Top 5 Storyline Timesavers

One of the things I love about Storyline is all the built-in time-saving features.  They're not all obvious, but once you find them, they save you tons of time.  Here are my top 5 favorite time-savers.

1.  The Quick Access Toolbar

Though this isn't specific only to Storyline, this toolbar is seriously powerful-several of the ribbon buttons can be added to the quick access toolbar.  Add your most-used buttons and save yourself a few clicks each time you need to use them.  Just right click the button and choose 'Add to quick access toolbar'.  Not all buttons can be added to the quick access toolbar.  

Here's what my quick access toolbar looks like:

My Quick Access Toolbar

 

2.  Title, Title, Title!  

Give every slide and every object a descriptive name...just double-click the slide name or object on the timeline and type a name--you'll be thankful you did when you you need to work with your menu, triggers, interactions, or assessments.  Especially when you've been away from your course for some time, or in those situations when someone else needs to take a look under the hood.  On assessments--it's sometimes helpful to indicate the correct answer object (with a 'C' or something after the name) and/or the point value (if your answers have varying point values).

 3.  Use keyboard shortcuts.

Keyboard shortcuts provide fast access to several Storyline features.  My favorites are F3, F4, & F5.  F5 jumps you to the Feedback Master View; F4 jumps you to the Slide Master View, and F3 jumps you back to the Slide View.

Here's Jeanette's full list of Storyline's keyboard shortcuts. 

4.  Use the player 'Menu' option as a review tool.

The 'Number entries in the menu automatically' option.

Like all of you, we need to have our courses reviewed.  99% of our courses do NOT use the Menu feature on the live course, but it's super helpful when completing the review process with your stakeholders/SME's.  We typically change the 'Menu' title to 'Review Menu' (using the Player 'options' feature to rename 'Menu') and enable the automatic numbering option.  We then uncheck 'Menu' on the player before we publish.  

Using the Menu feature for review gives the reviewer total access to the course--they use the course navigation (Prev/Next), but if they have questions, they can jump anywhere they want using the menu.  Your Menu will have a slide number (if you enabled this) and, if you followed tip number 2, your Menu will have descriptive slide title.  SME's/reviewers can easily make reference to the number or slide name.  Whew.  Saves a LOT of time trying to figure out which slide they're referring to!

5.  Duplicate slides/triggers/etc.

One of the neatest tricks yet is the ability to duplicate (or copy) slides, triggers, objects, layers, etc.  I copy triggers a lot..once they're copied, you can paste them to any object and just change the action as needed.  Likewise, duplicating/copying layers and slides can save tons of time if you only need to make minor changes.


There's my top 5.  What are your favorite timesavers?