Looking Back at the 70+ Articulate 360 Features We Released in 2021
It’s amazing the degree to which new features can empower you to create even better e-learning. That’s one thing I love about Articulate 360 subscriptions—you get access to additional features as soon as we release them. Did you know that in 2021 alone, we released over 70? This list highlights every feature we released or enhanced last year. Browse through each one to discover how much your favorite course creation apps have evolved in just 12 short months. Storyline 360 360° Images Create immersive learning experiences by including 360° images in your Storyline 360 courses. And engage learners as they explore these images by adding interactive elements, such as hotspots and markers. Hotspot Hints for 360° Images Assist learners with finding all the hotspots in your 360° image guided tour interactions by providing on-screen text instructions. Learn more. Tooltips for 360° Images Help learners know what to expect before they click bydisplaying tooltips when learners hover over markers and hotspots in 360° interactions. Translation for 360° Images Simplify your translation process by exporting the content from your 360° interactions alongside the rest of your course when you export text to XLIFF or Word for translation. Learn more. Additional Accessibility Features for 360° Images Enable all learners to have the same engaging experience with your 360° images with new and enhanced accessibility features. Modern Player Accessible Contrast Meet WCAG accessibility guidelines for visual contrast and color with the updated modern player. These enhancements make it easier for all learners to read the player text, decipher the icons, perceive the controls, and navigate accurately. Learn more. Additional Keyboard Shortcuts for Learners Include more ways for learners to interact with courses with additional keyboard shortcuts, including options for Play/Pause, Previous, Next, and Submit. Plus, learners can now use the ESC key to close the shortcuts screen. “Previous” Button Accessibility Improvements Improve the course experience for learners using screen reader or keyboard navigation with this update to the Previous button. Now the Previous button on the first slide of a course or a lightbox gets disabled and skipped during keyboard navigation. Improved Closed Captioning Button Active State Make the Closed Captioning button active state more noticeable in the modern player. When the Closed Captioning button is enabled in the modern player, it’s now underlined in your chosen accent color Option to Display Accessible Text by Default Ensure your course content is accessible by setting accessible text as the default text for a course. Learn more. Improved Seekbar Accessibility Create a better seekbar experience for learners using screen readers on mobile devices. They can now seek back and forth and the seekbar is visible in high-contrast mode. Two-Color Focus Indicator Make the accessibility focus indicator in the modern player more visible against any background in your course by selecting two colors—one light and one dark—for it. Customize Captions Font Size Improve closed caption readability in the modern player. You can now increase closed caption font sizeup to 200%. Logo Alt Text Make your course logo accessible to learners using screen readers and other assistive technologies by adding alternative (alt) text to it. Learn more. Custom xAPI Statements Enable advanced tracking options that give you additional data about learner activity by using triggers to define custom xAPI statements. LRS Support Expand your options for collecting learner data by publishing your Storyline 360 courses for a learning record store (LRS). Learn more. xAPI Debug Tool Troubleshoot xAPI statements quickly using the new debugger. Language Identification in xAPI (Tin Can API) Courses Simplify how you identify the language of anxAPI (Tin Can API) course with the Language Code field in the reporting and tracking options. Additional Question Bank Scoring Options Refine how question banks with branching are scored in a course using the new “Only Score Viewed Questions” box. Learn more. Improved Scoring for Combined Result Slides Avoid scoring conflicts when you require learners to pass each quiz in a Combined Result slide. This updated process prevents rare situations where learners could get a minimum passing score for each quiz and still fail the entire course. Learn more. Elapsed Time Variables Create timed interactions and conditional triggers using built-in variables that track the total time a learner spends on a slide, a scene, or an entire course. JavaScript Editor Improvements: Syntax Highlighting and Line Numbers Speed up your workflow in the Storyline 360 JavaScript editor with the help of syntax highlighting and line numbers. Word Translation Improvements Speed up the translation process for you and your translators. Word export options now provide more context for translators, preserve all text formatting, and use the modern DOCX format. Also, basic formatting changes made in the translated Word document are preserved during the Storyline 360 import process. Learn more. SVG Support Help images stay sharp when learners zoom in and out by importing scalable vector graphics (SVGs) to Storyline 360. Increased the Built-in Widescreen (16:9) Slide Size Get more room to work and avoid unexpected scroll bars in text objects with a larger built-in widescreen (16:9) slide size: 960x540. Define Default Slide Size Speed up the start of course development by setting a default slide size for new projects. Learn more. Modern Player Custom Color Customize the modern player to match your course color scheme by selecting your own background color. Course Cover Photo Improve branding and give learners a preview of the subject matter by adding a course cover photo in the modern player. Learn more. Text