Summary: Use Presenter ‘09 to create a menu for other Presenter modules.
Difficulty: Medium
Break up your work
So you have a 500-slide presentation and you are finding that it is a little too large to handle? Why not split your presentation up into smaller modules and link them together with a starter menu? Not only do your modules publish quicker, it also means you can edit just one without touching the rest.
Advantages of using modular approach
Disadvantages
You can use PowerPoint and Articulate Presenter to create that menu.
Use all the creative tools of PowerPoint to make just the menu you need. You can use just HTML but why not use Presenter. I have put together some simple examples of menus. To navigate, click on each of the chapter headings in the main menu to see different types of menu, and then click on the Menu button to come back to the main menu. The other menu options are not working in these demos.
How does it work?
In this article we saw how to link from one presentation to another. By placing a web object in a presentation we can elegantly link to another presentation. We place a linking web object in each of the modules which will link to the main menu. In the main menu presentation we have a series of web objects each linking to the modules. The advantage of using this method rather than just launching a presentation via an ordinary hyperlink is two-fold.
- No new windows are opened when you launch another presentation. New windows can be blocked by browsers or Flash.
- You can link back to the main menu easily.
Note
Use relative links rather than absolute links. In other words, don’t specify the exact location of the modules, but their location relative to the menu and to each other. That way we don’t need to worry about the final destination of the presentations. Just so long as they know where they are relative to each other is all that matters.
Directory Structure
We begin by assuming that your modules are ready to be linked together by a common module. Let’s organize our directory structure first.
- Create a folder for the files you will need for the project. The folder can be anywhere on your computer. Call it something like My Menu Project.
- Create two more folders within the My Menu Project folder and call one My Project Web Objects and the other My Project Upload Files
- Create folders within the My Project Web Objects folder and call them menu, module1, module2, module3 etc. Create a folder for each module you will have in your presentation.
- Create folders within the My Project Upload Files and call them module1, module2, module3 etc. Create a folder for each module you have in your presentation.
Your directory structure should something like this:
Prepare a web object to link to the main menu from each module.
- Open Notepad.
- Paste the following code into the file:
- Save the file as index.html.
- Place it in the menu folder in the My Project Web Objects folder.
<html><head>
<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
function na_delay_url(url, delay_sec)
{
setTimeout("top.location.href = '" + url + "'", delay_sec*1000);
}
// -->
</script>
</head><body onload="na_delay_url('../../../player.html', 1);">
</body></html>
This will be the web object you will need to use in Presenter to link to the main menu. We’ll use it a bit later.
Now let’s do the same for the modules.
Prepare web objects to link to each module from the main menu.
- Open Notepad again.
- Paste the following code:
- Save it as index.html and place it in the module1 folder in the My Project Web Objects Folder.
- Create an index.html file for each module and place it in its corresponding folder in the My Project Web Objects folder.
- Notice the link in the code above to module1? Change the code so that it matches the module you are working on. So if you are linking to module2, make sure that the link in the code says module2/player.html.
<html><head>
<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
function na_delay_url(url, delay_sec)
{
setTimeout("top.location.href = '" + url + "'", delay_sec*1000);
}
// -->
</script>
</head><body onload="na_delay_url('../../module1/player.html', 1);">
<p align="center"> </p>
</body></html>
Note
In case you are wondering, the code above is the same as the first piece of code for the menu. Just the link has changed.
You should now have a series of folders within the My Project Web Objects folder on your computer, each holding a unique index.html file.
Inserting the web objects into your modules to point to the menu.
The next step is easy. In each module, add a web object at the end and point to the menu folder index.html.
- Create a blank page at the end of the module.
- Go Articulate -> Insert web object
- Do not enter an html address but rather click on the yellow button to the right and navigate to the index.html file in the menu folder you created earlier.
- Click ok.
- Make the web object small or even take it off the slide area so that it won’t actually appear when published.
- Customize the PowerPoint slide with a message like “Please wait while a moment”
You need to do exactly the same for all your modules. Always insert the menu web object index.html file since we want to send the user to the menu.
Download the project files for one of the modules to see how the web object has been inserted.
Inserting the web objects into the Menu to point to the modules
Now let’s prepare the menu.
- Create your menu like in one of the examples.
- For each menu item, create a hyperlink to a new slide. So, if you have four menu items, you will have four new slides each corresponding to your four modules.
- In the first module slide, insert a web object as before but this time point to the module1 folder and insert that index.html.
- Customize the page as before.
- Do the same for the other three pages, but each time point to the corresponding module web object folder that we created earlier. So for the Module 2 slide in your menu, point to the module2 web object folder etc.
