Storyline 360: Using Story View

Storyline 360 uses a hierarchical structure of scenes, slides, and layers to organize content. Scenes are the largest organizational units. Each scene contains one or more slides. And each slide can have multiple layers.

Story View gives you a big-picture view of your entire project. It's where you manage scenes and the layout of your course.

• Switching to Story View
• Working with Scenes
• Working with Slides
• Changing the Navigation Order of Scenes and Slides
• Managing Question Banks
• Undocking and Redocking Panels

Switching to Story View

Storyline 360 initially opens in Story View. At any time thereafter, you can switch to Story View by clicking the Story View button in the lower right corner of the screen (near the zoom slider).

Another option is to go to the View tab on the ribbon and click Story View.

If you're in Slide View, you can also click the Story View tab just below the ribbon.

Working with Scenes

Every Storyline 360 project has at least one scene. Story View is where you manage scenes, including adding scenes, deleting scenes, and rearranging the slides that appear in those scenes.

Setting the starting scene:

The starting scene is the first scene learners see when they launch your course. In Story View, the starting scene is identified with a small red flag next to its title. To designate a different scene as the starting scene, do either of the following:

• Select the scene, go to the Home tab on the ribbon, and click Starting Scene.
• Right-click the scene and choose Starting Scene.

Adding scenes:

To add new scenes to your course, do any of the following:

• Go to the Home tab on the ribbon and click New Scene.
• Right-click anywhere in the workspace and choose New Scene.
• Duplicate an existing scene (and all its slides) by selecting the scene and pressing Ctrl+D, or by right-clicking the scene and choosing Duplicate.

Renaming scenes:

Titles appear at the top of each scene. By default, each is called Untitled Scene, but you can change it by doing either of the following:

• Double-click the title to open it for editing, type the new name, and press Enter on your keyboard.
• Right-click the scene and choose Rename. Type the new name and press Enter on your keyboard.

Storyline 360 displays scene titles in your course menu. You can remove and rename scene titles in the menu without affecting the scenes in Story View. View this tutorial for details.

Renumbering Scenes:

You can display scenes in the order you want. In Story View, select a scene and click the Index drop-down arrow to change the number. Storyline 360 then instantly renumbers the scenes.

Tips:

• When you change a scene to the Starting Scene, it also changes the scene's index number to 1.
• On the other hand, if you change a scene's index number to 1, the Starting Scene flag remains on the original starting scene.
• When you change the index number of a scene in Story View, Storyline 360 also updates the order in the player menu (unless you've already customized the player menu). Conversely, updating the scene order in the player menu won't change the order in Story View.

Deleting scenes:

To delete a scene (and all its slides) from your project, do either of the following:

• Select the scene and press Delete on your keyboard.
• Right-click the scene and choose Delete.

Collapsing and expanding scenes:

By default, Story View displays a thumbnail image for every slide in your course. If you have a large course with lots of slides, it can be helpful to collapse scenes to get a better picture of your course layout.

To collapse a scene, click the triangle in the upper right corner of the scene. To collapse all scenes at once, right-click anywhere in the workspace and choose Collapse All Scenes.

To expand a scene, click the triangle in the upper right corner of the scene. To expand all scenes at once, right-click anywhere in the workspace and choose Expand All Scenes.

Moving slides between scenes:

You can move slides from one scene to another to better organize your content and change navigation. Just select one or more slides in a scene, then drag them to a different scene.

In Story View, lines and arrows indicate the relationship between slides and scenes. Use triggers to customize navigation and create branched scenarios. View the section on changing the navigation order later in this tutorial for details.

Working with Slides

Most of the work involved in building slides will be done in Slide View, but Story View is great for organizing slides, adjusting slide properties, and controlling navigation.

Adding slides:

To add a slide to your course in Story View, select the scene where you want it to appear, then do any of the following:

• Press Ctrl+M on your keyboard.
• Go to the Home tab on the ribbon, click the New Slide drop-down arrow, and choose a slide type.
• Go to the Slides tab and choose a slide type.
• Right-click the scene, scroll to New Slide, and choose a slide type.
• Duplicate an existing slide by going to the Home tab and clicking Duplicate.
• Go to the Home tab and click Record Screen to insert a screencast.

To learn more about the different types of slides you can create, view Adding New Slides.

Renaming slides:

Titles appear below each slide. By default, each slide is either called Untitled Slide or uses the text from the title text box on the slide itself. You can change a slide title in Story View by doing either of the following (without changing the actual text on the slide):

• Double-click the title to open it for editing, type the new name, and press Enter on your keyboard.
• Right-click the slide and choose Rename. Type the new name and press Enter on your keyboard.

Storyline 360 displays slide titles in your course menu. You can remove and rename slide titles in the menu without affecting the text on the slides or the slide titles in Story View. View this tutorial for details.

Rearranging slides:

To rearrange slides, just click and drag them to a new location. When you drag a slide, a small blue arrow will show you where the slide will be inserted. Release your mouse button to drop it into place.

You can also use Shift+Click and Ctrl+Click to select multiple slides at the same time to move them as a group. Slides can be rearranged within the same scene or moved to different scenes.

Editing slides:

For most slide-specific tasks, you'll switch to Slide View, but some edits can be made in Story View.

 

Changing the Navigation Order of Scenes and Slides

By default, scenes and slides follow a linear order, but you can add branching with triggers. To branch from one scene to another, click the chain link icon at the bottom of the scene, then choose Link to Slide or Link to Scene.

To branch from one slide to another, select the slide and double-click the Jump to next slide trigger in the Triggers panel. When the Trigger Wizard appears, select the slide to which you want to branch and click OK.

Managing Question Banks

A question bank is a group of questions from which you draw slides to create dynamic quizzes throughout your course.

A question draw is a special slide in your course that pulls questions from a bank when the learner reaches the slide. A question draw can be a subset of questions from a bank or an entire bank, and it can even be randomized.

To manage question banks in Story View, go to the Home tab on the ribbon and click Question Banks. You can create a new draw from a question bank, create a new question bank, or manage existing question banks.

Existing question banks will also be listed by name. Every project has one question bank by default, called Question Bank 1, but you can add more.

For details, refer to the user guides about managing question banks and question draws.

Tip: You don't have to use question banks to create quizzes. If you prefer, you can add individual question slides directly to your course just like other slides. View Adding Form-Based Questions and Adding Freeform Questions.

Undocking and Redocking Panels

Here's a helpful tip: You can undock panels and move them to another monitor if you need more room to work. Just click the title of a panel—such as Triggers or Slide Properties—and drag it to a new location.

To redock a panel, click the Redock button in the panel's upper right corner.

To redock all panels at the same time, go to the View tab on the ribbon and click Redock All Windows.

To learn more about working with the Storyline 360 interface, view this user guide.