The Content Library and when inserting characters how easy it is to filter what you are looking for (by style or gender or clothing or age or emotion or style, etc.).
And better support for those of us with 4K monitors, although if you run at greater than 100% fonts or if you do dual 4K monitors at different resolutions a few things are weird.
But menus and menu bars now size and look a lot better with 4K.
Hi Ben. Maybe I’m a little biased, but I actually have two favorites. My first fave is the new responsive player and preview you’ll find in Storyline 360 (and in Studio 360). With the responsive player, my courses play perfectly on any device and I don’t have to do any extra work to make it happen. It’s SO exciting to know that I can create multi-device learning and let the technology do the work for me.
And when I’m working on my project, I can see how my course will look on desktops, tablets, or phones with the responsive preview. It’s a great way to visualize the multi-device experience as I’m creating content. For more info on using the responsive player features, check out the Storyline 360 tutorials.
My other fave is the ability to publish my Storyline 360 courses to Articulate 360 and then gather stakeholder feedback with Articulate Review. What a wonderful new way to make course development life a little easier!
Storyline 360 has always been a personal favorite because it makes the process of creating e-learning so much quicker than any other authoring tool I’ve used. And now with Articulate Review integrated with Storyline 360 (and Studio 360, too, for that matter), the course authoring process is even easier. I have the option to share my published course with reviewers in just a few clicks, and I’ve found that my reviewers love that they can quickly provide in-context feedback without downloading a new app or learning a complicated new tool.
I recently purchased Storyline 2. Your are talking about the responsive design features in 360. Does this mean that the courses I produce in Storyline 2 will not look good on multiple devices and that there is possibly no more planned upgrades to make this possible? I am getting very worried now and I can't afford to buy a new license for 360 every year.
Hands down responsiveness and HTML5 output improvement, and ability to choose output including HTML5 only (but also for those on older browsers, Flash only, or Flash/HTML5.... or even HTML5/Flash!)
Within Storyline 360 I think the new object events are great (when object enters/leaves slide, when object intersects and when intersection ends). I can see lots of game possibilities there.
And, I created a game a while ago where I had over 40 motions paths on the same slide--and no ability to name them! SL360 lets you name motion paths! It sounds like a small thing, but trust me, it would have saved me HOURS!
I think calling Storyline 360 a responsive design tool is a little misleading. True responsive design is wrapping the text and images so the content displays nicely on different devices. From the test I did in Storyline 360, the published content is just scaled up or down for each device. See: http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/beginners-guide-to-responsive-web-design
When creating learning though, I want all the objects on the screen to appear on the screen exactly as I put them there. I wouldn't want my labeled graphics to move around to suit the screen, or my objects to just disappear based on screen size.
The responsiveness comes into play with the actual player: the frame around the course that houses the navigation buttons, and built-in features like menu, glossary, notes (and any other custom tabs you might create). If you choose not to use any of the features of the player (say you created your own custom nav) then that will display exactly as you created it (and again, I wouldn't want it to move around)
Following the video at this site https://rise.articulate.com/ you can see the course that I mentioned above. The course was included when I login with my account. The name of the course is" Employee Health and Wellness (Sample Course) ".
I share your concern Marilyn. I have had Storyline for 4 years and had been waiting for an SL2 upgrade to correct the numerous feature deficiencies I've been asking to be addressed.
Unless I've missed it, I haven't seen any mention of a new version of SL2. It looks like Articulate is moving over entirely to the far more lucrative business model of selling a 'subscription' rather than a one-time licence to use. I can't afford or justify $1,000 per user per annum either. If Storyline 360 had made a big leap in functionality then I might be tempted. But it's the same old product, with (based on using it for only half an hour) a few little add-ons like rotating dials and orientating an object to an animation path. Developing for different device screens 'live' is good.
But where are the SL2 features we've been asking for?
Such as:
External doc links and paths preserved when publishing
Displaying pdf docs in a scrolling panel
Jump to a cue point on the timeline
Set SL Results and Pass Mark variables from our own variables
Kill any audio or video playing when any other media starts playing. Who would ever need to have two audio files playing at the same time? Crazy.
