I made a demo featuring background music that goes through the whole course (doesn't change from slide to slide). The user can chose from four songs to listen to and can adjust the volume, and the song continues playing through every slide and loops when it completes. I've also added instructions on how to make this work to the module. I don't know whether someone else has already posted something like this (I couldn't find anything), but hey if so here's one more! Demo ------- I've put together a second demo that shows a different way to do this. This second version performs the same actions as the first one, but without needing to edit the output files every time you publish! It saves a lot of headaches when you need to edit something in the course because now you don't have to drop the music files into the output folder and you dont have to edit the html file every time you publish! Demo 2 I've also attached the second version .story file. Its called Background_Music_Version_2.story. If anyone needs help getting either versions of this to work I'm more than happy to assist :)

Hi Marcee, Since opening the html document is causing you problems I would suggest going with the Version 2 option. 1. Create a variable in storyline called 'Location'2. Create a folder on your desktop, it can be called whatever you'd like. 3. Put all of the music files you want to play in your course in this folder4. create a new file in the folder called 'index.html'. This file can just be blank5. Back in your storyline, create a new slide that the learner will never see6. Create a web object in that slide and link it to the folder you just created with the blank index.html file in it. Make sure to set the web object to load automatically. 7. Publish your file (dont zip) and open the output folder8. Check under story_content/WebObjects folder and copy the name of the web object folder in there. It will be a series of random characters like 'W7auf51LmL'9. In storyline set default value of the 'Location' variable to the path whole path 'story_content/WebObjects/[web object name]'10. Create a trigger that executes javascript when your project starts. 11. paste this javascript into your trigger, it will edit the story.html file for you: //load the scripts dynamically into the head of the documentfunction add_line() { var line = document.createElement("audio"); var head=document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]; line.type = "audio/mp3"; line.src=""; line.id="bgSong" ; line.autoplay = true; line.loop = true; head.appendChild(line);}//but we only want to add these once!if(document.getElementById('bgSong')==null){ add_line();var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong');audio.volume = 0.5;} 12. Now you can play your songs with a trigger like this: var player = GetPlayer();this.Location= player.GetVar("location");var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong');audio.src= location + "SONG1.mp3";audio.load();audio.play(); remember to change 'SONG1.mp3' to whatever the music file you added was named. You can adjust the volume (for narration or sound effects or whathaveyou) with this trigger var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong');audio.volume = 0.6; That should get it working for you, let me know if you run into any more problems!

The reason I set up the audio.src="BrightlyFancy.mp3" was because I made this particular project have multiple songs that can be switch between. In my file I put that line into a JavaScript trigger in the .story file and used the "Execute JavaScript" trigger to switch between songs. If you have just one song you'd like to play, you can just add: <audio src="BrightlyFancy.mp3" id="bgSong" preload="auto" autoplay loop></audio> To your story.html file, where "BrightlyFancy.mp3" is the name of the audio file you'd like to play. Make sure it is located within the <Body> tags and outside of the <script> tags Don't forget to add your audio file to the root of your output folder or else your course wont be able to find your audio file. Hope this helps! If you need to add more control over the background music (more than just having it loop through the whole course) let me know and I can help you get it working! :)

Hi Jane, It is possible to stop the music and resume it while the video is playing. If you execute this javascript trigger it will mute the music: var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong');audio.volume = 0.0; and to resume the music: var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong');audio.volume = 1.0; The file you shared is actually the zipped output file, what I need is the test_background_music.story file. The file that you open in Storyline to edit the course is the file I need. I cannot open any zip files into Storyline.

If you want to stop the song you can run this trigger at the end of the scene or beginning of the next scene. var player = GetPlayer();this.Location= player.GetVar("location");var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong');audio.src = " ";audio.load();audio.play(); This will set the song to nothing, so it wont play anything. If you want to change the music use the same trigger and set audio.src to loctation + the name of your song. You can control when and what song is playing throughout the course. I hope this helps! Let me know if you need any assistance getting it to work :)

