Working on my first project in Storyline 3. Imported slides from PowerPoint where the user could advance through the slide by clicking the mouse or space bar.
Question: can I have the same manual advancement within the slide in Storyline without creating a trigger for every single change? In other words, is there a way to chose for the user to advance through the slide (not just from one slide to the next) manually, rather than automatically (through the timeline)?
There are several ways to let users move through Storyline slides. The simplest is to use the Next and Previous buttons built into the players. In fact, those are on by default when you create a new slide, so unless you turn that off, your learners will have that capability. There is also a menu feature that lets you share course structure with the learner for free-form navigation.
If you do turn those off (as many of us do), then you can easily add your own buttons or other forms of navigation to allow the learner to navigate through your course. You can build that out in many different ways, as exhibited by a number of templates, e-learning challenges, and other examples here in the forums. The Storyline tutorials give many examples of navigation as well, to help you see the possibilities. Whether you want open navigation or tightly controlled movement through slides and topics, Storyline can make that happen. Good luck and have fun being creative in building a marvelous experience for your learners!
Thank you for your reply and encouragement, Dave! I have looked around forums and tutorials, but haven't been able to find anything that addresses my specific question. There is information about advancing from one slide to another, but not about manual advancing within the slides. I'll keep looking! :)
Perhaps I'm not understanding your question. The phrase "manual advancing within the slides" is the part that is intriguing. What do you mean by that? I thought you meant moving from slide to slide but perhaps you intend something else?
There is no way for the user to advance without you creating triggers to do so. You can set objects to show at certain times as the timeline advances. You control when that happens by where you place them on the timeline, but for it to be under user control requires triggers.
The only alternative to that might be to create each object with a "Click here to see ..." label. Create a Selected state for that object, and when you click, the Selected state will show up, but if you click the object again, the Selected state disappears. There are other drawbacks to this method that make me think it is not what you want.
Probably the fewest triggers is to set each object to show at a certain point on the timeline. Create a trigger to pause the timeline .5 sec before each object shows. Create something to click that has a trigger "Resume timeline when user clicks". The timeline would show the objects, the triggers would stop it before the next object, and the clicks would restart it.
Probably the fewest triggers is to set each object to show at a cedrtain point on the timeline. Create a trigger to pause the timeline .5 sec before each object shows. Create something to click that has a trigger "Resume timeline when user clicks". The timeline would show the objects, the triggers would stop it before the next object, and the clicks would restart it.
Hello Walt ~ thank you so much for your suggestions. The one above is a new idea for me and I will try to see if it works for my project. I don't want to populate my slides with many buttons, and so far I've run against the issue of if the same button is reused for different triggers, they all go off "in order" but at the same time when the button is clicked. I am trying to recreate the functionality of the space bar in PowerPoint, so that the user can control how fast or slow the objects on the slide appear. While Storyline has amazing possibilities, I haven't been able to figure this one out ... yet :)
sorry if my phrasing is not very clear. I am trying to figure out a way to allow the viewer to control when the items on the slide appear, for them to manually advance from one to another. Using a timeline will be too fast for some and too slow for other users. Creating triggers for each new item to appear would get out of hand very quickly.
I am now considering creating a new layer for each "new item" which should potentially allow me to be able to have just one button that would function like a space bar (in PowerPoint), but since the button would be on different layers, it would trigger just one change at a time... That would still necessitate a multitude of layers, but may be the only solution at this point... I have to test out this idea.
Just to be clear, I am suggesting a lot of triggers to pause the timeline, but only one object to click, and it would have only one trigger, that to resume the timeline.
Yes, Walt, thank you for making sure I understand. However, your suggestion is still much better and results in a cleaner slide than anything else I've found or thought of myself. Many thanks!
I understand now. You have objects on a PowerPoint slide that are set to display when the spacebar or arrow key are pressed. PowerPoint essentially pauses its timeline when you add an object with that setting (which is the default). In Storyline, as Walt said, objects come on the screen on a single slide according to the timeline, and there is no setting for an object that says, "Pause until the user clicks." So Walt is correct, you have to put your own stops in (cue points and triggers work great for that) and then use a single button or keystroke to resume the timeline until it hits the next stopping point. Work just like PowerPoint in terms of the user experience but requires more work on your part.
