Content not suitable for delivery

Apr 07, 2014

Tess Curnow
By Tess Curnow

I'm due to deliver my first articulate project this month, and to be honest, I'm not sure I'll be able to because the user-experience is proving to be really poor when the HTML5 content is viewed. The iPad I'm testing on is brand new and has 27Gb free space.

  1. When the menu/notes panel is turned off on the sidebar, the logo block on the top left also disappears and the content window overlaps the text links at the top of the player
  2. The 'Exit' button or any other controls using a trigger to close the player do not work
  3. On some screens, the scrub bar sits below the audio button and previous/next buttons and it is longer than the player so the replay portion is off-screen
  4. The volume control button doesn't do anything – the slider moves but it has no detectible impact on the volume
  5. In the 'notes' panel, the scroll bar isn't visible and doesn't function
  6.  Pressing the previous and next buttons and menu links sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I know it's not my links being poorly set up because sometimes it will work after several tries
  7. The audio starts twice – it will start while the page loads and the spinner graphic is on-screen, then after a few seconds, it will stop and start again from the beginning
  8. The objects appearing on-screen don't run in time with the audio, despite synching perfectly in the swf output. This is intermittent - sometimes a screen will synch perfectly, at other times, it won't
  9. Buttons to display content on layers aren't functioning correctly. I might see 1 or two layers correctly then the next button I try, instead of showing a different layer, hides all layers except the base layer. But if I quit and relaunch, that button will function correctly and another one will not
  10. Lightboxed slides sometimes don't display the slide – they show as an empty white box and sometimes the red cross in the corner won't close them – have to quit and relaunch
  11. Where a text box has overflowing text content (the text box is shorter than the block of text it contains), the content is truncated at the bottom edge of the text box, despite being visible in the SWF output
  12. All buttons and links stop working, trapping the user on the page, requiring a quit and relaunch. The over states of the buttons still show, they just don't do anything when tapped
In addition, our client will not allow third party apps to be installed on their iPads, and their LMS uses Scorm 1.2 for tracking, so we can't use the 'Articulate Mobile Player on ipad' option, which means the side menus are incredibly fiddly to use.  
My output is quite large - 78Mb (23Mb is linked pdfs for download), 216 screens, 19 scenes. Some screens have up to 13 layers. I don't know if this is contributing to the problems I'm experiencing. Due to client confidentiality, I can't share my .story file, but if there are any fixes you can suggest for the list of problems above, I'd be very grateful.

7 Replies
Steve McAneney
10 years ago04/07/14 at 3:02 am (UTC)

Hi Tess, sorry to hear you seem to be in a bit of a spot!
I think it is pretty normal to experience teething troubles with your first, second or twenty second project. You'll just have to work some of these out yourself with the help of Mr. Google, you'll find many answers here on the forum already.

For what it's worth though:

1. I can't help you.

2. Check that the trigger is before any other slide finalising/interaction stopping triggers, and that it is timed to be active even when the timeline of the slide has finished.

3. Don't know, perhaps the video has been inserted inappropriately (see inserting videos) or it is too long (see here. Flash movies should be no longer than 8m 53s).

4. Don't know.

5. Don't know, please send in a screenshot.

6. Sounds like the file is too big or the internet too slow. Does this happen in preview or once uploaded to an LMS?

7. File is taking too long to upload. i.e. its too big. Maybe. Try swapping the embedded video/audio file for a smaller one and see if that makes a difference.

8. Again sounds like files are too big, or videos haven't been inserted correctly.

9. Don't know.

10. Possibly file too big

11. See this thread

12. File too big or slow internet.

Tess Curnow
10 years ago04/07/14 at 7:08 am (UTC)

Hi Steve,

Thanks for following up. I don't think slow internet can be the problem as I experience the same problems viewing the HTML 5 build on my desktop.

2. I have checked this for on-screen buttons. For the Exit button on the player, its functionality is built in so I can't adjust it.

3. There are no videos, just audio, correctly imported, running for about 35 seconds. On the same screen, sometimes the scrub bar displays correctly, sometimes it doesn't . Below is a screenshot showing where the scrub bar goes wrong.

5. Below is a screenshot showing the absence of a scroll bar in the notes panel.

6. This is after uploading file to LMS

7. Currently my bit rate is 160kbps - I will try resampling to 64k.

11. Thank you this link is helpful

The content is predominantly text and buttons, about half the slides have audio and there are several pictures, all saved for web. Aside from re-sizing the audio, there isn't too much I can do to make the project smaller. 

