Suggestiongs and features for Storyline 3 (or maybe 2)

May 22, 2015

I havent found such a topic, so if it exists, please foward me there, thx. 

Suggestion 1. Library Tab

This is really crucial and a major one for me. I have to drag hundreds of objects that I have created from my other slides and projects, sometimes opening 2 articulate instances to achieve that. PITA is what it is. Library whould solve that completely! It was realised in Flash eons of years ago and other designer apps. Come on, everybody needs that. We have a lot of the same objects, it would belogical to drag them from a library Tab. Actually, the absence of that Tab in 2015 app like Articulate looks wired. 

Suggestion 2. Simple player deactivation\activation.

I already have a template to shut local player down (which makes it invisible), so I do it quick. And i NEVER use a default player, just never. But new users will have some hard time figuring out how just to get rid of that thing, with some googling and intensive reading through this forum ;) It should be a one button action not a dance with a tambourine!

Suggestion 3. Redisigned top menu system

I know that you are coming from Power Point legacy and the interface of Articulate is partially a copypast from there, but what worked for PP doesnt work for E-learning in the same way. I have to do a lot of pointless actions and mouse movements to achieve some simple things like changing font size or doing some aligh stuff. There should be one basic Tab with all the most common actions, and the layout should go on in a more logical usable way. Plus I would add an ability of user customisation for this too.

Suggestion 4. Movement of objects with keyboard

To precisily move an object I need to.. 1. Click on object rmb, 2. open window Size and Position 3. Click throughs arrows which I always confuse which way they move my thingy.. ohh wrong way, opposite side.. you know how lame it is. Please, do like in photoshop - simple arrow movements move an object on 1 pixel, ctrl+arrow move it 10 or 20, whatever. Or the opposite way. Right now is very uncomfortable.

I hope you dont get me wrong, I am not tring to blame you or anything, just some constructive critisim from a user perspective :)

Good luck on next updates of our beloved app! 

21 Replies
Steve Flowers

Really like number 1. I'd add to that that objects from the library should behave like symbols like you see in Flash, Illustrator, Hype, etc.. There are lots of times that I use plain graphics or objects with states throughout a SL project. Going in to change these instances can be a pain. Easier to go to patient zero and update the entire story.

Jerson  Campos

Add design styles that you can assign to elements like in captivate.  Lets say you just created your course and all the buttons are in Verdana, but now the customer wants to use Open Sans. You'll have to go to each button and change the fonts.  With this feature you just changed the assigned style you created for the buttons and change that and instantly change all the buttons. 

@ Steve - Adding a symbol functionality like in illustrator would be great. I love this feature in illustrator. 

Another feature would be to see a "live" timeline as you scrub through it.  I'm not a big fan of having to play it and try to see how everything moves around.  I would rather go to the point in the timeline I want and see how everything looks.

Steve Flowers

Would really love to see a CSS driven solution. Maybe something like this:

Each story could have a CSS file that could be exported and imported. The exported output could contain all of the player and slide theming as well as a set of boilerplate styles for the entire story. By applying a style (a simple control in the interface for those that don't want to write css), an object takes on properties that can be changed when the style is changed. And when exported, the style sheet becomes a way to edit the global style of the entire published output (it's exactly the same as the sheet used in the .story file)

The timeline is one of my biggest beefs with Storyline. With Flash meeting its demise, there are plenty of interaction designers out there itching for a tool to replace it. 

Suman M

All in all I love the software however there are a few things that could make it even better...for example:

1) copy/paste multiple triggers

2) stop scrolling to top of variable list when deleting variables

3) added ability to edit player elements (i.e. look/feel of next/prev buttons, remove shadow from next/prev button, invalid answer pop up text size/weight/look/feel, etc.)

4) ability to re-number/move around scenes in story view

5) ability to expand and view all conditions in the triggers panel (as opposed to cutting them off at 3)

6) ability to globally set the default time for timeline length (say 1 sec)

7) added course/module progress bar functionality

8) drag and drop matching - ability to re-size matching idem row widths

9) way of enabling/disabling next button on slides without requiring a manual trigger

10) add variable operator 'if contains' for text variables

11) add functionality for scrollers to drag image (instead of using two scrollers and ending up with a pixelated picture)

12) position coordinates

13) remember preview type (so you can always set it to preview slide as opposed to selecting from drop down)

14) emphasis animations would be great!

15) ability to change previous button behavior globally (last viewed slide vs. previous slide in order).

Just my two (or 15) cents worth...

 

Robert Stewart

Storyline 4: place all the Flash coders in the HTML5 department and retire Flash.

After looking at all the ActionScript code using SoThing decomplier, I'd hate to be the new guy replacing the main coder when he retires.

One day you'll come to this forum and there may only be a couple of question every day, rather then one every 3 seconds (as the support staff high-fives me).

 

Frankie Kam

Some Asian/Middle-Eastern illustrated or photographic characters. You know, Chinese, India, Filipino, Arab, Vietnamese, etc. For example: Michelle Yeoh, Chow Yun Fatt, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Michael Chang, Lucy Lui, Michelle Wei, Vijay Singh, Anand Viswanathan, Aishwarya, Ray LaHood, Tony Shalhoub, Selma Hayek, Freddie Mercury and Frank Zappa. It's a global village. Haha. I've shared it with the link you provided, Leslie.

Micky Surisiay

I would suggest a general preferences option. One where I can preferably:

Set standard options for slide layers. It's incredibly annoying having to check/uncheck boxes whenever you create a slide layer. Not to mention having to edit them per slide if a cliënt desires a change in the course I'm building.

Set standard options for text and textboxes. Eventhough SL2 has some kind of standard font option, it doesn't always in regards of using 'reset slide'. Not to mention the random change in fontsize that occurs frequently. I would like to able to set the options avaible for 'format picture' and some for 'size and position' as 'default values'.

I would say 30% of my workflow consist of having to repeat the same actions, that could be solved by having more control over my project settings. 

 

Not so much a sugestion for a new feature, but I would greatly appreciate fixing the reset slide function. It works for a large part, if you know what you're doing. A lot of time resetting a question slide leads to the design scattering all over the place.

 

Thanks for considering.

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