Make Storyline Mac Friendly--and Soon!

Aug 07, 2012

Hey, folks.  I've just submitted a feature request.  What I said is included below.  If you are a Mac user, or intend to transition to Mac as I'm currently doing, please add your name to the list of people submitting feature requests to make Storyline Mac-friendly.  The more people Articulate hears from on this point, the more likely it is that it will happen.  They have always been responsive to their user requests, and this is a fundamental one.  Thanks!

Please, submit a feature request of your own:  http://www.articulate.com/support/contact/submit.php?form=feature

Here's my feature request:

I'm writing to add my name to the list of people urging Articulate to do right by those of us who work on Mac computers.  The reality is that with Storyline, Articulate has now jumped into the from-scratch content development market with both feet.  With that shift come expectations, and one of the fundamental expectations is that Storyline should work well for Mac users as well as Windows users.  Having been in the corporate sector for many years, I do understand that Windows still represents the vast majority of your audience.  But that is rapidly changing, and surely you can see that by now.  Adobe's eLearning Suite 6 is available for Mac.  Articulate's silence on the Mac issues for Storyline is not sending the message you want to send to the marketplace.

While I realize this is a lesser point when compared with your company's marketing strategy, here's an example of the hoops I'm having to jump through to migrate to a Mac and still use Storyline:

- Buying Parallels 7 and Windows 7 (I'm on Vista now, which is junk not worth repurposing)

- Buying MSOffice 2010 for Windows rather than for Mac, because you folks say importing a PPT created in the Mac version of MS Office won't work reliably (and I'm on an old version of Office that again isn't worth repurposing).

- Having to turn off the Sharing feature of Parallels 7 that would have made my file backups a lot easier, again because Storyline is one of those Windows programs that experiences runtime issues if Sharing is activated.

- Having to format my new backup drive with two partitions--one for Windows, one for Mac, because I can't identify a single backup drive solution that is recommended for handling automated backup of both environments without issues.  Yes, I can perform manual backups but I shouldn't be restricted to that just because I want to run Storyline.

In short, your currrent lack of support for the Mac enviroment has far-reaching implications for all of us using Macs, and there are more of us every day.  If it is simply not financially profitable to produce a native Mac version of Storyline, then you should at least immediately step up to the plate and accomplish the following:

- Make Storyline launchable with Parallels 7 Sharing enabled

- Import Mac MSOffice PPT files into Storyline smoothly

- Import Mac's Keynote files into Storyline smoothly

With Storyline, you've brought Articulate into a whole new league.  It's not a PowerPoint add-on, it's a full-blown developer tool.  A lot of developers understandably prefer to use Macs.  Please don't stumble now, just when you have the potential for such widespread success and industry respect.  Step up to the plate, and make Storyline a LOT more Mac friendly than it is today.  And when you make those features available to existing users/subscribers, do the right thing and don't charge us for it.  Wonderful as Storyline is, Mac-friendly features should have been part of the first release.

Make Mac-friendliness a Storyline priority.  Make us proud.  Thanks.

28 Replies
Phil Mayor

Sorry Andrew, I forgot to post this, any backup solution for a Mac would backup your windows parallels installation.  The installation in paralels is basically a single file .pvm

If you used a time capsule this would be backed up.  I have my whole installation backed up to my time capsule now.

I would fully support a Mac version of Storyline, I am also aware that Arlyn the programming team lead uses Macs and did ask late in the beta what the support would there be for a Mac version

Andrew Sellon

Hey, Phil--thanks for the update.  If the Time Machine automated backup feature I'm told is included with Mac would back up all the Windows files in the Parallels 7 world, even with the Sharing feature turned off per Articulate Support's instructions, that would be great!  At least it would simplify the process of backups from the two "worlds" on my Mac.  I wasn't planning to buy Apple's Time Capsule because I don't need a router; I have my Verizon account router.  So I hope Time Machine backing up to a USB storage drive will do the trick.  Interestingly, the Apple "Genius" I spoke with at length this morning didn't know what you've just told me; he's the one who said I'd have to partition the drive with two different formats.  I mentioned the exFat32 possibility to him, but he didn't know about that, either.  Hmmm.... 

Yes, I'm told that some of the Articulate development team uses Macs, so there is definitely more than a little irony to the fact that so far, Storyline is decidedly not Mac friendly.  Let's hope that they address this situation soon.  Unfortunately, it'll be after I've spent about another $300 on Windows-related software.  I'm sure you've put in a feature request on this point, and I hope that others will, too!  My fear is that people will not bother to submit the feature requests even if they do use a Mac, and then Articulate won't have a true sense of the extent of the need.  Let's hope people step up and file the requests.

Folks--If you do file a Mac-friendliness request, please post a comment on this thread to let us know you did.  Thanks!

Phil Mayor

I have transferred my VM of windows 7 to other machines just by copying the pvm file.  There is no need to partition your drive if you use parallels, you only need this if you use bootcamp.

Parallels creates a virtual drive for windows.

The windows installation is basically a file in your mac file system, this can be moved, copied, like any other file.  suprised the Genius never told you this.

time machine will work to an external usb drive

Robert Stewart

A good e-learning module on the First Mac version of Storyline might ask:

  1. Why do you pay two to three times the price for software on a Mac compared to Windows?
  2. Why did you pay twice as much for a Mac with less memory and some processor as a Windows machine?

Other can add additional question below.

yvan meloche

Anybody hear anything else on this subject?....havent heard anything in a looooong time on this. This started 4 yrs ago. Our IT dept is no longer upgrading our Parallels Mac anymore which means we are stuck on our current Parallels version..... aaaand which means we also cannot upgrade our Macs OS because it will not support the current version of Parallels unless we upgrade it...which we cant as I just mentioned. So we are trapped! I  just submitted my 77th request to Articulate on this....let ya know what they say...sigh!!

Patrick Darrough

I am at a loss. I am a newbie and wanted to learn Articulate. i am also a MacPro user. Had to download free trial of Articulate, then free trial of Parallel, then free trial of Windows. And of course Storyline won't import any of my ppt's. I guess I have learned a lot already about Articulate...NOT MAC FRIENDLY. I am now considering getting a laptop dedicated for Articulate use or getting a different eLearning authoring tool that is already Mac compatible. I, too, would appreciate a Mac friendly version!

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Patrick and welcome to E-Learning Heroes :) Thanks for sharing your thoughts as well.

There isn't a native Mac version of Storyline on our roadmap. The vast majority of our customers use Windows and web-based authoring tools that don’t depend on a particular operating system. And we're focused on developing features that have the widest impact. For example, Articulate 360 subscribers can use Rise to create courses right in their web browsers, and we’re continually updating Rise with new features. 

We also have many customers who use Storyline on Mac with a virtual environment. These demo videos show you how.