Show Video: In a new browser window ..not working

Oct 01, 2014

Greetings!

I have added a marker (arrow/play symbol) to several slides.  For each marker I have set a trigger to "Play media.." upon clicking "marker #x" and when prompted loaded a specific mp4 file. I then selected the video on the timeline and modified the video options to specifiy that the video should show in a new browser window and show video controls below the video.  

So what I expect, when published, is that when a user gets to that slide they see the marker, they click the marker and it should then open a new window (thereby using the entire window, not displaying module navigation, and allowing the user to modify the window size).  When they're done watching, they close the video window and return to the slide.

I've tried both the LMS output (required) and even the web output (just to see if that was a factor).  Neither will open a new window to play the video. The trigger seems to do nothing.  What am I missing?

Another factor is that I would prefer that that video itself not be displayed on the slide (un-check to hide on the timeline), but still work properly when the marker/trigger is clicked.  Is this possible?

Thank you for your help!

7 Replies
Emily Ruby

Hello Jamie, and welcome to Heroes!

Here is some information regarding using markers in Storyline. You can look a the part titled 

Adding a picture or video to a marker.

It may be best to use a regular button or shape and add the media to start on click of the button, rather than a Marker to get the file to open in a new window.

However, in the video settings, when you use the Show Video "in new browser window", the play video option will default to "when clicked" So you can set the media to start on click of a button, but the video will have to be clicked to get the browser window to open.

Show video:  Determine whether you want to show the video In slide or In new browser window.

Play video:  How do you want the video to start playing?  Choose one of the following three options.  (Note:  This property will be grayed out if you choose to display your video in a new browser window -- see above.)

  • Automatically:  The video will start playing as soon as the slide's timeline reaches the start of the video object.  For more information on working with the timeline, check out this tutorial.
  • When clicked:  Select this option if you do not want the video to start playing until users click it.
  • From trigger:  If you would prefer to trigger the video to start playing only after a specific event has occurred, select this option.  To learn more about triggers, take a look at this tutorial.

Hope this helps.

Dawn Russ

Like Jaime "Another factor is that I would prefer that that video itself not be displayed on the slide (un-check to hide on the timeline), but still work properly when the marker/trigger is clicked. Is this possible?". 

I want the video (swf) to open in a new window when the user clicks a button (I also have variables/actions for tracking based on clicking the same button). Is this possible or should I enter an enhancement request?

As a work around, I laid the video box over my buttons so the user can click the video, so it looks like the button (behind video) is being clicked, and the videos open and play great in a new window.  The problem with this, is that "Loading" appears in the middle of video object, see attached image (looks like a white dash on on the button, but actually is the word "Loading...").

Loading shown in video object

I can use this workaround if there is a way to hide the "Loading.." text in the video object. Any thoughts?

 

Thanks.

Dawn Russ

Thanks, Emily. I think I have a solution, though not so elegant...

My buttons are at the bottom of the page, so I laid each movie over the button but extended the movie object off the page so the Preloader message doesn't appear on screen. My triggers/variable counters run off the movie, but the buttons appear to do the action.  I may run into usability testing issues later if the movies take too long too load, so we'll see.

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