Remove course cover page?

May 21, 2019

Is there a way to remove the cover page altogether?  I'm referring to the first page you see with the Start Course button, Details link, and content areas listed below.  When my learner clicks to view the course, I want it to open directly to the first lesson.  

135 Replies
Rise 0
Tim Danes

I got all excited thinking that the new theme feature would finally resolve this problem.  I was sadly mistaken. 
I second Erica.  The LMS user experience makes Rise look like a 2nd rate plugin on launch. 
The only viable options are to run the course page in Rise (bad SEO and a blank page in the LMS), or double up the pages.  That's really bad UX design.

I agree, i had to use a Storyline block in separate module that links to a page that bypasses the rise first page to get around the "first page" problem. This only works for share links.
But would probably not be that hard to give the option of a storyline based (do anything)  starter page? Basically it would be to have an option with a page with a storyline block set as starter page. That should satisfy just about any needs, provided they work in storyline of course..and to complement that "solution", offer some nice editable , templates for this specific purpose.

TAFE Queensland

We are using Rise to build micro-lessons so that the learners can more easily access specific information in the future when they need it. The cover page is a bit of an "over-kill' for short modules and it kills the continuity of moving from one to another.
The alternative would be the ability to link to specific parts of a larger module, but this is currently not possible either.

Tim Danes

It's a shame that @Joseph Suarez removed his comment.  It was very valid. 

We're getting pretty large organisations/institutes responding in this thread.  We have new themes with new options.  It doesn't feel like a big stretch to offer this option (fully understanding it might need a little bit of brain energy to figure out how to get around the front-page 'launch' element of the package). 

I've also noticed Articulate Staff have stopped contributing to this thread (it's been going on way too long).  For me, that's telling me it's dropping off radar and our +1's are in vain. 

My strategy from here on out is:
1. Continue to get notifications for this thread
2. Every time I get a notification (within reason), plus 1 the idea
3. Re-submit a ticket at the Feature Request portal:  https://articulate.com/support/contact/feature-request
4. Tag this thread as the source. 

That way it will keep coming up in their Feature Requests.  Just a thought :)

Emma Chapman

I found this on another thread, have not tried it yet, but perhaps it will work. Posted 5 years ago(!) (here's the thread)

I found the answer I was looking for... After publishing, you can edit the indexAPI.html file with the starting page of your choice. 

  1. First you'll need the URL of the page you'd like to start on. Unzip the exported course and in the "scormcontent" folder, open "index.html" in your browser.
  2. Navigate to the page you want and copy the URL after "index.html#". Should look something like:  file:///C:/Users/User/Documents/TrainingPackage/scormcontent/index.html#/lessons/-abcdefghijklmnops?_k=xyzmp30 
  3. Go back to the unzipped course files, in the "scormdriver" folder, open "indexAPI.html" with Notepad++
  4. Search for "StrContentLesson" and find the line: strContentLocation = "../scormcontent/index.html#/preview";
  5. In the indexAPI.html file, replace "preview" with the URL of the page you'd like to start on: 
    strContentLocation = "../scormcontent/index.html#/lessons/-abcdefghijklmnops?_k=xyzmp30";
  6. Save the indexAPI. html file.
  7. Rezip the files and you're good to go!
Josh Olsen

Hey Emma 👋

That should work. I’m using something almost identical in one of my projects: Way to bypass the starting page?

The one thing I’d be careful with is the lesson ID - the part after index.html#/. It shouldn’t need the ?_k=… part.

Including that may cause an error, or it may be okay.