Storyline 360: Changing the Browser Settings and Player Size

Do you want your published course to open in a new browser window when learners view it? Storyline 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 Storyline 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 (Classic Player Only)
• 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 option.)

In your player properties, mark the box to Launch player in new window. 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 optimal size to fit your course.
  
  The optimal size is your slide size plus additional width and height for the player frame. The player frame can add up to 260 pixels to the width of your course and up to 118 pixels to the height, depending on the features you selected. See below for details.
• Browser Size: Choose to open the new browser window at optimal size or let it fill the screen on desktop computers. (On mobile devices, the browser always fills the screen.)
  
  The optimal size is your slide size plus additional width and height for the player frame. The player frame can add up to 260 pixels to the width of your course and up to 118 pixels to the height, depending on the features you selected. See below for details.

Choosing the Player Size (Classic Player Only)

If you’re using the classic player style, you can control the size of your course on desktop computers. (On mobile devices, the classic player appears as a bar along the side or bottom of the screen.) Select one of these options from the Player size drop-down list.

• Scale player to fill browser window: This scales your published course to fill the learner's browser while maintaining the classic player’s aspect ratio, which means there will be some white space around the player. (In comparison, the modern player always completely fills the learner’s browser, leaving no white space around the player.)
• Lock player at optimal size: This is the default option. It locks the published course at its optimal size, which is the slide size plus additional width and height for the player frame. Even if learners resize their browsers, the course itself stays at its optimal size.
  
  The player frame adds between 20 and 260 pixels to the width of your course and between 20 and 118 pixels to the height, depending on the player features you selected (see below).

Calculating the Dimensions of Your Published Course

The overall size of your published course is a little 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. See the following table 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.)

Note that you can enable and disable player features 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 style with menus and controls turned off doesn'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 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.

To learn more about the Current Player options, see this user guide.

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