Problem viewing Story on iPad when published to HTML5!

Apr 26, 2013

We want to publish our quizzes to HTML5 only and not use the Storyline iPad app but not having success. After uploading to our LMS...

  1. When I click the link to the story file in SAFARI browser, I get the rotating whell, then a screenshot of the first page and a PLAY button. When I click PLAY, I get only a blank white screen.
  2. When I click the link to the story file in Opera, I see the rotating wheel but then get only a blank screen--no PLAY button or screenshot at all. 
  3. When I click the link to the story file in Chrome, Mercury, or Dolphin browsers, I get a screenshot of the first page and a PLAY button. When I click PLAY, the quiz continues, but with the same problems in all of these browsers:
  • If the stem of the question or answers are long and force a scrollbar to appear, I can see all of the answers in the scrolling section, but I cannot select the bubble nearest the bottom. In fact, when the bottom answer is in view, any selection of a bubble selects the one above it. 
  • During quiz review, the user is unable to use the provided X to remove the Correct/Incorrect bar at the bottom in order to see content near the bottom of the slide. It's like the bottom of the slide is a 'dead' zone during the quiz and the review.
  • The layout is not always correct--vertical spacing of some answers is erratic.
  • Menu does not show the entire question--only a short stem (like the old menu in Quizmaker).

So I am unable to open in Safari, and with other browsers, the user may not be able to answer the questions as desired and they may also have difficulty reviewing the quiz after completion. Do others have the same problems? Could there be something in our question sets that make them unable to launch in Safari? Any assistance with these problems would be most appreciated.

5 Replies
Christine Hendrickson

Hi Nancy, 

I know you mentioned you don't want to distribute the course for the Articulate Mobile Player, but I'm curious if you've tested in the app. Do you run into the same problems in AMP? This would help in determining if the issues are due to HTML5 issues, or if it's simply an issue with the course or course content. 

Also, have you tested the course on your PC? Do any or all of these issues exist when testing the course on a PC?

Are you using the most recent version of Storyline (1212.1412)?

For Safari, have you disabled Private Browsing

Also, which LMS are you currently using? Have you tried testing the content outside of the LMS?

Thanks Nancy,

Christine

Nancy Roderick
Hi Christine,
Thanks for your reply. Sorry but my response is very long.

Let me answer your questions.

  • We have tested the questions in the app and would prefer to use it on the iPad (although still disappointed that there is no timer or report.) However, we sell our products for use during a limited timeframe. Since there is no good way to end coures access for each user, we have decided we'd like to use the HTML5 method instead. 
  • The course works fine on PCs with a flash player and we actually prefer this above all, especially since the report and timer are key study aids for our users and are not available on the AMP or the HTML5 versions. 
  • I do have Update 2: 1212.1412 version of Storyline.
  • I didn't know that Safari on the iPad was, by default, enabled with private browsing.  Once I disabled private browsing, I was indeed able to get it to run in Safari, so thank you for that. However, things are still no better. More on that below.
  • We currently use Isoph Blue for our LMS, an older version owned by Isoph LearnSomething. I have run the content on a PC outside of the LMS and it worked fine. I don't know how I would run it from the files directly on my iPad. I previously had some difficulty moving files to the iPad, so have not tried that.

Once I was able to run the product in Safari, I realize that it functions the same as the other browsers, with the same problems.

  • In all browsers I've tried on iPad (Safari, Chrome, Opera, Mercury, and Dolphin): Where the question must scroll, the bottom question is not selectable. Attempting to select ANY question bubble when viewing from the bottom of the answer set, actually selects the question above it. However, if I scroll up so the bottom question is not in the viewing range, I am able to select any of the first questions directly as expected.
  • The correct/incorrect bar at the bottom of the screen cannot be removed by clicking the X, whether there is a scrollbar or not. Therefore, some content is not visible if it stretches to the bottom of the slide in the range of the bar.
  • The vertical spacing of answers is variable on many quesitons (not a deal-breaker but it doesn't look good.)
  • The menu only has a short stem viewable. We were so delighted when we could see the entire question, especially since the report is not available. Since our questions are shuffled, if a user wants to search for a particular question, they normally use the report to assist them with the stem they need to find it. One problem, however, is the first few words of the stem can be identical for several questions, so the full question in the menu was best. We are unable to use the search feature on any method of deployment, because, although the quiz question slides have the menu disabled and are not listed in the player (only the answers are included there and have menu enabled), if a user searches for a key word, BOTH quiz questions AND the answers (in separate scenes) would appear in the search results if they included a searched keyword in the content. 

Every non-flash browser on the iPad I've used has the same strange behavior when the scrollbar appears. And since our questions often have a scenario in the stem which can take up a lot of room, this becomes a concern since users won't be able to complete their quiz with the answers they want to select. We very much like the Storyline product, but we really purchased it because it was a management demand that we deploy our products on mobile devices (we have been using Presenter and Quizmaker for a number of years.) I am hoping that the problems can be corrected eventually so that we can still do so!

Thanks,

Nancy

Christine Hendrickson

Good morning Nancy,

You did mention that you tested the course in the Articulate Mobile Player app, but I'm still not clear as to whether you experienced the same problems in the app. Again, I totally understand and appreciate that you're not able to distribute the courses here, I'm just trying to determine whether the problems you're running into are limitations of HTML5, or if the problem lies within the course, LMS, bugs, etc.

As for testing outside of the LMS on your iPad, you would need to use a different host. Unfortunately, you won't be able to run the content from your PC to your iPad. What you could do, however, is upload it to Articulate Online for testing. It's free for a trial period, if you don't have access to another host. 

If you try it out and still run into these issues, it may be best to send one of your courses and the details you shared here to our support team. We'd be happy to take a look and see if we can suggest any methods that may improve the performance of the courses on the iPad.

You'll be able to attach the .STORY file on the second page of the following form:

Articulate Support - Submit a Support Case

Please be sure to include a description of your issue. Please also include the URL for this thread in the form. Also, please share the case number with me. You're welcome to do so here, or in a private message. This way I can follow the progress of the case and update this thread.

Thanks very much Nancy. Hopefully we'll be able to narrow down the issue and get your courses running smoothly.

Christine

Nancy Roderick

Hi Christine,

The course works fine with the AMP app. None of the problems mentioned occur when using the app on the iPad.

I can't really say that I am running the content "inside the LMS", although it does sit on one of thier servers. Our quizzes are published for the web and are accessed directly via a web link.

I did submit a support case and included a slide set with dummy text that mirrors what we are using for our products, to see if you find the same problems occurring. I publish our courses on a Windows XP Pro system (Version 2002 Service Pack 3) if that makes any difference.

Thanks for your support. I hope it can be resolved so we can launch our quizzes for HTML5.

Nancy

Christine Hendrickson

Hi there Nancy,

I was able to find your support case (#00331945 for my reference). Looks like Jayem is currently testing the files. You should receive a response from him as soon as he's finished taking a look.

I'll also take a look and see if I'm able to find anything, or see if I can give some suggestions. If I do find something, I'll be sure to contact you here and let Jayem know. 

Thank you very much for the information, Nancy, it does help to know that you've tested it in AMP and your system information helps, too.

Christine

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