How to assign the value of a textbox to a variable

Sep 12, 2013

I have a textbox which has references to several individual variables. I would like to move the aggregated value of this textbox (combination of values of several variables) into another variable when the timeline ends.

Can I assign textbox value to variable?

8 Replies
Ron San

I have a vairables called FirstName with a value of "John"

I have a vairables called LastName with a value of "Doe"

I have a textbox on a slide called NameValue. I have added reference of %FirstName%, %LastName% inside this textbox and hence it displays "John, Doe" on the screen.

I want to assign the value displayed by this textbox to a third variable called FullName.

Is there a way to do it?

I hope this clarifies.

Chris Rogers

Is there a way to do this with plain text boxes instead of text entry boxes? I have some text variables that are very lengthy and cumbersome to edit in the variable manager window. What I would like to do is create a slide with a series of text boxes where the developer could edit those as needed, then when the class is published and run, it assigns each of those text boxes to a text variable. The slide would never be displayed to the learner; it's just a housekeeping mechanism for the developer. I just can't figure out the trigger to do this, nor can I figure out how to reference the value of a text box. If anyone has ideas, I would appreciate your shared insights.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Chris,

I don't believe there is a way to reference the value of the stand alone text box, as it's not created as a variable. You could use variables that are not in a text entry box and set them yourself as the developer, and then use that reference within the text boxes you want your users to see. 

If this isn't what you're looking for, maybe you could share a bit more information here so that our community could weigh in with other ideas. 

Chris Rogers

Thanks, Ashley. Here's another take on the description.

I am trying to reference text in a text box that is a bit lengthy—explaining a step in a process—and changes from time to time. Lengthy text is difficult to edit in a scrolling text box, and even more difficult in the dialog box where we define and edit variables. It's a bit like looking at an elephant through a peep hole; you need a larger view to read and revise that much text (or that much mammal). So the idea is to build some "sand box" slides that the learner would never see, serving the sole purpose of giving the developer a large space to manage the text. Then on the slides to present to the learner, you would use variable references to present the text in scrolling text boxes.

Honestly, the developer can get by with just putting the text directly into the scrolling text boxes. To get the same benefit described above, he can just copy the text from a scrolling box, paste the text into Word, read and make revisions there, then copy/paste it back into the scrolling box. I was just looking for an alternate method that would keep it all within Storyline. But from what I read in E-learning Heroes, it's sounding like references to the contents of a text box can't be done.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Chris, 

Great analogy - elephant and a peep hole. :) 

You can't reference a standard text box, but you could set a reference to equal some text, which would than be used in the text box. Again, as you mentioned it may be just as easy to edit in the box itself or by starting out with a word document. This one's a bit outside my wheelhouse in terms of being more designer focused (I'm on the support team) so hopefully someone in the community will pop in and share what they've done if it's something similar that could assist. 

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