Overflow Autofit Improvements Refine how on-screen copy is displayed and improve accessibility with more ways to manage and fine-tune course text elements. This update also includes options for how to handle text that doesn’t fit its bounding box. Learn more. Turn on these improvements by simply upgrading your project text. Seekbar Display Improvements on Mobile Devices Improve how your course seekbar looks on mobile devices. In landscape mode, the seekbar now displays below the slide content and no longer overlaps the slide content. Upgraded Microsoft .NET Framework to Version 4.8 Keep everything up to date with this shift to the Microsoft .NET Framework dependency for Storyline 360 to version 4.8. Updates to the Embedded Version of Chromium Stay current with these updates to the embedded version of Chromium. In 2021 it was upgraded to 90.0.4430.93 and then 94.0.4606.81. Classic Trigger Workflow Retired Simplify your choices for working with triggers with this change: the new trigger workflow is now the only trigger workflow. End of Flash Importing and Publishing Modernize your options for importing content and publishing courses with this update. Since Adobe discontinued Flash at the end of 2020, we removed Flash features, including the options to import Flash movies and publish Flash output, from Storyline 360. Rise 360 Section 508 Accessibility Support Feel confident that Rise 360 courses reach all learners now that it supports Section 508 accessibility guidelines. See our conformance report for details. Accessible Block Management While Authoring Improve course navigation accessibility. Screen readers can now see and announce the Move Up, Move Down, and Duplicate buttons. Fully Accessible Labeled Graphic Blocks Enable all learners to access your graphic interactions with improved keyboard navigation, screen reader support, and a color selector for markers. New Image Alignment Options for Interactive Blocks Enjoy even more ways to lay out your images with multiple alignment options in accordion, tabs, timeline, and process blocks. Text Contrast on Cover Photos Set the text contrast on your cover photo to 0% to avoid Rise 360 darkening it further if your course photo is already dark enough to meet accessibility contrast standards. In-progress Audio/Video Playback Position Automatically Bookmarked Automatically bookmark the playback position of in-progress audio or video when learners navigate away from or close a lesson. Video Player Language Support Localize the video player automatically by choosing one of 16 supported languages. Learn more. “Continue” Button Style Options for Quiz Lessons Customize your quiz lesson user interface by choosing what kind of button displays at the end: the standard Next Lesson button or a Continue button. Learn more. New Course Template: Effective Workplace Presentations Use the latest course template to help learners deliver more effective presentations in a workplace setting. Review 360 Manually Upload Storyline 360 Courses Manually upload your courses to Review 360. This feature is helpful when publishing directly from Storyline 360 is blocked by a firewall or the published output needs to be edited before it’s shared with stakeholders. Manually Upload Video Versions Simplify your review process by creating new versions of videos that you’ve manually uploaded to Review 360. Version Management Control which versions of a project stakeholders see in Review 360 by using thehide and restore options. Unfurl Links in Collaboration Apps Make it easier for people to preview a Review 360 link when it’s shared in collaboration apps, like Slack. The link now expands to give your team a preview of the project’s title, author, and thumbnail image. Content Library 360 New Template Sets Synergy templates Vitality templates Essence templates New Characters Renita Craig Dante Pamela Charles Simone Jayla Eric Maya Jada Jamal Replay 360 Digitally Signed Executables Improve security with this update. All executables installed with Replay 360—such as lame.exe and encoder.exe—are digitally signed for better performance in highly secure environments. Studio 360 End of Flash Importing and Publishing Modernize your options for importing content and publishing courses with this update. Since Adobe discontinued Flash at the end of 2020, we removed Flash features, including the options to import Flash movies and publish Flash output, from Studio 360. Articulate 360 Teams Team Member Removal Options Avoid accidental content deletion with simplified options when removing a team member. Removal choices are now limited to transferring that member’s content or doing nothing. Manage Undelivered Invites Make identifying and resending invitation emails that bounce back easy with improvements to the team management console. Learn more. Articulate Training English Closed Captions View our on-demand videos and recorded training webinars with English closed captions. Articulate 360 Desktop App and Dashboard Browser-based Sign-in Experience Align with the latest security best practices by using your default web browser to sign in to the Articulate 360 desktop app. Learn more. Automatic Updates Get access to all the newest features and functions in Articulate 360 with automatic updates. Automatic updates are now enabled by default for all new and existing installations (unless your organization has disabled them). But you can always choose to opt out via your Articulate 360 desktop app preferences. Refreshed Articulate 360 Dashboard Discover helpful Articulate 360 resources—such as Rise 360 templates and Articulate 360 Training videos—with the new dashboard layout. That’s a lot of exciting ways to speed up your workflow and broaden what you can create! So be sure to check out any you might have missed when they launched and let us know in the comments which you’re enjoying most. Want to try out some of these features, but don’t have Articulate 360 just yet? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.How to Decide Which Articulate 360 App to Use for Screen Recording
