Why hasn't Storyline responded to basic but important feature requests?
May 18, 2017
Why is it that - over 3 years on - Storyline is still incapable of rounding a Quiz score to a whole number?
Javascript is not the answer because Storyline 2 still doesn't trust us to set 'Results.ScorePercent' or 'Results.ScorePoints' to equal our own variable values before sending to an LMS. I've been using authoring tools for 30 years, 18 years with Authorware, and I'm extremely disappointed with SL's lack of some absolutely basic functionality like this.
There really is no excuse and whenever anyone puts their head over the parapet to mention such omissions, they are thanked for 'reaching out' and advised to put in a feature request. This is the equivalent of buying a new car in 2017 and discovering that it doesn't have electric windows or a heater speed control, complaining and then asked to write in ... come on Storyline, start listening and making good on such basic facilities.
I've filled pages with the things I wanted to do in SL2 and can't. I come on this forum and find that many other folk are feeling the same way. What is your problem? Another moan: I've just finished producing a quiz for a client, in which some questions need to mark according to how well the user performed. e.g: labelling a diagram of the body. There are 10 empty boxes and 10 text labels. It's an important question and one which can take a minute to answer carefully. So they place 8 labels correctly but swap the last 2. Their score? Zero. Not 8 out of 10 but a big empty zero. Thanks Storyline. Clever. And please don't suggest splitting the question up into lots of other smaller questions. That's like giving me a handle to wind down my non-electric windows.
12 Replies
Hi Tim - Looks like I just responded to a similar post here.
Tim,
I feel your pain. I'm not sure if feature requests need to made by a certain number of users or what, to make it into development. SL is a very good program, but it could be great if more of these features were added. I spend 10% of my development time just creating workarounds to things that I assumed would be built in by now.
SL3 is nice, but I was a little shocked when I saw the interface, that not much had been added since SL2. The HTML5 feature is great, but there could have been much more added to enhance development. I've given up submitting feature requests and usually end up developing my own work around or just giving up on what I thought was a cool idea.
I'll keep using SL though, as there is still nothing else like it around. SL support team is great, I just picture their developers perhaps being a little overworked.
Michael
Thanks for that link Leslie. Most of the requests I've seen submitted in the past probably would not be used by the "majority" so that might be the problem. I wonder if there is any way that programmers can write plug-ins for SL...
Michael - what SL needs is a simple set of Functions, ready-made commands with which we can control program operation without having to program with Javascript, Flash or any other external tools.
My starter set would include:
- Set the Integer of a number
- Return the current X and Y co-ordinates of an object on screen
- Position an object on screen at specified X and Y co-ordinates
- Allow the concatenation of variables into a list, with line 'Return' between (to build reports)
- Return the frame number of a currently playing video
- Play a video between start and frame numbers
- Return the system date and time in a variable, as well as elapsed from one event to another
- Let us set the standard SL quiz Results variables from our own variables, then we would have the freedom to mark more challenging/revealing assessment questions (e.g: 'Click on all of the safety hazards you can find in this workplace ...')
- STOP a currently playing audio whenever a new audio starts playing (not by explicitly stopping a named file)! This should be standard - who would ever want to play two voiceovers at once? e.g: Leave Layer 1 with a v/o playing to display Layer 2 with its own v/o, but without removing the graphics on Layer 1. Or leave a Base layer to display Layer 1, kill the Base layer v/o, keep Base layer visible and start playing Layer 1 v/o. 'Killed' v/o's should not start playing again if you return to that Layer.
I know I just sound like a grumpy old bloke on a Friday morning but as you said Michael, SL is a good tool but it could be very good. I don't need or want libraries of actors smiling or weeping, I need practical features like these.
I think this response sums up Storyline nicely
" I spend 10% of my development time just creating workarounds to things that I assumed would be built in by now."
It's a shame but storyline is falling behind some competitors quite quickly because of this work around culture that the online help team promotes
Happy Friday, all!
We're super excited about the features that we've been adding to Storyline. If you take a quick look at the version history of Storyline 360 compared with the version history of Storyline 2, you'll see a pretty remarkable evolution in the pace and volume of new features these past 6 months!
We expect that new model to continue, including a major release with some much anticipated features and bug fixes before the end of this quarter. Keep an eye on our What's New, What's Next page for frequent previews.
We understand that the features we build won't always align perfectly with the features you think are important. Prioritizing what's most valuable is one of the hardest things to do, and here's a peek at how we try to make those decisions.
Keep an eye out for more exciting features soon!
Thanks Justin.
I think many of us are trying to "push the envelope" with SL, and we see the potential in all the ways that it could be used. It's sometimes frustrating to run into a road-block that ends up eliminating a cool feature from a project or causes us much more work.
A small example from one of my recent posts is that SL seemly doesn't not have the ability to not re-compress assets (images, mp3s) that have been added to a project. If I can't accomplish this, then I can either leave my published output at roughly double the download size that it should be, or I can manually go through my published output and replace each png and mp3 file with my original optimized version. Neither of these is a good solution.
I don't need or want libraries of actors smiling or weeping, I need practical features like these.
Bravo, Tim!!
Functionality versus eye candy -let's see, which to choose?
Michael, are you saying that when Storyline compresses your images and audio during publish, it is actually making them larger than they should be? This sounds really unexpected, and we'd welcome the opportunity to take a closer look at your .story project file!
Hi Michael,
I can see that you’re still struggling with the compression since you reached out here and in this other discussion. I’d love to help.
I saw that you shared your file in that discussion, so I'll take a look and we can keep the conversation going over there.
Yes Justin, that's what's happening. Ashley is assisting me in the other thread. It's not too surprising that it's doing that, I think the solution may be to have a "no compression" setting or something, so that Storyline just leaves the files as they are.
"Yes, Justin, that's what's happening. Ashley is assisting me in the other thread. It's not too surprising that it's doing that, I think the solution may be to have a "no compression" setting or something so that Storyline just leaves the files as they are."
Agreed with you. deep thoughts on the best features in life.