Thanks a very interesting instructional video! Very useful. Applied and it works, modified with 5% steps and also checked what difference there is between Menu.Progress and Project.Progress...apparently none. The reason I did this check, is cause I have tested what happens when one add a lightbox to a project of 20 slides (hence giving clean steps of 5%). And...it messes it up. Now the count goes up in an odd way. Slide 1 starts with 5%. OK. Then one click the Lightbox slide and it goes to 10%. But when back to the main scene Slide 2 now shows 14% which is really odd. After that it goes up by extra 5% to 19%, 24% etc. till 86%, then it goes back to a step of 4% to 90% and then resume to 5% steps with 95% and 100% final slide. So something is not working well here and it's an odd progression I cannot explain. It leads to the question....can some specific slides be excluded from the count? Say all the Cover slides (main or by section - in my courses normally there is one per each section) not be counted in the progress and only low-level slides (say normal, proper content slides) be counted? Or, can slides in different Scenes be excluded? (in my case, Lightbox slides are on a separate scene). One note, for future improvements. It took me a while to figure out how to insert the Menu.Progress Variable % text box in the main template (you assume everyone knows but... :-) ). Anyway, your video is the best out there! So thanks. Finally, should the state of the Variable Properties be set to Resume Saved State when Revisited? Or is this not making a difference? Thanks again Georg! You are a God send!
Hey Andrea, thanks for your awesome feedback. I love that you took the time to comment. And it makes me very proud, that you think this video is the best out there. You have posted a few interesting questions which I will try to answer: 1. Is there a difference between Menu.Progress and Project.Progress? Yes, absolutely! You will see the difference, if you delete a slide from your menu, but not from your project. Please try this by clicking on “Player” in the ribbon. Then in the Properties window, click on “Menu”, pick a slide and delete it. I was able to see the difference this made, when I put both variables as a reference in the slide master. Menu.Progress will count all the slides that are contained in the menu, whereas Project.Progress will count all slides in your project. 2. What is happening with the weird progression? I can only speculate, what is happening here, but I suspect, that when you add the lightbox slide, there might be 21 slides. Hence giving the following percentage steps: 4.76 , 9.52 , 14.28 , 19.04 , 23.80 , 28.56 … Assuming Storyline rounds the percentage, so that there are zero decimal places, this would explain why it is: 5%, 10%, 14%, 19%, 24%, 29% … 3. Can some specific slides be excluded from the count? Or, can slides in different Scenes be excluded? I got a very similar question in the Articulate Community. So will just paste my answer from there here, and hope this will help you: “Question: Just wondering if there is a way to get the progress bar to start counting from slide 2 instead of 1, so the home/introduction page isn't counted. Answer: i can think of to ways to achieve this: a. Using the variable Scene.Progress instead of Menu.Progress. Put the Home/intro page into one scene and all the other slides into a second scene. On the first slide the progess bar will be at 100%, but you can hide it, just by putting an object in front of the bar. On all the other slides the progress will be shown, just the way you described. b. Very similar: Using MenuSection.Progress instead of Menu.Progress. Put the Home/intro page into one scene, with no other slides in it. Go to Player → Menu. Here you will need two headings: The heading of the first scene and the heading of the second scene. All the other headings can be deleted (KEEP the item's children). Now you demote all the slides so that they are all lined up under the second heading. The Progress bar will now function the same way as described above. You just get to keep your scenes in storyline.” 4. Finally, should the state of the Variable Properties be set to Resume Saved State when Revisited? Or is this not making a difference? You mean the slide properties of the slides in the project? The project in the video uses the “automatically decide” option. But it really doesn’t matter with this implementation of the built-in variables. Please let me know if my answers were helpful! And thanks again for your kind words 😊
Thank you for this tutorial, Georg! Great help. Curious if It is possible for the progress bar to restart when the learner goes back to previous slides? Thanks in advance!
Thank you! I‘m not 100% sure, if I unterstand exactly what you’re trying to achieve. Do you want the progress bar to go back to zero, once the learner revisits slides, or do you want the progress bar to be set back according to the position of the slide that is revisited, example: 10 slides in your course, you go back from slide 6 (progress bar at 60%) to slide 4 and the progress bar goes back to 40%?
