Disabling Background Music

I never noticed this specific behavior until looking into this request today. As discussed, everything would be straightforward if stopping and playing background audio via standard triggers worked as expected. However, Storyline has a limitation: stopping the background audio via a trigger does not update the player’s "Background Audio" switch to "Off," leaving the UI out of sync.

While it is easy to turn the switch off visually (with JS), the real challenge is restarting the audio without a significant delay. If the audio is disabled by default before it can buffer, the engine unloads the file, causing a lag when the user eventually toggles it back on.

I won’t go too deep into the technical details of why this happens or how the Storyline engine handles background audio. The idea is to execute a custom script once the timeline reaches 0.75 seconds. This provides just enough time for the audio to fully load and "prime" in the background. Depending on your specific audio track, you might hear a very brief glimpse of sound (less than a second) before the script silences it and resets the UI (attached story file, 177).

So the switch button starts in the "Off" position, but can be turned back on at any time with zero delay. If you find the initial split-second of sound distracting, a simple fix is to insert one second of silence at the very beginning of your background audio file.

If I were building your project, I would create my own background audio on the Slide Master, loop it, and control it through a custom interface that may or may not resemble the one in Storyline. I believe I already have a post about this approach. Alternatively, you could hide the background audio toggle from the Accessibility controls and manage playback using built-in triggers controlled by a switch (button) with "Normal" and "Selected" states (attached story file, 178).

Silverfire​: That's exactly what I was thinking about when I posted the link to the User Guide article, which includes info about triggers to pause and play background audio.

After Ushur​'s reply, though, I tested it. Yes, a trigger pauses the background audio. Unfortunately, in my testing, when the trigger paused the background audio, the button in Accessibility didn't toggle to the off position. And toggling it no longer worked to turn the audio on and off. 

That's why I suggested submitting a feature request. Or perhaps a bug report would be better, since any trigger that turns the background audio on or off should be tied to the background-audio button in the Accessibility controls. 

You can stop and start the background audio via triggers (see here). I'd stop the background audio on your first slide when it begins, and then just hook the start background audio trigger to whatever button you want. I haven't tested this, so it may not be exactly what you need, but I'd try it. 

At this time, there's no built-in way to have the background audio default to not playing when a course opens. 

• I assume that could be done with JavaScript. 
• You can submit a feature request here: Product feature request | Articulate . (That doesn't guarantee the feature will be added, but it helps to let Articulate know what folks are interested in.) 

Personally, I suggest you delete background audio completely, since adding unrelated sensory input increases cognitive load. If someone really wants to listen to music when taking a course, they can listen to their own playlist from another source.

Thank you for sharing this, Judy. I’ve gone through the documentation, and my requirement is slightly different from what’s currently supported.

What I’m looking for is more of a feature enhancement—one that allows the course designer to have background music turned off by default when the course launches, and then gives learners the option to turn it on later using the player controls, if they choose to.

With the current functionality, adding background music to a course causes it to play by default, with learners having the option to turn it off from the player. I’m essentially looking for the reverse behavior of this feature.

Please let me know if this is possible or if there’s an alternative approach to achieve this.

Thanks again for your support!!

The User Guide has instructions for controlling background audio: 

https://www.articulatesupport.com/article/Storyline-360-Background-Audio