Why Did We Build An Open-Source Mods Script For Articulate Rise 360?

Articulate Rise 360 is a go-to authoring tool for many instructional designers, L&D professionals, and eLearning developers around the world. Its clean, responsive design and fast authoring workflow make it ideal for creating beautiful learning content without writing a single line of code.

But if you’ve been working with Rise 360 for a few years like we have, you’ll know this: the platform hasn’t changed all that much in a long time.

Despite its popularity and wide adoption as part of the Articulate 360 suite, Rise has seen limited innovation in recent years. While Storyline continues to evolve with new features and updates, Rise has remained relatively static — especially in terms of interactivity and visual customisation. For developers looking to push boundaries or deliver truly unique learning experiences, this lack of flexibility has been frustrating.

That’s why we built Fire Mods — a completely free, open-source JavaScript add-on script that extends what’s possible in Articulate Rise 360.

What Is Fire Mods?

Fire Mods is a lightweight but powerful script developed by Discover eLearning Ltd. Once added to a published Rise 360 course, it injects a range of custom features and visual enhancements — all while preserving the original content structure.

Think of it as a post-publish upgrade. Fire Mods doesn’t interfere with the Rise editor or require any changes to your authoring workflow. Instead, it modifies the experience at runtime in the browser, enabling things like scroll-triggered actions, learner reflection inputs, visual styling tweaks, and more.

Better still, it’s entirely free to use under the GPL-3.0 licence. You can include Fire Mods in client projects, adapt it to your needs, and even contribute to its development — no fees, subscriptions, or locked features.

Why Did We Build It?

There are two key reasons why we decided to launch Fire Mods as an open-source solution.

1. Articulate Rise Hasn’t Opened Up Its Potential

Let’s be clear: we love Rise 360. It has helped streamline content development for so many of our clients. But from a developer’s point of view, Rise feels like a walled garden — polished on the surface, but restrictive underneath.

• Blocks are rigid. You’re limited to the built-in design styles with little control over layout or visual customisation.
• Interaction is basic. There’s no native way to run custom scripts, trigger events, or respond to user behaviour beyond basic clicks.
• There’s no plugin architecture. Unlike Storyline, there’s no official support for extending Rise’s capabilities.

For years, developers have been asking for more freedom — even something as simple as adding custom classes or scripting hooks would go a long way. But so far, those options haven’t appeared.

Fire Mods is our answer to that gap. It breaks down the walls and gives Rise developers the tools they’ve been asking for — without waiting for official features to arrive.

2. Most Current Solutions Are Paid And Proprietary

With so many instructional designers reliant on Rise 360, it’s no surprise that a number of third-party solutions have emerged to extend its functionality. Perhaps the most well-known is the Mighty Plugin by maestrolearning.com — a highly polished Chrome extension that adds an impressive range of enhancements directly into the Rise interface.

But here’s the catch: most of these tools come at a high cost.

We completely understand the effort that goes into building and maintaining these kinds of tools. But the downside is that many developers — particularly freelancers, small agencies, or internal teams on tight budgets — are priced out of the benefits.

Fire Mods aims to level the playing field.

Rather than relying on browser extensions or proprietary systems, our script gives you complete control via standard JavaScript — no login, no paywall, no surprises. If you’re comfortable editing a .js file and uploading it alongside your published course, you’ll find Fire Mods a hugely valuable alternative.

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What Can Fire Mods Do?

Here are just a few of the features that Fire Mods adds to your Rise 360 projects:

🔥 Scroll-Based Triggering

Trigger JavaScript events when specific blocks scroll into view. Great for animations, content reveals, or logging learner behaviour in real time.

🔥 Interactive Reflection Inputs

Transform Rise Note blocks into input fields that save learner reflections locally. A perfect fit for journalling activities or takeaway notes — no database or LMS required.

🔥 Custom Button Actions

Use Rise’s standard button blocks to run custom scripts. Assign actions using simple IDs and trigger anything from animations to LMS tracking events — or even launch confetti!

🔥 Visual Styling Enhancements

Apply beautiful visual effects like frosted glass, drop shadows, or custom fonts to Rise blocks, such as Text on Image and button elements. Finally make your course feel on-brand and dynamic.

🔥 Menu Customisation

Automatically hide the navigation menu on first load or restyle the sidebar toggle button for a cleaner user experience.

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Fully Customisable, Developer-Friendly, and Built to Grow

Every enhancement in Fire Mods can be toggled on or off using a simple configuration section at the top of the script file. You can adjust settings like colour schemes, font sizes, target IDs, and more — all without touching your Rise source project or republishing the course.

And because Fire Mods is open source, you’re free to extend it however you like. Add new features, fix bugs, and share your ideas with the community via the GitHub page — we welcome all contributions.

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Get Started With Fire Mods Today

To start using Fire Mods:

1. Export your Rise 360 course.
2. Add the firemods.js file to your course directory.
3. Link to the script in the index.html file.
4. Customise the settings at the top of the script to enable the features you want.

That’s it — your Rise 360 course just got a serious upgrade.

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Final Thoughts: We Want To Empower All Our Fellow Developers

Articulate Rise is a fantastic tool, but its pace of innovation has slowed. The developer community has had to find workarounds, and that’s led to a market dominated by paid enhancements.

We created Fire Mods because we believe that powerful tools don’t have to be expensive — and that open source can thrive even in the world of commercial eLearning. After all, building on open-source platforms like WordPress has been critical to the success of our own business from the very beginning.

Whether you’re working on internal training, client-facing content, or a passion project, Fire Mods puts more creative power in your hands.