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my points.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
10 years ago04/07/14 at 12:22 pm (UTC)

Hi Tess,

Sorry to hear about the issues you're experiencing and I have some general questions and then some more specific thoughts for some of your items.

First off, you mentioned the HTML5 output and the iPad - are all these issues visible within both the HTML5 output on your desktop (say testing in Google Chrome) and within the iPad Mobile safari or just one? For the screen shots you showed, are those from your iPad or your desktop? Are those versions of the published output? 

Ok, on to specifics - and if you'd prefer we take a look at your file, you are always welcome to share it privately with me directly (I can send you directions) or with our Support engineers and the contents are kept confidential. 

1. Could the logo or player template come from another colleague who was using Storyline before update 5? If the logo is missing completely, you may want to review some of the troubleshooting steps here. 

2. There are a few known reasons why the exit trigger may not function as expected, and they're detailed here.  Specifically I'd look into the last option that deals with the LMS

3. See my earlier question about your screenshots.

4. Is this occurring on just the HTML5 output? Have you checked to see that your iPad audio isn't already set to the loudest level? 

5. Scrolling bars aren't visible on the iPad until you begin scrolling and you'll need to use two fingers. A number of users have submitted a feature request for different behavior. 

6. I'd need to know more about when this happens - consistently on a slide, or when loading a video/audio? 

7. Is this audio trigger, or just starting based on the timeline of the slide starting? You may want to change the behavior to trigger the audio based on when an offstage object appears to allow for more time for the slide to load. The HTML5 content can be slow to load, especially with media in mobile safari. 

8. See the article linked above.

10. There were a few issues fixed in update 5 related to how lightboxes displayed in HTML5, but I do see an issue with our QA team where a jump to slide/scene trigger before a lightbox is causing some issues with closing the lightbox. Does that sound like your set up? 

11. For the text, is it variable text or just standard text? There is a known issue where the variable references may not wrap correctly in the HTML5 output, and if they were included in a large box of text that may cause the remainder of the text to be misplaced. 

Since a number of the issues seem to be related to loading time it would also be worth testing your course at SCORM Cloud (a free, industry standard testing method for SCORM Content) to see if it's isolated to your LMS and trying the course from a different wireless network with a higher download speed. 

Tess Curnow
10 years ago04/25/14 at 3:30 am (UTC)

Hi Ashley,

Thanks for getting back to me and taking the time to respond to each point. My deadline was extremely tight so I resolved many of the issues by breaking my file down into 4 story files and removing elements that weren't performing as required. 

With the exception of the volume control, the issues are the same both when viewing the HTML5 output on the desktop viewed with google chrome and on a new iPad air viewed through a third-party app (not mobile safari). The screenshots were from google chrome, but the iPad problems were identical.

1. I built the logo in Fireworks and the player from scratch, using the latest version. All files are kept on my desktop. I have had the latest version of the software since I began using Storyline in February.

2. Thank you - that answers that point

3. No difference between google chrome/iPad app behaviour

4. The volume control was ineffective only on the iPad. It made no difference where I set the iPad's audio level. I've since removed the controller as it looks untidy on screens where there is no seekbar and users will still be able to use their pc/iPad volume controls.

5. Thank you - the two-finger scrolling works - intermittently. 

6. I have since broken the training package down into 4 pieces and the problem no longer occurs (it was about 350 slides)

7.Thanks - I will try this for subsequent projects.

8. Since breaking the project down into smaller chunks of content, it is no longer an issue.

9. I got around it by using slides instead of layers.

10. Since breaking the project down into smaller chunks of content, it is no longer an issue.

11. It was standard text - I've changed my text box preference to be 'resize shape to fit text' to avoid the problem in the future

12. Since breaking the project down into smaller chunks of content, it is no longer an issue.

Thanks for the link to SCORM Cloud.

Thanks again Ashley, I appreciate the time you've put into looking into my issues.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
10 years ago04/25/14 at 6:23 am (UTC)

Hi Tess,

Thanks for the update and I'm glad you were able to find solutions to help with your files. HTML5 is still a new and emerging standard in e-learning technology. However, as of early 2014, it hasn't been accepted as the industry standard. As a result, your HTML5 published content might look and behave differently than you intended. Testing in Google Chrome will help give you the best indication of how it will perform, and then while using the iPad you'll want to use our mobile player app or mobile Safari which offers the best results on the iPad. 

To help you navigate HTML5 course development, we pulled together the following articles: 

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.