- Remove the player controls (Articulate -> Player Templates -> Navigation) and make sure that the slides do not move on automatically in the Slide Properties Manager.
- You probably don’t want to show the outline in your menu, so make it appear in Slide Only view (or No Sidebar) (Articulate -> Player Templates -> Layout)
Download the project files for the demo menu module to see how the web objects have been inserted.
Publish and prepare the folder to upload
Now that your presentations are all ready, you can publish each of them and place them in the My Menu Project folder we created at the beginning.
- Publish your Menu presentation to the web. (Articulate -> Publish -> WEB) Publish the files into a default area on your computer like for example in My Articulate Documents. This will avoid confusing the published projects and your server project.
- Place all the published files in your My Project Upload Files folder you created earlier..
- Publish Module 1 to the WEB to My Articulate Documents. (Articulate -> Publish -> WEB)
- Copy the player.html, the data folder and the player folder into the module1 folder in the My Project Upload Files folder.
- Publish Module 2 to the web to My Articulate Documents and again copy the published files into the module2 folder in the My Project Upload Files folder.
- Do the same for the remaining modules.
- Finally test your structure by launching player.html at the root level of your folder on your computer and see if the menu works and that you are able to get back to the menu from each of the modules.
- Once you are satisfied that the links are working fine, you are ready to upload the folder to the server.
The final folder structure in the My Project Upload Files will look something like this:
These are the only files that need uploading to a folder on your server.
Creating A Menu For A CD
This method will also work for publishing to CD. There are a few important differences however.
Your directory structure will look like this within the My Project Upload Files folder:
These are the only files and folder you must burn onto your CD ROM.
Download the CD ROM version of the demo presentation.
You will need to unzip it and then launch the presentation via Launch_Presentation.exe. There is no need to burn it to CD ROM (though you can if you want). It should work straight off your computer.
What’s great is that all the modules play within the launch so there are no Flash or browser security issues.
Dave,
This is great, and very much appreciated!
Can’t wait to test it on a few LMSes to see if tracking and reporting still work.
Merci bien,
~Jenise
Hey Dave,
I tried out all the steps you wrote but the titles in the first slide of my menu file aren’t click-able (not hyper-linked). I downloaded your main menu file and you didn’t have the “Chapter 1″, “Chapter 2″ etc. hyper-linked either. How did you manage to make them point to the modules by clicking on them?
Thanks,
JayM
Hey JayM, I didn’t hyperlink the text itself but the text box. That way you don’t get the hyperlink underline you get when you link text. If you right-click on the text box you’ll see they are hyperlinked. Hope that helps. Dave
Hi Dave,
This is great. Question: You write to “publish to web”.
Would the steps be the same to publish to LMS or would they be different.?
Would each have to be publiished for LMS, then copied?
thanks!
Lisa
Hi Again, Dave…
I should have completely tested before asking the above quesiton.
I followed the steps you’ve written, with one exception. I did not need to link from modules
to main menu; only from main menu to modules. I created my web objects using the
code, except I have two folders; English and French. I changed the code in the web
object index.html to
(for example) and the same for French/player.html.
Published as written and the links don’t work. My root under My Projects Upload is as you
have identified (except for the name changes). and I am unable to get the index.html to refer
to the player.html.
Any ideas?
thanks…I’m really excited about getting to utilize this!
Lisa
Hi, Dave.
I was using your tip and break in modules a large presentation works fine. But now the client use an html page with a simple menu (into blackboard) where the user can select the course or presentation, he or she prefers…and when the user select one the first part runs embeded into the blackboard page and when use the webobject link, the browser opens to full page to artticulate presenter part of the course. Do not run embeded like the first articulate presenter part into the course. Is it posible the webobject link maintain the object link embeded in a frames architecture?
Thans in advance for you time.
Dave,
I copied your directions exactly but cannot get the relative addressing for the web objects to work. HELP!
Hi Andrew,
Relative address linking can be a pain. You need to make sure you get it just right. Sometimes, you might need to add an extra ../ to make it go up a folder. I’ll give me instructions another go myself to make sure there is no error anywhere. But I would encourage you to download the project files and the CD version of the demo and see how the relative links work there. That might help you to figure the problem.
Hi Jose, The simple answer here is I don’t know. Working on an LMS could be more problematic as you need to make sure that tracking is maintained. The code above would need to be changed to work in frames. I am guessing it is possible but can’t tell you how. Sorry! I’ll see if I can dig something up.
Hi Dave,
In the post you state that “May not work on your LMS. Tracking might not work.”