No worries :) Yes this is possible. But not as easy as with the progress bar shown in the video. Since there is no built-in variable that always gives you the current position in relation to all slides in your menu, you will have to create your own location-variable. Set up a new numeric variable (give it a name like "location"). Then in the slide master, you need to first set the location-variable to the value of the built-in variable Menu.SlideNumber (this will be your first trigger in the trigger panel of the first slide in your master). Then create a second trigger that divides your location-variable by Menu.TotalSlides. Now your location-variable will have a value between 0 and 1.0, according to where you are. Now you have to change the triggers, that change the state of your Progress bar (10% step, 20%, 30%...), so that the condition refers to your location variable and change the values refered to in the condition, for example 10%: location variable needs to be greater than or equal 0.1 and less than 0.2. Please let me know if this is helpful.
I replied to your other comment on this video, but i'm not sure if you caught that. So i'll just post my answer here again: There are two reasons for this i can think of: 1. Slides that don't show the progress bar may not have the same Slide Master applied. You can check this by right-clicking the slide thumbnail in the Scene Selector or in Story View and then clicking on "Apply Layout". Here you will see which Layout and Slide Saster is applied to your slide. Make sure it's the Slide Master you created your progress bar in. 2. There are objects on the slide that are in front of the progress bar. Since the progress bar is part of the slide master, it will only shine through on your slide if there isn't anything on your slide in the area where the progress bar is supposed to be. If there is something in the way, you could try croping these objects.
I think this slight fade is also visible in the video, when I’m setting up the 10% step. But I’m not seeing it at the end of the video, when I preview. I have just tried it in storyline, with the same result, fade is visible while creating but not in the preview. Have you tried a preview?
Is this going to work every time I add a new slide? I mean on this blue progress bar that you created. Do I need for every new slide to change that blue rectangle?
Yes, you only have to set this up once! Make sure it's on the very first slide of slide master, as i'm showing at 02:35. Keep in mind that the progress bar, might not show, if you have something on your slide that hides the progress bar. If for example you put an image as background on your slide it will hide the progress bar defined in the slide master. If that is the case you will have to crop your image so that there is free space on your slide where the Progress bar can shine through.
Hi Fahad, this should absolutely work for your whole project. Make sure you're using the variable Menu.Progress, check if all Slides of the Project are part of the Menu, and if they're not you could use the variable Project.Progress. Also make sure all the slides in your project use the slide master you have created the progress bar in, or the progress bar might not show up on some of your slides. Please let me know if it is still not working for you.
@@FahadTabish27 There are two reasons for this i can think of: 1. Slides that don't show the progress bar may not have the same Slide Master applied. You can check this by right-clicking the slide thumbnail in the Scene Selector or in Story View and then clicking on "Apply Layout". Here you will see which Layout and Slide Saster is applied to your slide. Make sure it's the Slide Master you created your progress bar in. 2. There are objects on the slide that are in front of the progress bar. Since the progress bar is part of the slide master, it will only shine through on your slide if there isn't anything on your slide in the area where the progress bar is supposed to be. If there is something in the way, you could try croping these objects.
Hey Tebel, i was a bit hesitant to reply to your comment, because i wasn't really sure what exactly it referred to. I've rewatched the video and think it has something to do with me not showing HOW i added the variable as a reference to the slide master. This is how you do it: 1. Click into a text box on your slide 2. Go to the "Insert"-Tab, 3. click on "Reference"(located in the Group "Text") Thanks for letting me know, that this wasn't straightforward. I will make sure to keep an eye on things like this in future videos.
![Master Articulate Storyline Variables [Like a pro!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZwkmwlDL7bY/mqdefault.jpg)
This is great. Thanks very much. Hope you will continue and do much more. Good style and tone. Thanks
Thank you for the wonderful feedback. I will definitely try to put up more helpful content 👍
Thanks. You made a complicated topic so easy to understand.
Nice to see you find this easy to understand, Eric.
Great video, thanks! I've used this in a public sector project we're delivering now.
Great to see that the solution is getting out there! Thank you for letting me know!
Discovered this today and am working on implementing it. Thanks for a great solution!
Thanks for letting me know. Good to see, that you find this useful as well 👍
Well done! Thank you for this, it's just what I needed. 👏
This is very helpful to me.
Great to hear! Thank you.
Mate, you saved my life! tks for that!
This is excellent thanks!
Hey Grayson, thanks for letting me know!
Thank you so much. Great implementation!
