Slide timeline stops when template layer is triggered

Hi Lisa,

Typically something like this is easier to assist with if we're able to take a look at a sample file.

Based on your description, I have a few clarifying questions that may help point us in the right direction though. How are the animation layers triggered? Could you trigger them to be shown again based on the user closing the menu layer? If the animations are triggered by something in the timeline of the base slide that'll happen consistently - could you use the "pause timeline of base layer option"?

Also, the layers will appear from a slide in the order that they are triggered (if you're allowing all layers to be shown) - so if the user clicks show menu layer, and then the animation layers - that would make sense that they were appearing over top. 

You also mentioned the menu is a part of the template - do you mean slide master? If so, any slide masters and their layers are treated as a part of the background and therefore other elements on that slide or layer will always appear over top of them. 

Hope that helps get you started thinking about other options, and if you can share a bit more information about the set up staff and the community can share some other ideas. 

Attached is an example story file so you can see what I mean. The animation stops when the menu is opened and does not restart after.

If I change it to not hide the other layers, the animation will continue but will appear on top of the menu.

That the slide master is part of the background is understood. But storyline has no options for truly customizing the player. The notification window is also impossible to customize and customizing the quiz notifications is nearly impossible. It's very frustrating.

To overcome this issue, I've tried creating gif animations - that failed on the iPad. Other animation types may or may not work, but I haven't had time to try them. I'm also having a problem with video animations. I want the videos to appear seamless, but Storyline insists on drawing a rule around the outside of the video.

Hi Lisa,

So the way you have this set up - I'd expect the animation to continue to appear on top of the menu, as the layer is being shown again using the slide timeline triggers. What if instead you placed the menu in a lightbox? I did a quick test, and it seems that when I trigger a "menu" within a lightbox, and then use the close button for the lightbox it returns to the slide and picks up with the animation. 

I'm not sure what you meant about the notification window - but if you're looking at the quiz type notifications such as the invalid answer prompt, you may want to review the article here.  Other quiz prompts such as the correct/incorrect/try again are dealt with from the feedback masters. 

I'm also not sure what you mean about the "rule around the outside of the video." But here is an article on how to loop videos or audio. 

As I mentioned, I don't want to use the lightbox because the close button is not customizable.

Attached is an example of what I mean with the video.

Hi Lisa,

From that image alone, I'm not sure I'm clear - but it looks like it's showing the border of the video and that it's different than the Storyline slide background. What type of video files are you adding?

Also, entirely out of curiosity - what is that an image of?

Hi Ashley,

The video is an mp4 with a transparent background. The image is of an artificial hip.

Basically I'm trying to achieve an integrated look between the video and the slide. I can't have the video extend over any buttons that are on the master for obvious reasons, so I cannot use a full screen video. If I can somehow lose the border (and the subtle color shift) on the video, I might be able to use it instead of Storyline animations. I haven't tried this either, so I'm hesitant to say it would solve my problem. It's worth a try.

Is there a particular video type I need to output to? These are going to be viewed ultimately on an iPad and the designer building the video animations is currently using recommendations from Apple.

Lisa

Hi Lisa,

Artificial hip - wouldn't have guessed. 

For transparency you may want to look into FLV alpha channel transparency as it's supported in the Flash Player and the Articulate Mobile Player app.

However, if you publish Articulate Storyline content for HTML5, FLV files in your project will be encoded as MP4 videos. As a result, alpha channel transparency won't be maintained in the HTML5 output.

See this article for a full comparison of Storyline's Flash, HTML5, and Articulate Mobile Player output.  Also, here's how all videos are encoded in Storyline.