned compatibility mode of your browser, and that immediately had my attention as compatibility mode often forces a browser such as IE to display in a much older version - like IE7 or 8. Cringe at the thought of it. I'd look to see first if they could test it in IE10 or 11 straight to see how it's working.
Second - do you know if they're viewing Flash or HTML5 versions? The latter would be problematic especially in compatibility mode as earlier versions of IE don't play that well with HTML5 content across the board (not just Articulate).
Are you able to test how it behaves in any other browsers or LMS Environments? If you could test it in SCORM Cloud or a few other browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari - that'll also help isolate where the issue could be.
Lastly, what did you set as your player browser settings detailed here?
Thanks Ashley, I have tried the course on machines without compatibility mode enabled and I am experiencing the same issues. The client has forced IE as the standard on all corporate machines and they are not permitted to download other browsers (HTML5 and Chrome performs perfectly always, so their IE decision is a bummer!) All previous courses with the option to "include HTML 5" output. so the HTML and HTML5 .story files are both in the output folder when they are uploaded to the LMS. When publishing a WEB output for proofing reasons, I give them the HTML.story file as I was told that is the appropriate for IE. I will review the player sizing link. In the mean time can you check with the Articulate team and see if including HTML 5 output in the published folder is creating conflicts when the LMS deploys toe file ti IE users. I can publish without It if needed.
Hi Bruce,
Do you know if IE11 is disabling Flash and therefore showcasing the HTML5 output immediately? Storyline 2 had limited HTML5 support - and that could be causing playback issues in your LMS with IE11. Storyline 2 + HTML5 in general shouldn't cause any playback issues in an LMS, and an easy way to test that is to look at uploading to SCORM Cloud if it plays there - it should also play in your LMS using IE11 and Flash.
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