In this video, I’ll share with you some very useful tips on working with slide layers in Articulate Storyline so you can be more effective on your next e-learning project.
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Slide Layers
In articulate storyline you can have multiple slide layers on your slide beside your base layer. So in this step interaction you’ll see that I have here five slide layers on my base layer, so on my base layer, I have five buttons that if I click on a button a slide layer will open. Now let’s see what you can do with slide layers and some tips and tricks that you may never think of that can be useful in your next articulate storyline project when you’re using slide layers.
So let’s check out the first layer, and you’ll see here I called it layer one so we know it’s layer one and let’s see the properties of the layer.
Slide Layer settings
So what you can do here is select layer, right-click with your mouse and go to properties. And now you see your slide layer properties. Now, the first check mark that is checked says hide outer side layers. And this means that if you open a slide layer article storyline automatically hides the other slide layers for you. So you don’t have to do this with triggers or something else. Now the second visibility check mark is to hide objects on base layer. Now let’s check this and let’s see what happens here on your screen. You see I’ve selected this screen and all the objects on my base layer are disappeared. So if you have content on your base layer that you don’t want to show on your slide layer, you can check this one.
And what you can also do, here you can select all your hidden objects, but if you want to only hide a few objects, a sliding layer has a timeline. You can click on the triangle and you can click on it. And what it does, it opens the base layer timeline, now, for instance, I want to hide only my title on my base layer. I can move this one, uncheck this one, and you’ll see my title is now hidden. So this is the way to move only a couple of objects on your base layer instead of all. What you also don’t have to do when your timeline ends is to hide it because you can do it with a check mark. And here you have the option for allow seeking and allow seeking means that you will see a seek bar on your slide layer and it works.
So let’s review this slide and you’ll see in my player here, I have a seek bar now and it runs and if I click on my second slide and when it opens a layer, you’ll see the seek bar also works and it runs until my timeline ends. So this means you can have a seek bar for a slide layer. Now let’s continue to the properties. What you also have here is if you want to prevent a user from clicking on your base layer, you don’t have to use any overlays or objects. You can do it with clicking this one who will prevent the users from clicking on your base layer. So if I click this one, I click preview the slide.
Storylines pre-loading it right now. And now on my base layer, I click on my second slide, you’ll see I cannot click on any icons. I only can select the things on my second slide layer. Let’s go back to properties again. So, and what you also can do is pause the time of the base layer. So that means if you want to stop the timeline of your base layer. You can check this one, it will pause. And for instance with a button or an alt trigger, you can play it if you want to. So these are some neat features. Let’s continue.
Slide Layer visibility
Now if you have multiple slide layers on your slide, it can be useful to hide or show them when you’re editing your slide or showing your other slide. What I’ve done here, if you are selecting one slide, you see that i icon appears here and if you click it you will lock your slide layer and it all will be visible. So I locked here on my slide layer three and you’ll see it’s all visible because if I now click on slide layer four you’ll see here that layer three text is behind the layer four text and this means all objects on slide layer three are always visible. And if you want your slide layers in another order you can pick it and drag it in another order, simple as that.
Slide layer layouts
And now something on the objects of your slide layer. Normally, in your base layer and you click on apply layout, your base layer has a layout that is created in your master slide, but you can also have layouts on your slide layer. Because if I select the slide layer, for instance, my slide layer two, I go to my slide on the left again, I click on apply layout. You’ll see here also different layouts and here this was for [inaudible 00:06:28] media but I could also choose blank and then I can have a blank layout. And where can you find these layouts? If you go to view and to feedback master, these layouts are defined in your feedback master. So here if I scroll for instance down and you see here decentered layout also blank layout. And here you can, for instance, if we on the blank layout insert, let’s say a character…
This is a character that I think is okay. We set it on the right. So now let’s hide our slide master and you’ll see I’ve chosen here for this slide layer, my apply layout, my blank layout, and you’ll see that this image appears. So if I click on slide layer one and I want also this character there, I can choose my blank and you’ll see that the character is also there. So this is a cool tip. For instance, if you want to have a logo on your slide layer or another object that has to be on each slide layer, you don’t have to copy and paste it, but you can add it on your feedback masters.
