Programmable progress bar

Jan 16, 2015

Ewan McGhee
By Ewan McGhee

Is it possible to programmatically change the size of a rectangle shape in Storyline? I want to build a custom progress bar which tracks from the beginning to the end of a layer's timeline so that the user knows how long the content is on that layer and knows where they are.

We can't use Storyline's built-in seekbar: it doesn't fit our requirements because the built-in seekbar appears automatically on every layer in a slide and we only want it to appear on one of 2 layers we have on our slide (one has a timeline, the other has just static text - we don't use the timeline, so a seekbar isn't appropriate on that). We can't use states because we might have content which is say, 2 minutes, long and we couldn't have that amount of states, that would be a nonsense. All help very much appreciated.

28 Replies
Ewan McGhee
over 9 years ago01/16/15 at 12:19 pm (UTC)

Hello Matthew,

thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve my problem. We had
thought about putting the different layers on different slides but we have
about 100 slides which all have the same requirement, so it's a lot of
work, and there's already quite a bit of branching going on so we can't
afford to complicate it further. We'll just have to live with the seekbar
on the static layer.

Regards,

Ewan

Ewan McGhee
over 9 years ago01/16/15 at 4:04 pm (UTC)

Hi David,

I think you may have misunderstood/misread my post - I'm talking about a
progress bar which we'd like to synch to the timeline of individual slides,
so each slide has its own progress bar, which is independent of other
slides. I can, however, also see the value of being able to use an in-built
progress bar to show progress in the context of a whole course/resource.

Regards,

Ewan

Michael Crouch
over 8 years ago07/30/15 at 11:04 am (UTC)

Ok, cool. No problem.

Working on a project at the moment, so will send later this evening.

Just to clarify, for when i send over.

I will build you, a demo containing 2 slides, on slide 2 i will insert 2 layers on this.

On the 1st layer i will insert a timeline of 10 seconds.

And the 2nd layer i will insert a timeline of 15 seconds.

So each time you select a certain layer it will play out the timer for the specific layer?

 

Ewan McGhee
over 8 years ago08/03/15 at 2:01 pm (UTC)

Walt and Michael, thanks for posting these solutions, and can see that these would both work.

What I don't understand is how they are working.

Walt, in your source storyline file,, I see no javascript or triggers or state stuff to make this happen.  If you could clarify that, I'd be grateful.

Michael, since your solution is in the form of a published storyline, I have no idea at all how it's working. If you could also clarify how your solution is working, I'd be thankful.

Michael Crouch
over 8 years ago08/03/15 at 3:49 pm (UTC)

My solution is exactly the same as Walts.

All it is, basically a shape with an animation fade in effect, and the entrance timer is set to 10seconds, so it will take 10 seconds for the shape to appear. With the fade effect makes it look like a progress bar.

You can set the timer to what ever you wish (maximum of 59 seconds).

Walt Hamilton
over 8 years ago08/06/15 at 1:25 pm (UTC)

Ewan,

Sorry, I've been away getting a new daughter-in-law.

I previewed a slide, and when the timeline finished, I copied the portion of the slide with the timeline. that way, it looks exactly like the other timelines. Then I pasted it to a slide and covered it with a shape and set the shape animation to fade out with a duration of 59 sec. The shape is the exact size of the moving part of the timeline, and the color of the unviewed part.

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.