Turning Menu on and Off

Jul 15, 2013

Hi Everyone,

I've run into an issue with the Menu and Slide Size. I have discussed it with Storyline support, and they are not able to help. Nonetheless, my customer is concerned about this so I thought I might post the problem here, and if anyone has additional ideas for ways around this, it would be helpful. Thanks.

Here's the problem:

The customer is requiring a Sidebar menu be present for content slides, but hidden on title screens and quiz content. When I turn off the menu, for individual slides, the slide size does not expand to fill the emptied space. Instead, the background shows through between the slide and the borders of the player.

Unfortunately, the LMS does not allow a launching page, and the customer does not like the drop-down menu option. My current solution is to have the background of non-menu slides, blend into the page background. But, the customer is not happy with this, since they can see quite a bit of blank space on either side of the slide content.

If anyone has additional ideas, they would be appreciated.

10 Replies

Bridget Brown

over 10 years ago07/15/13 at 1:04 pm (UTC)

Julia -

Not sure if you are working in Studio or Storyline, but attached is something I have done in Studio a few times. By putting the Menu ON the slide you control when the highlight moves. And if you are working in Storyline, you can make your slide larger than the default PowerPoint slide, but you don't have to go back and forth between the menu and the slide. Set your player so that it doesn't show the index menu on the side. If you are working in Storyline you could easily make the "menu" pop down onto the slide when you need it to.

Hope that helps!

menu+sample2.png

Bridget Brown

over 10 years ago07/15/13 at 1:06 pm (UTC)

One more thing about the above. I had slides where this menu did not appear - such as intro slides and slides which I use to "set the narrative" of what the learners are going to learn. Then I did the traditional "In this course you will" slide and then when the content actually started I brought this menu on screen.

Hope that helps.

Julia Koller
Author

over 10 years ago07/15/13 at 1:11 pm (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestions, Bridget. Unfortunately, we have a fairly lengthy menu structure, and the customer does not like the drop-down option. I'm a bit between a rock and a hard place. The current menu does not function 100% as the customer would like, but a custom, on slide, menu increases development & maintenance time.

Bridget Brown

over 10 years ago07/15/13 at 2:56 pm (UTC)

Just thinking "outloud" - since Storyline allows you to do a larger sized slide could you do a mock-up of your menu on the side and have it as a layer that is only revealed when you need to see it?

Julia Koller
Author

over 8 years ago05/14/15 at 6:50 pm (UTC)

Hi everyone!

This is an issue I had with Storyline I development a few years ago. To recap, the customer requires use of a left-hand menu in the player. The menu is turned off depending on the slide content, but the size of the slide does not adjust to fill the empty space.

My client for the project would like to revisit the issue, but we have not yet updated to Storyline 2. Does anyone know if this was addressed in the new version?

Thanks!

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
Staff

over 8 years ago05/14/15 at 8:03 pm (UTC)

Hi Julia,

This is not changed in Storyline 2. You are welcome to download the trial version here, as it can be installed on the same system as Storyline 1.

Julia Koller
Author

over 8 years ago05/14/15 at 8:06 pm (UTC)

Thanks Ashley, that's good to know, though disappointing. That said, I also understand the technical challenge behind the programming that would be required.

Unfortunately, my trial version has already expired, but I will keep collecting reasons to upgrade in the hope my company will eventually find it worth the expense.