Forum Discussion
Various glitches occurring in Storyline - Does anyone encounter these issues?
Hi everyone,
I've been working in eLearning for over 15 years. I've used Director, Macromedia, Adobe Flash, iSpring, Captivate, Rise, Storyline, Lectora....all of them. They all have some pros and cons, and some are easier to use than others, as I'm sure you are all well aware of.
The industry of client base seems to regard Storyline 360 as the "leader" authoring tool. This past year, I've been using Storyline more than any other authoring tool, due to client requirements.
I will admit that Storyline has come a long way from their 1.0 version. But, I find myself perplexed/frustrated at how many random glitches still exist in this authoring tool.
Also, will we ever get a 64 bit version? For heavier projects, sometimes you encounter the dreaded STORYLINE LAG - too many layers on one slide? Everything gets a delayed response time and reduces your efficiency to a crawl.
We just completed a project of 11 45-60 minute modules in 7 months, and these are some of the bugs that kept coming up. I'm curious to know if any of you experience the same issues, or anything similar. Maybe we're just pushing Storyline too far?
If no one else experiences these glitches, maybe we need to tone down our work. These issues just eat away at our development time and puts extra stress on QA checklists.
- Bullets in transcript? No problem with the white player
- Black player? You must select and turn all bullets white or they do not all appear - but the font is automatically white
- 32 bit version seems to cap out on memory sometimes, and, in heavier projects, sometimes pressing UNDO will...undo more than 1 thing. Guess what changed? Who knows?
- Copying elements from 1 storyline slide to another will sometimes increase the stroke size. Sometimes, in buttons, only some states will grow their strokes randomly, making this issue inconsistent
- Sometimes regular button states don't trigger normally their visited state unless your mouse hovers off and goes back on - have to force changing states on some buttons, but not all.
- Updating quiz question text in either form view or design view will sometimes not update all states and you have to manually check them all to make sure
- Alignment issues. Depending on your resolution, it is difficult to pixel perfect align shapes together. It can be fine on some monitors, and look off on others. This causes an extra loop of client feedback where they point out things are not aligned for their monitors, but they are for ours. We guess, nudge things, republish, until it looks off for us, but good for them
- Aligning elements together. Have a stroke on a separate layer? Try to align it to its image, it is very difficult to ensure alignment across multiple shapes on multiple layers
- Copy pasting grouped objects, from one slide or layer to another, some items in the group will move just slightly so they'll look unaligned across layers
- sometimes moving or copying items in the timeline causes the timeline to double (and if you do it to multiple objects at the same time, the timeline that was 20 seconds can increase to 800 seconds, which you then have to adjust manually)
Hi everyone!
I'm happy to share that today we just shipped 64-bit Storyline 360!
To use 64-bit Storyline 360, make sure to update your Articulate 360 desktop app, then click the Install button next to the Storyline 360 app with the 64-bit and beta labels. The Install button will change to an Open button when the installation is complete.
Since this version is in beta, we'd love for you to test it out and share your feedback and experience with us by replying to this discussion.
I feel your pain and could add my own laundry list of items that drive me insane (and sometimes tears): Font sizes that are the same but display differently when published; the states in quizzes, yes, freaky and random differences requiring manual check and changes on all states, (in fact, knowing I have to set up custom quizzes makes me sick to my stomach... I know it will be a nightmare.) Also button weirdnesses, audio doubling when applying closed captions. Oh, and images that become unselectable after they've been changed to a hidden state. Copying and pasting using keyboard shortcuts? Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I also can't get a grip on why there is not a MAC-native version when even Powerpoint gives us that. I could go on.
And yes, I've uninstalled/reinstalled (that's a weekly thing by the way), work locally, done the naming conventions, reduced file sizes, etc. I still greet each day with Storyline not sure how predictable my day will be or whether I can make deadlines I've committed to. This is my most expensive application (by alot), and by far the one that gives me the most headaches.
I've been working with Storyline 360 for almost 3 years, and I should say that when it's working well, I LOVE it. It's FUN. And tech support is good and gets back to me quickly. But the technical problems are real, in my opinion, and I don't understand why Articulate is not more worried about the frustration that gets poured into the forums. I've come to the conclusion that until they have real competition breathing down their necks (hello, Adobe?), these kinds of technical problems will persist. As far as I can tell, they've weighed the cost against the bottom line and decided that they can live with the grumbling.
