Storyline crossword - moving between blocks
May 18, 2016
Hi all,
I've created a crossword using Storyline which I am using in one of my courses. It seems to be working fairly well but there are a couple of things that could do with improving so that the user experience is similar to a normal online crossword:
1 - Limiting the text entry fields to one letter. As far as I'm aware, this is a Storyline restriction so there isn't much I can do about this, but it would be great to hear if anyone has a workaround.
2 - Moving between crossword blocks. At the moment moving between block is cumbersome as the user is required to click on each block using their mouse. It would be great to automatically advance the user to the next block or even tabbing to the next block would work. This would also help somewhat for point one.
I know you can tab between objects on the page and that you can 'limit' the objects that this functionality applies to by unchecking the accessibility tools option from under the Alt text tab (for those of you who we'rent aware of this, you can do this by selecting an object and clicking on Format>Size>Alt text> Unchecking 'Object is visible to accessibility tools' option). I have done this and limited the selection to just the crossword text entries, but the movement and selection of text entries is neither consistent or predictable enough for this to be a viable navigation option no matter how I group/ungroup or order these text entries.
Any ideas or workarounds to help with these issues would be greatly appreciated. I have attached both the Storyline file and a link to the published file for those that want to take a look.
2 Replies
Hi Matthew!
I know exactly what you mean and where you're coming from... because I also built a crossword recently! I created this Crossword puzzle template for Storyline 2 a few months ago and I encountered those exact same issues. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to come up with a workaround at this point (not saying there isn't potentially one, just not that I've discovered yet!) .... I do however strongly suggest that you submit a feature request for ability to set character limit on data entry fields.
Also, did you know that you can also control the order of your tabbing? The problem is that with a crossword, the nature of the crossword puzzle makes it so that the same letter appears across multiple words, which is where the tabbing order becomes impossible to set up in this case. I hope you understand what I mean by that...
Sorry I can't be of more help, but please please DO submit the feature request for char limit because I have heard others mention they would love that, and the more feature requests we get for an item the more seriously our developers consider implementing it. Thanks much!!
Hi Nicole,
thanks for the response and I do know what you mean regarding the tabbing, I guess it's something we will either have to put up with or we'll have to look at using a crossword generator and inserting a .swf (or the like) into the Storyline course. Although I prefer to have control over the look and feel so this wouldn't be my first choice.
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