Personalize simulated typing with dynamic values

Overview

Simulated typing lets a guide step animate text into a field on your screen, character by character, so the demo looks like a real person is filling it in. With dynamic values, that typed text no longer has to be a hard-coded string — you can drop in text variables and dynamic dates so what gets typed adapts to each viewer and stays accurate over time.

walnut.io/demo

A demo that types Order date: Jan 01, 2024 today can instead type Order date: {today's date} on the day it's viewed, or type a customer name pulled from a text variable that a sales rep personalizes per prospect.

Insert a variable or dynamic date

1. Open the guide step that contains your simulate-typing action and open the Simulate typing popover.
2. In the Text to type field, place your cursor where you want the dynamic value to appear. You can mix literal text with any number of variables and dates.
3. Click + variable next to the field label.
4. In the picker that appears, choose:
   • a text variable from the list of variables in this storyline, or
   • Dynamic Date to open the date configuration dialog and pick a format and offset (for example, today, +7 days, or the current year).

The value is inserted at the caret so anything you've already typed on either side is preserved.

Remove a variable or date

Open the picker again. Any text variable that's already in the entry is shown ticked — click it to remove it. If the entry contains a dynamic date, the date row becomes Remove Dynamic Date; clicking it strips every date element from the field while leaving the literal text around them intact.

Preview what will actually be typed

Because the Text to type field shows the stored markup, a Types (default values): line appears beneath it showing the resolved preview — the plain characters the demo will animate. Text variables resolve against each variable's default value in the preview, and dates resolve against today's date. The line only appears when the resolved value differs from what you typed, so a purely literal entry doesn't show it.

How values resolve when a viewer plays the demo

Resolution happens when the typing animation fires, not at publish time:

• Dynamic dates are computed against the day the demo is viewed. A demo published months ago still types the correct current date.
• Text variables resolve against the variable values for that demo — including any per-demo overrides. If a variable is missing a value for a given viewer, the value stored on the variable at author time is used as a fallback.
• If the resolved text is empty, the simulated-typing step is skipped silently: nothing is typed, the field is not touched, and the guide does not advance.

Notes

• The + variable picker is scoped to text variables — image variables can't be typed into a text field, so they aren't offered.
• Global variables are automatically forked into the storyline when you insert them, matching how variables work everywhere else in the editor.
• Creating a brand-new variable or editing an existing variable's definition still happens from the Variables panel; the picker in Simulate typing is for inserting variables that already exist.
• In the guides sidebar, a simulate-typing sub-item summary (Types "…") shows the resolved text using each variable's default value, so the sidebar stays readable even when the stored text contains variable markup.