Give us system variables (time of day, elapsed time, date)
Give us the current frame number of a video that’s playing
Let us play a video from a start frame to an end frame
Give us variables containing the dynamic X and Y location of the cursor
Let us display an object on screen at a specific X and Y location
Don’t auto-shrink and therefore corrupt ’tall' images when they are placed in a scrolling panel
Give us a simple scripting language so we don’t have to use Javascript for basic control and testing of variables etc.
Sounds like I'm just moaning doesn't it? But I have been using every one of these facilities in eLearning development systems for 25 years and I see no excuse for their omission in Articulate products.
I wanted to share the information in regards to our Responsive player vs. the Responsive design in of Rise. Rise will reflow the content to ensure it adapts to every screen size and orientation. As Veronica mentioned, having the objects appear where you've placed them is often a crucial element to the e-learning created - the set up in Rise allows for us to reflow the content based on the placeholders used and how we know those different pieces will act and behavior based on different screen sizes and orientations.
Hope that helps clarify and let us know if you have any other questions.
I've now been using SL360 for 24 hours and sadly, I'm a bit underwhelmed and slightly worried.
My team have 7 licenses of SL2 and I'd like to update but not for $600-$1000 per year. In reality, SL360 is a slight version update to SL2 with added money making features for Articulate. We don't need the added bloat of the other 360 toolset and not having the option of paying for single tools is not cost effective for us.
I do hope that Storyline is sold as a separate product still, with regular updates and continued offline activation.
Rise is a neat tool but has little application in a corporate environment - I'd suggest that, if you need a truely responsive tool, you take a look at Adapt.
Sorry Articulate, Storyline is a fabulous tool, but I feel you've missed a trick with your latest update and you may end up alienating a lot of your loyal users. I hope you have a rethink.
Thanks for the honest feedback and giving it a test run. I hope you'll continue to play around with it through your trial and let us know anything else you have to share.
We'll still continue to support the perpetual licenses of Storyline and Studio, and there are plans in the works for the next release of those to be in 2017. I don't have a more exact timeframe than that right now, but you may want to take a look at Brian Gil's response here in terms of pricing and perpetual as that lays out our plans in a bit more detail.
I completely agree with Mary. This new 360 offering carries little appeal for teams already using Storyline 2 for serious eLearning production. It's far too expensive, is plumped up with library images and templates and seems to be aimed at the new user with little creative skill or the dedicated time needed to reach real proficiency.
I have been developing eLearning for 27 years (Authorware for 17 years) and over the last 4 1/2 years using Storyline. As a rapid course and quiz creation tool it has much to commend it. However, it also has some fundamental omissions which, despite raising formally with Articulate over the years, none has been addressed. The 360 announcement probably explains why their attention has been elsewhere.
I also downloaded Storyline 360 and have been exploring. It seems very little has been changed over SL2. Radial 'sliders', orientation of an object along its motion path and the option to select the delivery device and to immediately see the layout (a facility which looks excellent I have to say).
It looks like the new Articulate business model is Adobe-like, signing corporates up to a lifetime revenue stream for paid access to the product, to templates, support, etc. For the smaller organisation, for whom the core development tool (SL2 currently) is really the only element they need, this is like being set adrift. Such teams already use Photoshop for their graphics, create artwork/shoot client imagery where they need it, use the discipline of version control for all script and review documents, as well as SL source and published program versions. As Mary said, we only need the Big Mac to do our jobs.
These are the facilities which Storyline 2 (and it appears Storyline 260) lack and which tools such as Authorware provided over 20 years ago. Of course, Authorware was creaking with age and belonged to the pre-browser delivery era, as well as not being timeline-based. But to me it was a benchmark for flexible, fast authoring which Articulate would do well to keep in mind when deciding whether to pay someone in overalls and a hard hat to sit in 267 poses OR to make the SL developer's life a little easier.
Storyline needs ...
External doc links and paths preserved when publishing
Display of pdf docs in a scrolling panel on a slide
Jump to a cue point on the timeline
Set SL system Results and Pass Mark variables directlyfrom our own variables
Kill any audio or video playing when any other media starts playing. Who would ever need to have two audio files playing at the same time?
