Forum Discussion
New in Storyline 360: Course Cover Photos
Who doesn’t love making a good first impression? And when it comes to learning, setting a tone that grabs your learners’ attention right from the start is crucial. After all, you want learners feeling inspired, curious, and eager to dig into your course. That’s why we’re super excited to share the new course cover photo feature in Storyline 360.
If your course’s first slide includes media or if your learners are viewing it on a mobile device, this new feature lets you add an eye-catching image to the start page. That way learners will see your beautiful cover photo before they launch the course—whether it's as a published Storyline file or a project being shared in a Rise 360 course using the Storyline Block.
Here’s how it works: In the player properties window, check the Cover Photo box and click the + Photo link to browse for an image.
You have four different options to choose from.
- First slide: Choose this option if the first screen in your course is static and works well as an introduction.
- Media library: Select this option if you want to use an image that’s already in your course.
- Content Library 360: If you want to use a brand-new photo or illustration, browse the huge library of images included with your Articulate 360 subscription.
- Image from file: If you’ve created a custom image, just upload the file from your computer.
Once you’ve chosen the perfect course cover photo, just click the image file link to refresh the preview screen. This GIF shows how that works.
And that’s it! When learners launch the course, they’ll see the new image you selected. We hope you’ll love adding your own eye-catching course cover photos in Storyline 360.
Want to know what other new Storyline 360 features have launched lately? Check out our What’s New page. And if you want to try out this feature for yourself but don’t have Articulate 360, start a free 60-day trial.
How about a choice to show the starting slide? It's not necessarily the first one.
When I chose a photo instead of selecting the first slide and publish the course in Review, the cover image appears small. What is the recommended photo specs for the cover image?
Hi Gary,
I think that makes sense. I will send in a feature request on your behalf.This is a great feature! Wish it was also available in the Classic Player. Can you confirm here that alt text for this new Cover Photo could be added to the "#158 - Screen Readers: Start course button on desktop computers" in the Text Labels? Sure seems like this would work. We are required by our client to have a screen with these default Play buttons ( In Storyline or Captivate courses ). Adding it here would be great and would avoid Post editing of CSS and HTML files like we have to do with Captivate.
And you replaced "course thumbnail" with the term, "course cover photo?"
It's the cover photo.
@John Say: Can you take it a step further and allow us to also upload a new button to launch the course? To be clear I am talking about the button/circle arrow that appears over the Cover Photo that SL now allows us to add. This would literally give us full design control of our courses. As I mentioned in an earlier post this can be done in Captivate but it has to be done after publishing by replacing the image in the HTML folder. MUCH more work.
Would anyone else like to see this feature added? Asking for a friend. :)
Good to know.
Our "Cover Photo" is more of a graphic with instructional text. In Captivate you can actually replace the Button graphic so we design a new "Button" with the instructional text as part of the graphic and this is why we need to change the Alt text. In SL it looks like the button itself can't be changed but since we can change the Graphic/photo below it we will design a graphic with the text and open space for the SL button to lay over top.