Thanks a very interesting instructional video! Very useful. Applied and it works, modified with 5% steps and also checked what difference there is between Menu.Progress and Project.Progress...apparently none. The reason I did this check, is cause I have tested what happens when one add a lightbox to a project of 20 slides (hence giving clean steps of 5%). And...it messes it up. Now the count goes up in an odd way. Slide 1 starts with 5%. OK. Then one click the Lightbox slide and it goes to 10%. But when back to the main scene Slide 2 now shows 14% which is really odd. After that it goes up by extra 5% to 19%, 24% etc. till 86%, then it goes back to a step of 4% to 90% and then resume to 5% steps with 95% and 100% final slide. So something is not working well here and it's an odd progression I cannot explain.
It leads to the question....can some specific slides be excluded from the count? Say all the Cover slides (main or by section - in my courses normally there is one per each section) not be counted in the progress and only low-level slides (say normal, proper content slides) be counted?
Or, can slides in different Scenes be excluded? (in my case, Lightbox slides are on a separate scene).
One note, for future improvements. It took me a while to figure out how to insert the Menu.Progress Variable % text box in the main template (you assume everyone knows but... :-) ). Anyway, your video is the best out there! So thanks.
Finally, should the state of the Variable Properties be set to Resume Saved State when Revisited? Or is this not making a difference?
Thanks again Georg! You are a God send!
Hey Andrea, thanks for your awesome feedback. I love that you took the time to comment. And it makes me very proud, that you think this video is the best out there.
You have posted a few interesting questions which I will try to answer:
1. Is there a difference between Menu.Progress and Project.Progress?
Yes, absolutely! You will see the difference, if you delete a slide from your menu, but not from your project. Please try this by clicking on “Player” in the ribbon. Then in the Properties window, click on “Menu”, pick a slide and delete it. I was able to see the difference this made, when I put both variables as a reference in the slide master. Menu.Progress will count all the slides that are contained in the menu, whereas Project.Progress will count all slides in your project.
2. What is happening with the weird progression?
I can only speculate, what is happening here, but I suspect, that when you add the lightbox slide, there might be 21 slides. Hence giving the following percentage steps: 4.76 , 9.52 , 14.28 , 19.04 , 23.80 , 28.56 … Assuming Storyline rounds the percentage, so that there are zero decimal places, this would explain why it is: 5%, 10%, 14%, 19%, 24%, 29% …
3. Can some specific slides be excluded from the count? Or, can slides in different Scenes be excluded?
I got a very similar question in the Articulate Community. So will just paste my answer from there here, and hope this will help you: “Question: Just wondering if there is a way to get the progress bar to start counting from slide 2 instead of 1, so the home/introduction page isn't counted. Answer: i can think of to ways to achieve this:
a. Using the variable Scene.Progress instead of Menu.Progress. Put the Home/intro page into one scene and all the other slides into a second scene. On the first slide the progess bar will be at 100%, but you can hide it, just by putting an object in front of the bar. On all the other slides the progress will be shown, just the way you described.
b. Very similar: Using MenuSection.Progress instead of Menu.Progress. Put the Home/intro page into one scene, with no other slides in it. Go to Player → Menu. Here you will need two headings: The heading of the first scene and the heading of the second scene. All the other headings can be deleted (KEEP the item's children). Now you demote all the slides so that they are all lined up under the second heading. The Progress bar will now function the same way as described above. You just get to keep your scenes in storyline.”
4. Finally, should the state of the Variable Properties be set to Resume Saved State when Revisited? Or is this not making a difference?
You mean the slide properties of the slides in the project? The project in the video uses the “automatically decide” option. But it really doesn’t matter with this implementation of the built-in variables.
Please let me know if my answers were helpful! And thanks again for your kind words 😊
Super helpful! Thanks so much!
Thank you so much for letting me know :-)
You'd the best, many thanks. Do you know how many videos or solutions I have watched that included ......... steps then didn't work.
Thanks Chris, i'm glad this video was helpful to you!
How about if one of the particular slide must not be counted on the progress? What is the work around for this one?
Got yourself a sub...👍 Nice info...👍
Thank you for this tutorial, Georg! Great help. Curious if It is possible for the progress bar to restart when the learner goes back to previous slides? Thanks in advance!
Thank you! I‘m not 100% sure, if I unterstand exactly what you’re trying to achieve. Do you want the progress bar to go back to zero, once the learner revisits slides, or do you want the progress bar to be set back according to the position of the slide that is revisited, example: 10 slides in your course, you go back from slide 6 (progress bar at 60%) to slide 4 and the progress bar goes back to 40%?