Since software training is one of the most common types of e-learning, it’s no surprise that Articulate 360 includes not one, not two, but three apps with screen recording features. Each of these apps has a unique feature set and is specifically designed for a different purpose. If you’re wondering which app to use for your project, you’re in the right place! Keep reading to learn more about how screen recording differs in Peek 360, Replay 360, and Storyline 360 and the types of projects best suited for each. Peek 360 Peek 360 is a lightweight app that works natively on both Macs and PCs and lives in your menu bar or system tray, so it’s always just a click away. Once you’ve recorded your screen, it automatically uploads to Review 360, generating a shareable link. You can also download the .MP4 file and insert the video into your Rise 360 or Storyline 360 courses or export it for LMS to use it as a stand-alone asset. Since Peek 360 doesn’t have editing capabilities, it’s best for recording short screencasts to share with team members on the fly or to insert into your courses as is. Check out our tutorials and user guide for more details on how to create and distribute screencasts with Peek 360. Replay 360 If you’re looking to create a longer screencast that could require some editing, Replay 360 might be a better choice. In addition to some lightweight editing options, this Windows-compatible desktop app allows you to record your screen and your webcam simultaneously, creating a cool picture-in-picture effect. You can also insert images, video clips, and lower thirds, making it easy to create a polished tutorial video that you can use on its own or insert into your Rise 360 or Storyline 360 course. For more information on Replay 360, check out our tutorials and user guide. Storyline 360 Storyline 360 also allows you to record your screen, but unlike Peek 360 and Replay 360, that’s not its sole purpose. Storyline 360 is a full-fledged authoring app that not only lets you record screencasts and build software simulations but also lets you add custom interactions, quizzes, and much more. This makes Storyline 360 the ideal choice when you want your software training to be interactive. It’s also a great option if you want to overlay text or objects—like arrows or highlight zones—on top of your video. Storyline 360 has some editing capabilities, allowing you to make adjustments to your recording after the fact. You can also easily add subtitles to your screencast—and your entire course—directly in Storyline 360, which is great for accessibility. When you’re done, you can publish to video, web, or LMS. If you want to take a closer look at the screen recording feature in Storyline 360, check out this tutorial or head on over to the user guide. The Bottom Line Peek 360, Replay 360, and Storyline 360 are all great options for recording your screen. Which app you use depends on your project requirements. If you need to record a screencast super-fast, Peek 360 is the way to go. When you want to edit your screencast or record your webcam along with it, go with Replay 360. And when you want to create an interactive software simulation, overlay additional content, or add subtitles to your screen recording, opt for Storyline 360. To make it super-easy to compare the feature-sets of the different apps, I pulled together this quick-reference guide: Peek 360 Replay 360 Storyline 360 Work natively on Macs X Work natively on PCs X X X Record screen X X X Record mic audio X X X Record webcam X X* Edit recording X X Add interactivity X Add closed captions X Publish to video (.MP4) X X X Publish for LMS X** X** X Publish to Review 360 X X X Once you’ve decided which app to use, you might be wondering how to start building your software training. Here’s an article that’ll help you get off on the right foot: Follow This Process to Create Software Simulations and Systems Training Like a Pro. Want to try out these apps, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial. And subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest product updates, e-learning examples, and expert advice directly in your inbox. *Webcam recording must be done separately from screen recording **Publish FoR LMS via Review 360Save Time with this E-Learning Project Troubleshooting Checklist
E-Learning Heroes is handy for getting quick tech support for your Articulate 360 projects when you need it. But what if I told you there’s an even faster way to troubleshoot the most common technical problems, a checklist that takes just a few moments and doesn’t require you to be super-techie, open a support ticket, or even draft a forum post? Next time your project hits a snag, save yourself some time and frustration by checking off these three items: Item #1: Your Project File’s Location If you’re working in an office or corporate setting, odds are your computer is part of a group of computers all sharing access to the same computer or server on a network. If this arrangement sounds familiar to you, you likely have access to a network drive—that is, a drive where files are stored and shared with your coworkers. A local drive, on the other hand, is a disk drive that physically resides on your computer and isn’t part of another computer on your network. For example, most computers running Microsoft Windows have a local drive known as the C: drive. Creating new projects or editing existing projects from a network drive rather than a local drive, or publishing your projects to a network drive rather than a local drive, can lead to troublesome technical glitches like file corruption, crashes, or an inability to save changes. Why can working from a network drive cause these troubles? The short answer is that it introduces more complexity. Here’s