Give us system variables (time of day, elapsed time, date)
Give us the current frame number of a video that’s playing
Let us set the frame rate of a video playing
Let us play a video from a start frame to an end frame
Give us variables containing the dynamic X and Y location of the cursor on screen
Let us display an object on screen at a specific X and Y location
Don’t auto-shrink and therefore corrupt ’tall' images when they are placed in a scrolling panel
Give us a simple scripting language so we don’t have to use Javascript for basic control and testing of variables etc.
I too hope you have a major re-think on pricing and bundling. You are dealing with very different communities and should consider offering a perpetual license professional SL3 with all the above 'wish list' facilities, maintained as a premier product (i.e: not leaving us behind as a 'legacy' product) alongside this 360 package.
I hope the issues you have outlined will be addressed in the next update. Since I recently purchased SL 2 I have not yet had the experience of seeing if something I create will look reasonable on mobile devices. I imagine with the number of years you've been using the product, you would know about this. Can you share your experience? Thank you.
I would like to see the options to offer users that watch the content on the Desktop to have the same menu system that is offered via the Responsive Design Mobile apps. For example, full screen, without seeing the Player borders etc, as clean screens are now more visually appealing and less cluttered, allowing users to concentrate on the content?
If I test using Rise, then it utilizes the full screen, I would like to see the same option for Storyline content.
Is there an option just to purchase Storyline 360, as the other apps may not be a requirement?
Sorry to hear that - but you can always get right to our Support Engineers here. They'll work with you to determine if it's a bug and get it filed with our QA team to investigate.
I would like to a see a standalone purchase option for Storyline 360. I cannot justify the price of $1000 a year just to use 1 product. We will stick with Storyline 2 hoping that some of the features in 360 will be added to Storyline 2 like the Dial Widget.
Thanks for your feedback about pricing and what features you'd like to see. New features such as the Dial widget are something you're likely to see as a part of the next perpetual version of Storyline which is slated for release sometime in 2017. We'll keep you posted here in the ELH community forums with any other updates about that.
I'm looking forward to Articulate's ability to roll out new features on a much more regular basis.
I think that this will be one of the best parts of Storyline 360 for me... having new features or workflow improvements being added to the software on a regular basis will be great!
It is a much better model than the old one where we had to wait for new major versions to get new goodies. I look forward to seeing what else Articulate is going to add into Storyline in the near future.
The other things that I am really pleased about are the improved HTML5 output and the fact that the HTML5 output is now accessible. Thank you Articulate.
Your future will not be that rosy. Look at InDesign CC for how paid subscription models will go. All the hope and shine about "new features regularly" collapses into "milk the customer". Always. Without the pressure of having to sell new licenses, what do software companies end up offering? Nothing, bro. They already have your money.
24 Replies
The Content Library and when inserting characters how easy it is to filter what you are looking for (by style or gender or clothing or age or emotion or style, etc.).
And better support for those of us with 4K monitors, although if you run at greater than 100% fonts or if you do dual 4K monitors at different resolutions a few things are weird.
But menus and menu bars now size and look a lot better with 4K.
Hi Ben. Maybe I’m a little biased, but I actually have two favorites. My first fave is the new responsive player and preview you’ll find in Storyline 360 (and in Studio 360). With the responsive player, my courses play perfectly on any device and I don’t have to do any extra work to make it happen. It’s SO exciting to know that I can create multi-device learning and let the technology do the work for me.
And when I’m working on my project, I can see how my course will look on desktops, tablets, or phones with the responsive preview. It’s a great way to visualize the multi-device experience as I’m creating content. For more info on using the responsive player features, check out the Storyline 360 tutorials.
My other fave is the ability to publish my Storyline 360 courses to Articulate 360 and then gather stakeholder feedback with Articulate Review. What a wonderful new way to make course development life a little easier!
Storyline 360 has always been a personal favorite because it makes the process of creating e-learning so much quicker than any other authoring tool I’ve used. And now with Articulate Review integrated with Storyline 360 (and Studio 360, too, for that matter), the course authoring process is even easier. I have the option to share my published course with reviewers in just a few clicks, and I’ve found that my reviewers love that they can quickly provide in-context feedback without downloading a new app or learning a complicated new tool.
If you haven’t had a chance to get up to speed on Articulate Review yet, take a moment to check out this article, “Why Articulate Review is a Big Gift to Course Authors (and SMEs)."
