When hosting Articulate Presenter content on the Internet, it’s not always clear to the end user if they have become disconnected. This can result in a loss of progress when exiting a course.  Although some Learning Management Systems and even Articulate Online will issue a popup warning when disconnected, this warning might occur later or after the end user has already progressed.

Note: Progression without an Internet connection is possible because Articulate Presenter will preload three slides. This is done to minimize stutter and keep the presentation flowing. A quiz or interaction is loaded in full and can be viewed in full while disconnected.

Using the Articulate Presenter SDK, I developed the Connection Manager plugin to notify users when their Internet connection has been dropped. Because this plugin runs silently during the course and does not rely on the host to report the dropped connection, a warning can be issued within 2 seconds. This early notification will save users from losing their progress.* A screenshot of this plug-in is shown below.

* If the course is exited before restoring the Internet connection progress will not get sent back to the host or LMS.

To see this in action you can view a published presentation here or watch the Screenr below to learn how to add this plugin to your published Presenter projects.

Usage:

1. Download the ConnectionManager_v2.zip file.
2. Extract All of the content to a folder on your Desktop.

connectionManager.swf
pinger.swf
art_plugins.xml
connCheckVars.xml

3. Publish your Articulate Presenter presentation and copy the above files to the published ‘player’ folder.
4. Upload to your LMS, Web server or Articulate Online.

Additional Advanced User Instructions:

The art_plugins.xml file can be modified prior to uploading. By modifying this file you can customize the Connection Detection Tab Name, Title and Information text. Please refer to the image and tag definitions below.

<labeltext>The Tab name that appears at the top of the player</labeltext>
<tooltitle>The Title inside the Tab when opened</tooltitle>
<infotext><![CDATA[The instructions displayed inside the Tab when opened.]]></infotext>

Although this has been fully tested, this plugin is not supported by Articulate.

Links:

Plugin Download: ConnectionManager_v2.zip
Articulate KB Article: User receives an incomplete status or no attempt is recorded
Word of Mouth Blog: Articulate Presenter SDK

Updates:

10/19/201 10:50 AM EDT (version 2):
Support for non Western languages added. Please download using the link above.