Creating a Help Button that Opens Larger Help Menu (Storyline 360)

Amy,

The problem is not getting to the help screens, it is getting back to the sending slide.

I created a Menu slide for the Process, and made it the starting Scene, so I could test the concept.

The idea is to lightbox the Main Help menu, and jump from there to the various help slides. then when you are ready to return, close the lightbox, and you will be on the original slide. Doing that means that the help slide is only almost full screen. The alternative is using a variable to keep track of the sending screen. Then to exit help, you need one trigger for each slide to jump to the sending slide, depending on the variable.

I put the help button on a new master layout titled Help Button. It looks just like the layout titled Blank. Use Blank for slides that don't need help, and the Help button layout for those that do. When clicked, it lightboxes the Main Help Menu. Any slide Main Help Menu jumps to remains in the lightbox. All the navigation within Help needs to be jumps for that to work. Then when the lightbox closer is clicked, the lightbox is closed, and so is any slide in it.

I found problems jumping from open layers, so I hid all layers when they are closed.

Within the Process scene, the Main Menu is the starting point. On it, Topic 1 is the only active button. From Topic 1, I created slide 1.2 and 1.4 with the Help layout, and 1.3 without.  To test, choose Topic 1, then on the two slides with the Help button, you can click it. It will go through the help tree, and bring you back to the starting slide if you choose the active branch. From Help Main, select Submenu 1, then on Sub menu 1, either Button 1 or 2. They will follow different paths. You will be on either Submenu 1 : Button 1 or Submenu 1 : Button 2. From there the right arrow will take you to the end of the branch. At any point using a created close option will back you up one step, except that at any time you can click the Lightbox X, which closes everything.

One other item. I find all those scenes confusing, and too many moving parts. I would put all the Help slides in one scene, for easy access and reference, especially since each scene has one slide. I realize the real project may be more complex, and you will do what you have to do. But if I were doing it, it would take a pretty big have to to force that many scenes. When possible, I try to jump to a slide, rather than a scene. I didn't try jumping to a scene, so don't know if that will work.

It was a fun challenge. Any questions, ask.