Hi everyone!
I'm happy to share that today we just shipped 64-bit Storyline 360!
To use 64-bit Storyline 360, make sure to update your Articulate 360 desktop app, then click the Install button next to the Storyline 360 app with the 64-bit and beta labels. The Install button will change to an Open button when the installation is complete.
Since this version is in beta, we'd love for you to test it out and share your feedback and experience with us by replying to this discussion.
Thanks for sharing. I definitely feel your pain.
Yeah...if my clients do not require Popup gating or button states, I use iSpring 99% of the time because it is so much easier, quicker, and less finnicky for bugs, alignment issues, image quality, and all of that.
It's best to charge more when you work in Storyline compared to iSpring as there is extra time you have to think of for the random checks everywhere, alignment issues, and all of that Storyline nonsense
Adobe has a tool, Captivate, but it is also not the best. It's a shame that we are bottlenecked this way in the eLearning community.
A 64-bit software that can do more would be a blessing.Hello Michael,
I appreciate you taking the time to share items you are encountering issues with.
I want to take an opportunity to address these items:
- 64-bit version
We are tracking this feature request, and I've added this conversation and your thoughts to our report. - Bullets
Your player properties control the default text color for slide notes. Is your theme color set to white for Text/Background - Dark 1? - Button Triggers
It sounds like you may have the visited state triggered by hover. Since the built-in states have inherent properties, I'd recommend using a custom state for this behavior. - Aligning elements across layers
Did you know you can hide layers as you're working? Showing, Hiding, and Dimming Layers in the Editor - Copy/Paste grouped objects shift
If you want to paste an item in the exact same place, press CTRL +C to copy it and then press CTRL+Shift+D.
For the following items, I do not fully understand what you're reporting:
- Moving/copy/paste items in timeline increase timeline
- Copy/Paste buttons - stroke size
- Quiz question text/states
If you're able to include a .story sample slide and the steps to replicate, that would be helpful. You can share this privately with our support team here.
- 64-bit version
Hi Carol,
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts as well, and I wanted to address the additional items you've shared as well.
- MAC version
There isn't a native Mac version of Storyline on our roadmap. Most of our customers use Windows and web-based authoring tools that don't depend on a particular operating system. And we're focused on developing features that have the broadest impact.
I am unable to replicate these issues:
- The font displays differently when published
- Audio doubling when adding closed captions
- Hidden state on images
- Copy/paste using keyboard
For the following items, I do not fully understand what you're reporting:
- States in quizzes
- Button weirdness
If you're able to include a .story sample slide and the steps to replicate for the ones I could not duplicate or the ones I did not understand, that would be helpful. You can share this privately with our support team here.
- MAC version
Thank you Leslie, I appreciate the response! The built-in states in quiz slides have been an ongoing source of frustration, I submitted a case on it a year ago, and I will share another file as it has happened regularly since and again today.
The other issues have been submitted to support from time to time, and usually the file/image/font/slide is corrupted and/or I need to uninstall and reinstall the apps. Which I do, and that usually takes care of it. Maybe being the outlier on a Mac makes my files more susceptible?
Thanks again for your help, and I'll just reiterate that the support team is awesome and super responsive.
Hello Carol!
I see that you've connected with our Support Engineers and are working with my teammate, Jose. You're in great hands! We'll continue working in your support case so that we have all of the details in one spot.
Also, thank you for your kind words about our Support Team! It means so much!
Yep, I'm all squared away. When this happens, the suggested fix is to delete all the problem states and add them back. Thanks!
The fix I've found for having to manually change the states of each answer is to ensure that it is not initially marked as a correct answer. If it is, it will have differing colors and margins. If it is not marked as a correct option, it usually does not cause this issue.
If you forget to leave it unchecked first and the margins and/or colors are applied incorrectly, it has been my experience (most of the time) that changing the colors and margins on the rollover state should fix such issues on the other states (down, disabled, and selected). On rare occasions, ALL of them have to be touched to fix these details.
The one property that seems to subvert me every time, though, is the text size of the answers. No matter how many times I try to configure the masters to use size 14, it applies 16, especially if I have to add a correct/incorrect answer later on.
Hi Paul,
Thanks for reaching out and I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing this issue with font size. If you're willing to share your file with us, I'd be happy to take a closer look to see what's going on. You can upload it here or share it privately in a support case. We'll delete it from our systems once troubleshooting is complete!