how I like to think of it: Imagine you’re storing a file folder in a file cabinet beneath your desk. Pretty quick and easy to access, isn’t it? And if something changes about the contents of the file, or the file folder goes missing, you’re the one in control—not many people have access to your file and there aren’t many places it could be. Now imagine that you’re storing a file folder in a colleague’s file cabinet across the country. While storing it elsewhere saves you some precious drawer space, sending the file folder back and forth introduces more variables into the mix. For instance: what’s going on with the file when you’re not using it? Where is it being stored, and under what conditions? How long will it take your colleague to send it to you? What if some of the file’s contents are missing when you get it? Or what if it’s lost along the way? What this means for you and your projects is: When trouble strikes, make sure you’re reducing the complexity by saving and accessing project files from a local drive and not a network drive. If you need to place a copy of your project on a network drive or on a USB drive for backup, versioning control, or collaboration with coworkers, do that only after you’ve closed Storyline or Studio. Try to avoid reopening the project again until you’ve copied it back to your local hard drive. For more tips on creating, editing, and publishing Articulate projects to your local hard drive, check out this support article. Item #2: Your Software’s Update Status We’re constantly working hard to improve our products, so updates are released pretty regularly. Keeping your software updated ensures that you have all the latest and greatest performance improvements and bug fixes. If you have Articulate 360, you’ll be notified of updates via the desktop app. If you’re using a perpetual version of our software and you have the“Check for Updates” option enabled, your Articulate software will automatically notify you when a new version of the software is available. However, if you’re not sure if this option is enabled, it’s super-easy to manually check for updates. First, go to the help ribbon in Storyline, Studio, or Replay and select Check for Updates. Once you’ve clicked Check for Updates you’ll be prompted to either download new updates or we’ll confirm that you’re running the latest version of our software. You can also use the help ribbon to quickly access the software-specific forum hub. Notices about newly released updates are typically “pinned” or anchored to the top of the discussion list. Pro Tip: Each time you install a free update, you’ll be prompted to reactivate your software. This may seem like a headache, but all you really have to do is click Activate to complete the process because the software remembers your serial number. Item #3: Your Published Project’s Location Just as the location of your working project files can impact how it behaves when you’re creating and editing a project, the location of your published content can also influence how it behaves. If your published content isn’t working the way you anticipated, take a second look at where and how you’re accessing it. Published content should always be accessed and tested from the intended environment, as described in this support article. For example, if you published your project for the web, you should upload it to a web server for testing; and if you published it for an LMS, upload your content to an LMS or to a free service such as SCORM Cloud for testing. Also, check to ensure that you’re loading all of the published project output files to your web server or LMS, and not just the story.html or presenter.html files. Pro Tip: If your intent is for content to be viewed locally, try publishing for CD and then double-click the launch_story.exe file from the resulting output files. Often local security restrictions on your computer, web browser, and Flash player can cause certain features to fail. Next Steps What happens if you’ve checked all of these items off of your troubleshooting list and things still aren’t working? That’s where the appropriate product-specific forum can help you crowdsource your sleuthing efforts. Before you draft a new forum post, it’s a good idea to start with a quick search to see if anyone else has had the same problem you’re experiencing. For tips on power-searching, check out this handy how-to article. And if a search doesn’t turn up what you need, it’s time to draft a new forum post describing the problem in detail. In the body of your post, it’s helpful to verify that you’ve completed this checklist—just so we don’t ask you to start over at Item #1. It’s also a good idea to have any of the following attached to your post: The problem slides from your project file (.story file or a Presenter package) A video capture of the unwanted/unexpected behaviors you’re experiencing Static screenshot(s) of the unwanted/unexpected behaviors For more pointers on writing discussion posts that get quick answers, check out this helpful article. Summary Technology can be a little confounding at times, but with these basic troubleshooting tips, you can save yourself some time by diagnosing many of the most common technical issues on your own. Even better: when you can help us understand what’s not contributing to the problem, the ELH communitycan help you identify the real culprit a whole lot faster! Looking for even more troubleshooting tips? Check out these recent articles: The Secret to LMS Debugging How to Troubleshoot Your LMS with SCORM Cloud. What does your troubleshooting checklist look like? Share your tips and feedback in the comments below. Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial. And subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest product updates, e-learning examples, and expert advice sent directly to your inbox. If you have questions, please share them in the comments.