I recently purchased Storyline 2. Your are talking about the responsive design features in 360. Does this mean that the courses I produce in Storyline 2 will not look good on multiple devices and that there is possibly no more planned upgrades to make this possible? I am getting very worried now and I can't afford to buy a new license for 360 every year.
Hands down responsiveness and HTML5 output improvement, and ability to choose output including HTML5 only (but also for those on older browsers, Flash only, or Flash/HTML5.... or even HTML5/Flash!)
Within Storyline 360 I think the new object events are great (when object enters/leaves slide, when object intersects and when intersection ends). I can see lots of game possibilities there.
And, I created a game a while ago where I had over 40 motions paths on the same slide--and no ability to name them! SL360 lets you name motion paths! It sounds like a small thing, but trust me, it would have saved me HOURS!
I think calling Storyline 360 a responsive design tool is a little misleading. True responsive design is wrapping the text and images so the content displays nicely on different devices. From the test I did in Storyline 360, the published content is just scaled up or down for each device. See: http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/beginners-guide-to-responsive-web-design
This post was removed by the author
When creating learning though, I want all the objects on the screen to appear on the screen exactly as I put them there. I wouldn't want my labeled graphics to move around to suit the screen, or my objects to just disappear based on screen size.
The responsiveness comes into play with the actual player: the frame around the course that houses the navigation buttons, and built-in features like menu, glossary, notes (and any other custom tabs you might create). If you choose not to use any of the features of the player (say you created your own custom nav) then that will display exactly as you created it (and again, I wouldn't want it to move around)
One thing is: Can I build a course look the same like this one "https://rise.articulate.com/author/OzjLbYsoogMCAZoc#/author/course/preview?_k=7ps7ez" by using Articulate Storyline 360?
Hi Vu
that link returns 404 page
{"statusCode":404,"error":"Not Found","message":"Course Not Found"}
Hi Wendy,
Following the video at this site https://rise.articulate.com/ you can see the course that I mentioned above. The course was included when I login with my account. The name of the course is" Employee Health and Wellness (Sample Course) ".
Yes - here are the tutorials for Rise that should help you
And here is link to all 360 Getting started tutorials
Sorry, I mean how can I build the same course in Articulate Storyline 360 not in https://rise.articulate.com?.
I share your concern Marilyn. I have had Storyline for 4 years and had been waiting for an SL2 upgrade to correct the numerous feature deficiencies I've been asking to be addressed.
Unless I've missed it, I haven't seen any mention of a new version of SL2. It looks like Articulate is moving over entirely to the far more lucrative business model of selling a 'subscription' rather than a one-time licence to use. I can't afford or justify $1,000 per user per annum either. If Storyline 360 had made a big leap in functionality then I might be tempted. But it's the same old product, with (based on using it for only half an hour) a few little add-ons like rotating dials and orientating an object to an animation path. Developing for different device screens 'live' is good.
But where are the SL2 features we've been asking for?
Such as:
Sounds like I'm just moaning doesn't it? But I have been using every one of these facilities in eLearning development systems for 25 years and I see no excuse for their omission in Articulate products.
Tim
Hi Daniel and all,
I wanted to share the information in regards to our Responsive player vs. the Responsive design in of Rise. Rise will reflow the content to ensure it adapts to every screen size and orientation. As Veronica mentioned, having the objects appear where you've placed them is often a crucial element to the e-learning created - the set up in Rise allows for us to reflow the content based on the placeholders used and how we know those different pieces will act and behavior based on different screen sizes and orientations.
Hope that helps clarify and let us know if you have any other questions.
I've now been using SL360 for 24 hours and sadly, I'm a bit underwhelmed and slightly worried.
My team have 7 licenses of SL2 and I'd like to update but not for $600-$1000 per year. In reality, SL360 is a slight version update to SL2 with added money making features for Articulate. We don't need the added bloat of the other 360 toolset and not having the option of paying for single tools is not cost effective for us.
I do hope that Storyline is sold as a separate product still, with regular updates and continued offline activation.
Rise is a neat tool but has little application in a corporate environment - I'd suggest that, if you need a truely responsive tool, you take a look at Adapt.
