Lock Down Restrictions
Apr 10, 2017
With the current lock down restrictions in SL2 and SL360, the learner cannot freely navigate the side menu or progress to the next slide until the timeline is complete. We at Relias Learning create some text-based courses with no audio, and would like the learner to progress to the next slide whenever they would like instead of having to wait on the timeline.
Our workaround for SL 2 has been to change some of the coding in the published frame.xml file. Now, in SL360, we're having to change the code in the frame.xml as well as frame.js. Is there any way to publish a course with our desired lock-down (menu locked, next button free)?
I can think of two solutions:
1) Make a way to set the default timeline on a project to 1/4th of a second (or the shortest time possible) on all slides. This isn't a perfect solution, but it would work. We can go through the course and change all slide timelines but that is time intensive and leaves room for error.
2) Have the option to lock the menu and navigation buttons separately. This would be ideal in our situation!
Is anyone else dealing with this? And if so, are there any solutions I've missed?
15 Replies
Logan, we have also wrestled with this issue and so far the only solution we have found is to manually adjust each timeline to less than 2 seconds. As you say, this solution is very time-consuming and error prone.
I agree that the menu restricted mode should separate the next and timeline functionalities, but for some reason Articulate decided to link them in SL2 (I believe they were not linked in SL1). I just checked SL3 to see if the issue was addressed in it, but as far as I can tell it still exists in this new version.
If some developers would like the next and timeline functionalities to be linked in the menu restricted mode, that's fine, but for others there should at least be the option to decouple them.
To give more insight to our workaround that Logan mentioned, here are the steps involved to free the Next button from the timeline constraint, while maintaining a lock on the menu.
After publishing a course with a Free menu, you can adjust two settings: one each in the frame.xml and the frame.js files.
In the frame.xml file, search for the following string <option name="flow" value="free" /> and change the value to "restricted" - Save the file.
In the frame.js file, search for the following string "flow":"free" and change this value to "restricted" as well.
To set this in SL2 courses, you only need to change the value in the frame.xml file.
To set this in SL360 courses, both edits are necessary.
Thank you so much, Ryan. So, to be clear:
-- There are separate strings for navigation and timeline control in the frame.xml and frame.js files, and
--You are manually setting the navigation strings to "restricted" while leaving the timeline strings "free"
Is that correct?
If so, what is the syntax for the timeline string? (So we can identify it and avoid accidentally changing it)
Hello Maidie. We haven't identified separate strings that control navigation vs timeline controls.
The original "fix" for SL2 only required "free" to "restricted" in the "menuoptions" option group within the frame.xml:
<optiongroup name="menuoptions">
<options>
<option name="flow" value="free" />
<option name="wraplistitems" value="true" />
<option name="tooltips" value="true" />
<option name="autocollapse" value="true" />
<option name="autonumber" value="true" />
<option name="enableresultsicons" value="false" />
</options>
</optiongroup>
We found that this no longer achieved the desired result in SL360-published courses. After some experimentation, we found that making the additional change within the frame.js file fixed the issue.
Those should be the only two settings needed to change both the menu and timeline functionality.
Hi all,
This was something that got implemented in Storyline 2 based on user feedback in Storyline 1. We've heard a lot of discussions about it and it's something we've got on our potential features/changes to implement. We'll keep you posted on that shift and share an update with you here once available! In the meantime, you could also look at the solution shared here.
Thank you, Ashley. The solution you've shared seems to be similar to the workaround we are discussing on this thread. I was hoping to see this change in SL3, but when I reviewed SL3 I didn't see that it addressed the issue. Did I miss something?
That forum discussed had a bit more information and the .story file that I didn't see linked here - so just wanted to be sure to include it.
Also, it's not yet in Storyline 3 - but our team is working on the changes to this as I mentioned so we'll keep you posted regarding the release.
Hi all,
Great news! We just released another update for Articulate 360, and included a few important fixes and new features that you'll see in the release notes here.
The item you may be interested in is how when you restrict or lock navigation, you can now choose whether it impacts just the course menu or also disables the Previous and Next buttons. And you can use triggers to override restricted navigation for individual slides.
Just launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button. Details here.
Please let us know if you have any questions, either here or by reaching out to our Support Engineers directly.
This sounds great!
Will SL3 also get this update?
AWESOME! Thank you so much for getting the feature added!
Hi Madie,
The SL3 enhancements and bug fixes for our next update aren't locked down yet - so I can't say for certain what's included. We'll keep folks posted here in the forums when the next update is available and what's included!
Hello, It is the newbie again, I have four content links on a slide. I do not want the learner to advance to the next slide until they have reviewed all the links on the page. I want to be able to lock down the next button and have it only be available after they click all 4 links. What is the best way to make this happen? Thank you so much.
Hi Kathy,
Thanks for reaching out and sharing what you would like to create with Storyline.
I created a brief example for you to download and take a look at. This example uses buttons, states, and layers.
Thank you so much for all of your assistance.
Kathy
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M. Kathy King | Instructional Designer, Customer Operations L&D
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No problem, Kathy. I'm glad I could help.
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