Publishing an exe

May 28, 2012

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know if it's possible to publish a standalone .exe in Storyline in the same manner as Captivate?

When I publish (for CD) storyline creates an .exe with a larger number of supporting files (.htm, .swf) and a folder holding all the content (.swfs).

Captivate creates only 1 file (.exe) with all supporting files within the .exe.

Is there another way to publish that creates a single standalone file in Storyline?

14 Replies
Sarah Ednay

Hi

I’m a novice and am still in the process of deciding on the right software to suit our purposes. I realise from this thread that you can’t publish from storyline into a single file but as a novice, this looks like an obstacle to me…......so maybe someone can advise what I could do.

We are a small specialist technical training company and have only dabbled in e-resources. We have a few free revision resources for trainees which run from within the secure area of our website. So that’s ok and easy to publish for. But we are considering making short one topic resources available to purchase inexpensively from our website. They’d only be small so we weren’t planning on using a LMS or anything. I expected to use a single file for doing this… it really seems over the top for our needs (and for the customer experience) to send all the files that you get with CD/Web publish even zipped up.

Has anyone got any advice for me?

Gerry Wasiluk

For delivering content globally or even nationally sometimes, Articulate's approach is really the way to go.  It's best for networks.  And, again, you can always publish to CD for distribution (as long as you don't mind losing control of the content--e.g., hard to get updated versions of the content to CD users sometimes).

Put the content on a web server and it pseudo-streams out all the files to folks in small, digestible chunks over the network.  A single-EXE file would usually require a wait before it opens up and starts playing.  And some Intranets/IT groups may prohibit them because of viruses or malware that often disguise themselves in EXE's.

YMMV but a single-EXE has only one advantage for a very small group of people--easily copying the file from one device to another.  For iPad users, this can be done easily with the articulate Mobile Player and people choosing to store a local copy of the course in their library.  Most learners probably care less about storing a copy of a courses as long as they easily access it, IMVHO.

Jeremy Miles

Just Picking up on this thread. I need to distribute a programme on CD ROM but I want the course to play automatically once the CD is inserted. I read on an earlier thread that you have to make sure the autorun file is at the rro level, not embedded within a folder for this to work.  Could anyone confirm exactly what steps I should take to publish a file to CD so that it launches automatically when inserted.

Thanks

Jeremy

Simon Perkins

Hi Jeremy

I'm not sure how to make your course play automatically, but I would recommend you test the course itself on a few machines to see ensure it works as it should.  I only say this because I've seen examples of certain links (in particular) not working.  Couldn't figure out any logic/pattern to it either, other than the fact that some of them were part of grouped objects.

Chantelle N

Jeremy, I believe you just need to publish the course as normal (choosing the "CD" option). I usually do it to a local drive. Then, put in your CD that you are transferring it to, make sure none of your files are zipped, and then just transfer them over.

As you mentioned, as long as you see the autorun file on the root of the CD when you transfer, you should be good. But, definitely test on a machine once complete.

Note that some companies disable the autorun function for CDs, so if you are sending it to a company I would inquire about whether the feature will work on their machines.

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