Master slides for template-layers and sub-layer order
Feb 14, 2013
Hello! I am trying to develop a Storyline template that our instructional designers can use, and keep the complex custom stuff as "under to hood" as possible, to hopefully prevent inadvertent breakages from occurring when they use it for setting up stories. That said, I have thought keeping much of the layout and especially custom nav objects on the Master Slides is the way to go.
Here's what I have so far:
-A pause layer on every slide, properties set to "allow seeking = no", prevent the user from clicking the base layer, pause timeline of base layer, and reset to initial state on revisiting.
-A slide ID layer, with above settings and a popup text graphic with a placeholder text box, so that the developer can add a different slide name for each slide. This is triggered by hitting the tilde key and will be used during client review so they can identify slides by name for QA.
-Placeholder image boxes, placed under certain graphics, so that when a graphic is added and adjusted in size, its top and bottom will be masked to fit within the layout and prevent the developer from having to finesse it too much to make it fit into place without overlapping top and bottom sections. I'll call this the "sub-layer" order from now on.
None of this is translating to the Normal slides! The slide layers in the Master slides aren't coming through and the sub-layer placeholder image boxes are overlapping the graphics they are under in the Master.
Is there any way to get either of these scenarios to work? Do Master slide layers translate to Normal slides? Am I missing something about the sub-layers?
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide on this.
2 Replies
Hi Vaughn
I have a similar issue.
It is NOT possible for the time being. It is on the otherhand a great idea for a feature request (link) which I fully endorse !
I've ended up with creating a .Story template file containing all different type of slides. When a developer needs a slide, he has top copy it from the once that were imported from the template file. It is a lot of hastle if only the layer and the object we've put on the Masterslide would be available in the slide themselves...
Cheers
Geert
Hi Geert
I was able to get Master slide layers to work and transfer functionality to the normal slides! The thing that threw me was the fact that the master slides' extra layers are not at all visible when in Normal slide [development] mode. I did find that the topmost master slide doesn't translate its own extra layers to Normal slides. For this reason, I had to put the extra pause layer on each sub-Master slide. A little tedious, but it worked and effectively locked off the moving parts from being inadvertently damaged in normal development.
I also was able to create slideID layers to the master slides, in the same fashion as above, where popup graphic text boxes were encoded with a variable that changed by developer input on each slide.
I also made "visited" and "completed" graphics that showed next to each item in the home slide menu when a chapter was first visited or completed. This took some trial and error, however, as I initially wanted the chapter buttons in the menu to change the variable that caused the "visited" graphic to appear. I was unable to make a button that changed the variable, so the only alternative was to put slide triggers for changing the variables for "visited" and "completed" in the beginning and ending slides of each chapter.
Then the wall of slide triggers on the home slide checked for each variable at the beginning of the timeline set the appropriate "visited" or "completed" graphic next to the chapter heading buttons.
ii could not, however, get the image placeholders stay under the other graphics I placed them under in the master slides. Apparently, if they are interactive, Storyline places them on top of everything else in the Normal slides. So further finessing in development is necessary there. It would be great, also, if the image placeholders could mask chosen images, so layout could be maintained by their sizing and placement in the master slides.
But good news, overall!
Thanks!!
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