Hi Jane, sorry it took so long to respond: I had never considered the returning to course or jumping around the menu! I think that the easiest way to get around this is to drop the javascript triggers into the slide master so they run on every slide in the background. The problem with that though, is that if it runs on every slide then the song will restart every time the trigger fires. BUT I think there is a way around this! So firstly, any of the javascript triggers you are using should be pasted into every slide master main page that you use in the course. That way no matter where the learner jumps in the music should continue start playing. Secondly, we're going to need to edit the javascript so that it checks to see if there is already music playing before starting this song. This will help us avoid the problem of the song restarting every time the trigger runs. You'll want to change this: //load the scripts dynamically into the head of the documentfunction add_line() { var line = document.createElement("audio"); var head=document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]; line.type = "audio/mp3"; line.src=""; line.id="bgSong" ; line.autoplay = true; line.loop = true; head.appendChild(line);}//but we only want to add these once!if(document.getElementById('bgSong')==null){ add_line();var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong');audio.volume = 1.0;}var player = GetPlayer();this.Location= player.GetVar("location");var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong');audio.src=Location+"SONGNAMEHERE.mp3";audio.load();audio.play(); To this: //load the scripts dynamically into the head of the documentfunction add_line() { var line = document.createElement("audio"); var head=document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]; line.type = "audio/mp3"; line.src=""; line.id="bgSong" ; line.autoplay = true; line.loop = true; head.appendChild(line);}//but we only want to add these once!if(document.getElementById('bgSong')==null){ add_line();var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong');audio.volume = 1.0;}var player = GetPlayer();var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong');this.Location= player.GetVar("location");if (audio.duration > 0 && !audio.paused) {// If song is playing and not paused then do nothing}else {audio.src=Location+"Happy.mp3"; audio.load();audio.play();} This should check if the audio is playing or not, and if not then it will load the song again. I haven't tested this yet and unfortunately I can't get around to it until later this week probably, so this is just a theory so far. I hope that it works though! Let me know if there's any problems with this and I can try to help as much as I can.

Background Music Demo | Articulate

ChristiePollick
Community Member
10 years ago
Hi, Jane -- Just in case you wanted to check it out, here is some additional info on Publishing and Sharing Storyline 2 Content. Please let us know if you have any other questions! :)
RyanGranville
Community Member
9 years ago
Just a message to say thanks a lot Jackson and the community! This thread helped me a lot!
RyanGranville
Community Member
9 years ago
As I said above I used your code Jackson and it worked great. But do you have an idea on how I could use the built-in pause control to have the music pause as well? (with your code only the slides pause when user click on the built in pause button but not the music).

Thanks in advance!! Ryan
- JacksonHamner
  Community Member
  9 years ago
  
  Ryan Granville
  
  As I said above I used your code Jackson and it worked great. But do you have an idea on how I could use the built-in pause control to have the music pause as well? (with your code only the slides pause when user click on the built in pause button but not the music).
  
  Thanks in advance!! Ryan
  
  I don't think there is a way to add a trigger to the player's play/pause button. The only way to have both actions triggered with the same button is to make a custom button for it. What would probably work is to have a button that has the trigger "Pause timeline when user clicks" as well as a "Execute Javascript when user clicks" trigger.You would want the javascript to mute the music (I haven't found a good way to pause audio for real), so this code should work:
  
  var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong');
  audio.volume = 0.0;
  
  And when you want it to play again have the button execute another script that sets the volume back to normal:
  
  var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong');
  audio.volume = 1.0;
  
  Here is a topic about making a custom play/pause button. Just add the scripts to the button triggers and it should work. https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/pause-play-button-question
  
  Let me know if you run into any problems, I hope this helps!
LeslieMcKerchie
Staff
9 years ago
Hi Ryan!

I'm sure that Jackson is probably still subscribed to this thread, but if you do not hear back soon, you may want to utilize the 'Contact Me' option on his user profile to reach out directly. Good luck with your project.
RyanGranville
Community Member
9 years ago
Thanks a lot for your answer Jackson! Your solution would provide a great workaround which I could indeed implement if I did not need the seekbar. As I need it and there is no way(that I know of?) to have only the seekbar without the play/pause button I would prefer not to have 2 play/pause button.
ChristiePollick
Community Member
9 years ago
Glad you found the answers you needed, Ryan!

I also wanted to stop in to note for anyone who is considering using JS as an option and may not already be aware, unfortunately, we are not able to provide support for JavaScript coding.

Luckily, we have lots of community members like Jackson and others who are more than willing to share their expertise to assist! And here is a sheet on JavaScript Best Practices for those who'd like to check it out. :)
JacksonHamner
Community Member
9 years ago
Yeah other than having 2 buttons or sacrificing the seekbar I don't know how else you could implement this. Maybe somebody from the community has a better idea of how to get that working?

Sorry I couldn't help more, good luck on your project!
BelenTallon-862
Community Member
9 years ago
Brilliant! It worked great for me.

Many thanks for sharing.
VirakYang
Community Member
9 years ago
This is a really brilliant demo, Jackson. Thank heaps.

But I have a project that will have the sound of Guitar, paino and vocal on the same slide. I want them to play together. But how can I use Jackson's script to adjust the volume of each audio?

var audio = document.getElementById('bgSong'); audio.volume = 0.0;

I've never coded, so I don't really know how to make this work

Any help would be much appreciated?

Thanks,

Virak
ChristiePollick
Community Member
9 years ago
Hi, Virak -- Thanks for reaching out and while I am not able to assist you with coding, you are welcome to reach out to Jackson directly via the 'Contact Me' link on his profile page in the event that he is no longer subscribed here.

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