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Storyline 3: Working with Buttons

Add interactivity to your courses with ready-made push buttons. Customize their appearance to fit your course design and add triggers to control their actions.

Adding Buttons

  1. Go to the slide or layer where you want to add a button, then go to the Insert tab on the ribbon.
  2. Click Button and choose one of the button styles.
  3. Draw your button on the slide.

Adding Text to Buttons

There’s no need to create a separate text box to add text to a button. Just select the button and start typing. The text becomes part of the button object. (You may need to resize the button to accommodate the text.)

To change the font and paragraph settings, select the button and use the options on the Home tab. (Learn more about formatting text.)

To change the alignment, autofit behavior, and margins, right-click the button, choose Format Shape, and select the Text Box tab. (Learn more about formatting text boxes.)

Renaming Buttons

Storyline gives each button a default name: Button 1, Button 2, etc. We recommend giving them more intuitive names, so they're recognizable when adding triggers and creating freeform interactions.

One way to rename a button is to right-click it, select Rename, enter a new name, and click OK.

Another way is to double-click the button in the timeline to open it for editing, enter a new name, and press Enter on your keyboard.

Formatting Buttons

Formatting buttons is a snap. Select a button and go to the Format tab on the ribbon. You can change the button’s style, colors, and effects. You can even add an icon.

The colors available on the Format tab come from your theme colors.

Working with Button States

Buttons have several built-in states that change the way they look when learners hover over them, click them, or otherwise interact with them.

By default, buttons have Normal, Hover, Down, Visited, and Disabled states. You can modify any of these built-in states and even create your own custom states. See this user guide for details.

Making Buttons Work

Use Storyline’s interactivity tools to make buttons work. Here are some things you can do:

Add a trigger

Triggers perform actions based on learner interaction.

For example, you might use a button to show a layer, play a video, or adjust a variable. These and many other actions can be handled with triggers.

See this user guide to learn about triggers.

Convert to freeform interaction

You can use buttons as choices in an interaction. Just convert the slide to a freeform interaction, such as a multiple-choice or multiple-response activity.

You can even score the interaction and display customized feedback.

To learn more about converting slides to freeform interactions, see this user guide.

Create a button set

If you add more than one button to a slide and you want learners to select only one at a time, add them to a button set.

Button sets force objects to behave like radio buttons—i.e., when a learner selects one button from the set, the others automatically become deselected.

You can even have multiple button sets on a single slide.

See this user guide for details.

Changing the Default Button Characteristics

If you customize the look of a button and want those same attributes to apply to all new buttons in the same Storyline project, right-click the button and choose Set as Default Button.

Deleting Buttons

To delete a button, select it on the slide or in the timeline, then click Delete on your keyboard.

Published 8 years ago
Version 1.0
storyline 360
Tutorial
User Guide