Storyline 360: Changing the Browser Settings and Player Size

Want your published course to open in a new browser window when learners view it? Storyline 360 has an option for that. You can even choose how the new window looks and behaves on desktop computers.

Go to the Home tab on the ribbon and click Player. When the player properties appear, click Other on the ribbon. Then, customize the browser settings as described below.

• Launching Your Course in a New Window
• Choosing the Player Size
• Calculating the Dimensions of Your Published Course
• Saving Player Changes

Launching the Course in a New Window

You can launch your course in a new browser window or a new browser tab on mobile devices. This might be necessary if your course has exit triggers. Modern web browsers have security restrictions that prevent windows or tabs from closing themselves unless they were opened from another page. (Note that many LMSs automatically open courses in new windows, so you might not need to use this Storyline 360 option.)

In your player properties, mark the box to Launch player in new window (creates launch page). This adds a launcher.html file to your published output. Give learners a link to the launcher.html file rather than the default story.html file.

When you launch a course in a new browser window, you also get to decide how the new window behaves on desktop computers. Choose from the following options. These options don’t apply to tablets and smartphones.

• Display window with no browser controls: Mark this box to display the new window without any browser controls. It'll have an address bar, but it won’t be editable. Uncheck this box to give the new browser window the same controls as the parent window.
• Allow learners to resize browser: Mark this box to let learners resize the browser window as they choose. Uncheck it to lock the browser at the slide size to fit your course.
• Browser Size: Choose to open the new browser window at slide size or let it fill the screen on desktop computers. On mobile devices, the browser always fills the screen.

Choosing the Player Size

If you're using the modern player style, select one of these options from the Player size drop-down list. 

• Scale player to fill browser: This is the default option. It scales your published course to fill the learner’s browser, leaving no white space around the player.
• Lock player size: This locks the published course at the slide size plus additional width and height for the player frame and features (reference the table below). Even if learners resize their browsers, the course stays at the slide size.
• Lock player size to fit browser: This scales your published course to fit within the learner’s browser while maintaining the modern player’s aspect ratio. This results in some white space around the player.

If you’re using the classic player style, select one of these options from the Player size drop-down list.

• Lock player size: This locks the published course at the slide size plus additional width and height for the player frame and features (reference the table below). Even if learners resize their browsers, the course stays at the slide size.
• Lock player size to fit browser: This scales your published course to fit within the learner’s browser while maintaining the classic player’s aspect ratio. This results in some white space around the player.

Calculating the Dimensions of Your Published Course

The overall size of your published course is slightly bigger than your slide dimensions. The player adds up to 260 pixels to the width and up to 118 pixels to the height, depending on the player features you selected. Refer to the table below for details. 

For the modern player, features have the pixel sizes below when the browser is set to optimal size. These dimensions can change as the modern player responds to different browser sizes.

 Tips:

• You can turn player features on and off on a slide-by-slide basis, but each player feature adds width or height to your entire course, even if it’s only used on a single slide.
• The modern player with menus and controls turned off won’t add any width or height to your course.

Here’s an example: Let’s say your slide size is 720 x 405, and you enable the navigation buttons and sidebar. The overall dimensions of your published course are 980 x 476. This is also known as the optimal size of your course. Here’s the breakdown:

Saving Player Changes

When you click OK to close the Player Properties window, Storyline 360 saves your changes in the current project file.

If you'd like to use the same customizations in other projects, click Current Player on the ribbon and choose Save. Enter a name for your custom player if you're prompted and click OK.

Learn more about the Current Player options.

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Interactive Demo: Which classic player features are supported on tablets and smartphones?