Have you tested this? I am just starting out with Articulate, and I was able to successfully create a menu for multiple presentations by following your tutorial, but I don’t know anything about LMS (was reading about it just now).
My individual presentations each have a survey and I would like to store this results on some sort of database (use LMS? how does that work?) …
On a side note, is it possible to have a ‘back to main menu” button anywhere on the articulate player area? (as opposed to having a slide with a web object etc)
Thank you in advance!
Thanks for this excellent guide. I was able to adapt this idea and create a menu that links to sub-menus, which link to lessons. After you can create the submenu articulate presentation, and populate it with the appropriate webobjects, you can save it as a template for others. If you use the same directory structure for each of the submenus’ courses, you will be able to use the existing web object links (created in the first submenu) without any trouble. Relative pathnames have quite an advantage for repetitive work!
Hey Dave,
I’ve been trying to link multiple modules together using the steps given in this blog but am running into some problems. Everything seems to go smoothly until it is time to test the Menu module.
When I click the hyperlink in the Menu module, I am taken to the slide specified in the hyperlink but I am not redirected to the next module, the module essentially freezes. I have tried relative links and direct links but to no avail.
I have also tried testing the Web Objects before inserting them, internet explorer loads but is unable to load the modules. The modules themselves work fine in internet explorer when opened indivdually, but seem unable to load using the index files. Could this problem have anything to do with my internet explorer options?
Any help you could offer would be appreciated.
Thanks for your comment! It is nice to hear people are using these ideas. Using templates does save a lot of work and I am glad you have managed to get it working with the submenus.
Thanks for the tips – this addresses a problem that I was having packaging multiple modules to a single CD. Everything is working great on my desktop – and I was able to copy on a flash drive and transfer to another computer. However, as soon as I burn to a CD – no luck – it freezes to a blank screen on the launch. I’m sure it must be relative addressing? however, it’s impossible to see the addressing in the web objects in the sample because of the graphic’s scale. Can you give a bit more info on this? Thanks in advance.
HI,
When using this approach, and using Articulate Online to host the modules, will Articulate Online treat each module as a seperate content item, thus allowing for the tracking of one Quiz in each module?
Thank You,
Thomas
Hi Thomas,
Yes, my preliminary testing shows that if you first import all of your modules into Articulate Online as separate presentations and then use the Articulate Online Invite Link URL in the adapted web object code of your menu, then each presentation will run and track as a module of your menu and the quiz will be tracked if you chose to track the presentation according to quiz results. Of course, you will still need to add web objects to your modules to get them to come back to your main menu which would also have to be a separate presentation on Articulate Online (or a regular server if you prefer). This article about tracking multiple quizzes in the same presentation shows the same technique with web objects. Hope that helps.
I have done all this for the multiple presentations and it seems to work well. Thanks! I have tried to insert a stand alone quiz in here as well. It is just a link called “quiz” on the menu. Where all the modules are listed out – module1, module2 as in the example I have one extra module called “quiz” linked in. however, it doesnt work – IE cant connect. I am wondering what “content or files” need to be included from the published quiz to allow it to work? I have not embedded the quiz into a presentation but if I am really stuck I will go back and redesign the project that way. Would prefer quiz separate…. any ideas where I have done wrong??
thanks
Dec
Hi Dave!
This was just the solution i was looking for, but like Justin, I am taken to the slide where it is supposed to link to and then nothing happens. I have repeated these steps at least 4 times now and still no luck. I have even tried changing the number of levels in the index.html but no luck. Are there other settings i should be aware of when inserting the Web Object in the menu file – for example should i set that web object’s setting to Advance Automatically?
Kathy
Hi Kathy,
No, you shouldn’t need to get the web object to advance automatically. Have you downloaded the project files for the same module I did, and looked at the code in the web object there? (you will need to publish it first) Are you testing online or locally? If you are testing locally, maybe there some kind of security block working. Have you tried downloading the CD version to see if that works ok on your computer? Again, you can take a look at the web object code in each of the modules. If the CD version works, there is no reason why your version shouldn’t work too. Maybe try uploading yours to a server to see if it works there?
Thank you Dave for the tips. I had downloaded the other files but not the CD version. I will download it and disect it and also test on the server. I had only tested on my machine. Thank you!
Kathy
Dave! I have to say you are a genious! I never thought of uploading to the server to test… as i stayed stuck in testing it on my machine. When I downloaded the CD and started playing with the index files., then i went into my folders and started testing them individually and they would work… I uploaded to the server, and all is working! Thank you!!! Someone from Articulate said that you would respond if I posted my problem to your site and they were right! Thanks a million!!!