Storyline free response component in Rise - javascript

As part of the learning experience in this course, learners are asked to consider and respond to questions related to the content. 

To do this in Rise, we included a Storyline free response component. It needed to: 

• Maintain visual continuity with the course 
• Allow learners to respond without a length restriction
• Provide the ability for learners to save their response, if desired

We anticipate that most learners’ free response will fit on-screen in the space provided. Initially, we were able to find an example on the Articulate forum that included a short piece of javascript to “print window” that would accomplish this. However, if a learner is inclined to write a lengthy response, the text entry box will scroll to accommodate all the text. “Print window” means that only the text showing in the Storyline component is printed—the scrolled text not currently visible would not be included.

Because the course was being developed by instructional and interactive designers, we ended up working with a developer at our company to help come up with a solution. The result is a piece of javascript that allows the learner to Print or Save both the question (built as a text variable) as well as all free response text in the text entry field. Give it a try.

If you’re interested in adding this kind of functionality to one of your Rise courses, I’ve attached the Storyline 360 file that we developed for the free response component. Also attached is a screenshot showing how the name of the text entry variable for the question must match the name in the javascript.