@@georgvolmer Sorry abt that. Yup, the second one, to set it back according to the position of the slide that is revisited.
No worries :) Yes this is possible. But not as easy as with the progress bar shown in the video. Since there is no built-in variable that always gives you the current position in relation to all slides in your menu, you will have to create your own location-variable. Set up a new numeric variable (give it a name like "location"). Then in the slide master, you need to first set the location-variable to the value of the built-in variable Menu.SlideNumber (this will be your first trigger in the trigger panel of the first slide in your master). Then create a second trigger that divides your location-variable by Menu.TotalSlides. Now your location-variable will have a value between 0 and 1.0, according to where you are. Now you have to change the triggers, that change the state of your Progress bar (10% step, 20%, 30%...), so that the condition refers to your location variable and change the values refered to in the condition, for example 10%: location variable needs to be greater than or equal 0.1 and less than 0.2. Please let me know if this is helpful.
@@georgvolmer Yes, this is very helpful. Thank you so much!!
Progress Bar is not visible on many slides. esp. on the slides of other scenes, also on the few slides of the same scene
I replied to your other comment on this video, but i'm not sure if you caught that. So i'll just post my answer here again: There are two reasons for this i can think of:
1. Slides that don't show the progress bar may not have the same Slide Master applied. You can check this by right-clicking the slide thumbnail in the Scene Selector or in Story View and then clicking on "Apply Layout". Here you will see which Layout and Slide Saster is applied to your slide. Make sure it's the Slide Master you created your progress bar in.
2. There are objects on the slide that are in front of the progress bar. Since the progress bar is part of the slide master, it will only shine through on your slide if there isn't anything on your slide in the area where the progress bar is supposed to be. If there is something in the way, you could try croping these objects.
How did you get the hard edge to the 2nd Stop. I did exactly the same steps and still get a slight fade between the stops.
I think this slight fade is also visible in the video, when I’m setting up the 10% step. But I’m not seeing it at the end of the video, when I preview. I have just tried it in storyline, with the same result, fade is visible while creating but not in the preview. Have you tried a preview?
Is this going to work every time I add a new slide? I mean on this blue progress bar that you created. Do I need for every new slide to change that blue rectangle?
Yes, you only have to set this up once! Make sure it's on the very first slide of slide master, as i'm showing at 02:35. Keep in mind that the progress bar, might not show, if you have something on your slide that hides the progress bar. If for example you put an image as background on your slide it will hide the progress bar defined in the slide master. If that is the case you will have to crop your image so that there is free space on your slide where the Progress bar can shine through.
This only works if there is only 1 scene. What should I do when I have connected multiple scenes?
Hi Fahad, this should absolutely work for your whole project. Make sure you're using the variable Menu.Progress, check if all Slides of the Project are part of the Menu, and if they're not you could use the variable Project.Progress. Also make sure all the slides in your project use the slide master you have created the progress bar in, or the progress bar might not show up on some of your slides. Please let me know if it is still not working for you.
@@georgvolmer Thanks for your guidance. The slide bar is not showing in some of the slides. What's the solution of this?
@@FahadTabish27 There are two reasons for this i can think of: 1. Slides that don't show the progress bar may not have the same Slide Master applied. You can check this by right-clicking the slide thumbnail in the Scene Selector or in Story View and then clicking on "Apply Layout". Here you will see which Layout and Slide Saster is applied to your slide. Make sure it's the Slide Master you created your progress bar in.
2. There are objects on the slide that are in front of the progress bar. Since the progress bar is part of the slide master, it will only shine through on your slide if there isn't anything on your slide in the area where the progress bar is supposed to be. If there is something in the way, you could try croping these objects.
Not a step-by-step tutorial. When you click insert slide master, the variable does NOT show up.
Hey Tebel, i was a bit hesitant to reply to your comment, because i wasn't really sure what exactly it referred to. I've rewatched the video and think it has something to do with me not showing HOW i added the variable as a reference to the slide master. This is how you do it: 1. Click into a text box on your slide 2. Go to the "Insert"-Tab, 3. click on "Reference"(located in the Group "Text") Thanks for letting me know, that this wasn't straightforward. I will make sure to keep an eye on things like this in future videos.