Another way to do it with no triggers in Storyline is to put anything that needs to pause on a different slide. Storyline automatically stops at the end of each slide so then the user would simply use the Next key to continue. That may or may not be more work for you, depending on how your content is set up. But it would not require any 'programming' on your part.
10 Replies
There are several ways to let users move through Storyline slides. The simplest is to use the Next and Previous buttons built into the players. In fact, those are on by default when you create a new slide, so unless you turn that off, your learners will have that capability. There is also a menu feature that lets you share course structure with the learner for free-form navigation.
If you do turn those off (as many of us do), then you can easily add your own buttons or other forms of navigation to allow the learner to navigate through your course. You can build that out in many different ways, as exhibited by a number of templates, e-learning challenges, and other examples here in the forums. The Storyline tutorials give many examples of navigation as well, to help you see the possibilities. Whether you want open navigation or tightly controlled movement through slides and topics, Storyline can make that happen. Good luck and have fun being creative in building a marvelous experience for your learners!
Thank you for your reply and encouragement, Dave! I have looked around forums and tutorials, but haven't been able to find anything that addresses my specific question. There is information about advancing from one slide to another, but not about manual advancing within the slides. I'll keep looking! :)
Perhaps I'm not understanding your question. The phrase "manual advancing within the slides" is the part that is intriguing. What do you mean by that? I thought you meant moving from slide to slide but perhaps you intend something else?
There is no way for the user to advance without you creating triggers to do so. You can set objects to show at certain times as the timeline advances. You control when that happens by where you place them on the timeline, but for it to be under user control requires triggers.
The only alternative to that might be to create each object with a "Click here to see ..." label. Create a Selected state for that object, and when you click, the Selected state will show up, but if you click the object again, the Selected state disappears. There are other drawbacks to this method that make me think it is not what you want.
Probably the fewest triggers is to set each object to show at a certain point on the timeline. Create a trigger to pause the timeline .5 sec before each object shows. Create something to click that has a trigger "Resume timeline when user clicks". The timeline would show the objects, the triggers would stop it before the next object, and the clicks would restart it.
Hello Walt ~ thank you so much for your suggestions. The one above is a new idea for me and I will try to see if it works for my project. I don't want to populate my slides with many buttons, and so far I've run against the issue of if the same button is reused for different triggers, they all go off "in order" but at the same time when the button is clicked. I am trying to recreate the functionality of the space bar in PowerPoint, so that the user can control how fast or slow the objects on the slide appear. While Storyline has amazing possibilities, I haven't been able to figure this one out ... yet :)
Hi Dave ~
sorry if my phrasing is not very clear. I am trying to figure out a way to allow the viewer to control when the items on the slide appear, for them to manually advance from one to another. Using a timeline will be too fast for some and too slow for other users. Creating triggers for each new item to appear would get out of hand very quickly.
I am now considering creating a new layer for each "new item" which should potentially allow me to be able to have just one button that would function like a space bar (in PowerPoint), but since the button would be on different layers, it would trigger just one change at a time... That would still necessitate a multitude of layers, but may be the only solution at this point... I have to test out this idea.
Thanks again!
Just to be clear, I am suggesting a lot of triggers to pause the timeline, but only one object to click, and it would have only one trigger, that to resume the timeline.
Yes, Walt, thank you for making sure I understand. However, your suggestion is still much better and results in a cleaner slide than anything else I've found or thought of myself. Many thanks!
I understand now. You have objects on a PowerPoint slide that are set to display when the spacebar or arrow key are pressed. PowerPoint essentially pauses its timeline when you add an object with that setting (which is the default). In Storyline, as Walt said, objects come on the screen on a single slide according to the timeline, and there is no setting for an object that says, "Pause until the user clicks." So Walt is correct, you have to put your own stops in (cue points and triggers work great for that) and then use a single button or keystroke to resume the timeline until it hits the next stopping point. Work just like PowerPoint in terms of the user experience but requires more work on your part.
Another way to do it with no triggers in Storyline is to put anything that needs to pause on a different slide. Storyline automatically stops at the end of each slide so then the user would simply use the Next key to continue. That may or may not be more work for you, depending on how your content is set up. But it would not require any 'programming' on your part.
Got it - thank you Dave! I think I'll give the "cue point = pause" a try.
As I mentioned above, I am just learning Storyline, and it feels great to have such a helpful community! I have a little better grasp now - thank you!
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