Sorry Articulate, Storyline is a fabulous tool, but I feel you've missed a trick with your latest update and you may end up alienating a lot of your loyal users. I hope you have a rethink.
Hi Mary,
Thanks for the honest feedback and giving it a test run. I hope you'll continue to play around with it through your trial and let us know anything else you have to share.
We'll still continue to support the perpetual licenses of Storyline and Studio, and there are plans in the works for the next release of those to be in 2017. I don't have a more exact timeframe than that right now, but you may want to take a look at Brian Gil's response here in terms of pricing and perpetual as that lays out our plans in a bit more detail.
I completely agree with Mary. This new 360 offering carries little appeal for teams already using Storyline 2 for serious eLearning production. It's far too expensive, is plumped up with library images and templates and seems to be aimed at the new user with little creative skill or the dedicated time needed to reach real proficiency.
I have been developing eLearning for 27 years (Authorware for 17 years) and over the last 4 1/2 years using Storyline. As a rapid course and quiz creation tool it has much to commend it. However, it also has some fundamental omissions which, despite raising formally with Articulate over the years, none has been addressed. The 360 announcement probably explains why their attention has been elsewhere.
I also downloaded Storyline 360 and have been exploring. It seems very little has been changed over SL2. Radial 'sliders', orientation of an object along its motion path and the option to select the delivery device and to immediately see the layout (a facility which looks excellent I have to say).
It looks like the new Articulate business model is Adobe-like, signing corporates up to a lifetime revenue stream for paid access to the product, to templates, support, etc. For the smaller organisation, for whom the core development tool (SL2 currently) is really the only element they need, this is like being set adrift. Such teams already use Photoshop for their graphics, create artwork/shoot client imagery where they need it, use the discipline of version control for all script and review documents, as well as SL source and published program versions. As Mary said, we only need the Big Mac to do our jobs.
These are the facilities which Storyline 2 (and it appears Storyline 260) lack and which tools such as Authorware provided over 20 years ago. Of course, Authorware was creaking with age and belonged to the pre-browser delivery era, as well as not being timeline-based. But to me it was a benchmark for flexible, fast authoring which Articulate would do well to keep in mind when deciding whether to pay someone in overalls and a hard hat to sit in 267 poses OR to make the SL developer's life a little easier.
Storyline needs ...
I too hope you have a major re-think on pricing and bundling. You are dealing with very different communities and should consider offering a perpetual license professional SL3 with all the above 'wish list' facilities, maintained as a premier product (i.e: not leaving us behind as a 'legacy' product) alongside this 360 package.
Hi Tim,
I hope the issues you have outlined will be addressed in the next update. Since I recently purchased SL 2 I have not yet had the experience of seeing if something I create will look reasonable on mobile devices. I imagine with the number of years you've been using the product, you would know about this. Can you share your experience? Thank you.
Glad to see the responsive Design features added.
I would like to see the options to offer users that watch the content on the Desktop to have the same menu system that is offered via the Responsive Design Mobile apps. For example, full screen, without seeing the Player borders etc, as clean screens are now more visually appealing and less cluttered, allowing users to concentrate on the content?
If I test using Rise, then it utilizes the full screen, I would like to see the same option for Storyline content.
Is there an option just to purchase Storyline 360, as the other apps may not be a requirement?
I'm having some issues. Refresh me... Where do we send bug reports?
Hey Russ,
Sorry to hear that - but you can always get right to our Support Engineers here. They'll work with you to determine if it's a bug and get it filed with our QA team to investigate.
I would like to a see a standalone purchase option for Storyline 360. I cannot justify the price of $1000 a year just to use 1 product. We will stick with Storyline 2 hoping that some of the features in 360 will be added to Storyline 2 like the Dial Widget.
Hi Darren,
Thanks for your feedback about pricing and what features you'd like to see. New features such as the Dial widget are something you're likely to see as a part of the next perpetual version of Storyline which is slated for release sometime in 2017. We'll keep you posted here in the ELH community forums with any other updates about that.
Your future will not be that rosy. Look at InDesign CC for how paid subscription models will go. All the hope and shine about "new features regularly" collapses into "milk the customer". Always. Without the pressure of having to sell new licenses, what do software companies end up offering? Nothing, bro. They already have your money.
This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.