goddi

============ Thanks...Brain lock!!! I just added it. Gary

Greetings, This slideshow covers 3 days of our 23 day trip through Croatia and Slovenia this year. It shows our stay in Dubrovnik and a day trip down to Kotor, Montenegro. The show is in 16x9; 62.5Mb; NAV bar is active; 15:28 in length. Finding Croatian music that works in a slideshow was almost impossible. The show is long, but the that is what the Nav bar is for! I tried a few new 'tricks', like creating a font in 'old stone' and a route map. If you have been down that way, maybe it will provide some good memories. If you haven't been to Croatia and Slovenia, you have to put them on your list. I still have to work on the images of the remaining 20 days of the trip!!!! (over 1,500 images) Hope you enjoy the trip. Comments and critiques welcomed. Gary Beechbrook link: http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/downloadfile.asp?id=1874

====================== Ray, That bring back many memories. We drove from Nelson, down the west coast to Invercargil, and up to Christchurch, back in 1980. Beautiful country. Your pictures of the Moreaki Boulders reminded me where we almost got killed getting back on the road and forgetting that we should have been on the left side!!! I lost just about all of my pictures because my camera went on the fritz. Didn't know it until I got back. My first road map was done the way you did it and I think it is much more difficult then doing the transparent route as Lin and TheDom have demonstrated. But it is neat to use the car image. Thanks for the memories... I just uploaded my trip to Beechbrook with my route map in Dubrovnik and Kotor. Gary

================= Jan, After taking a look at TheDom's sample of his map-route, I see that my version of a map route was not as pristine as his. I made a boo-boo. In my last posting, I indicated that I had to rectify the black background that was showing through the map with the transparent route by changing the background to yellow to more closely match the other yellow routes on the map. I see that if I followed thedom's example (and Lin's), I should have just put in an original image of the map under the map with the transparent route (and under the red rectangles) so the original route would have just shown through the transparent route. I just did not get that point. This would really make it work so much better and easier. Gary

============== Igor... Thanks for your prompt response!!! Gary

================= Peter, It seems to me that your second proposal is just right. I hope Igor can do this programing, but I am sure he will have a solution. It seems to be a problem waiting to happen if you aren't aware of the potential conflict. I am surprised the lightbulb went off in my head to figure it out. Gary

================ Igor, I just figured out what the problem is. In addition to having the NAV bar, I configured the left mouse button to go to Previous Side (I never did this before). So when I use the left mouse in the NAV bar to go to Next Slide, I am confusing PTE and it doesn't know what to do. Sometimes it goes to the Previous, sometimes the Next Slide. So it is MY bug...sorry. But is there someway this can be fixed so this does not happen to someone else by mistake??? But I do notice that the NAV bar is not as responsive as it used to be. It takes several clicks and waiting for the slide to move to the next slide. Is that due to the larger image files I have, such as 200K to 300K? Though, using the keyboard arrows work much quicker to go to next or previous slides then the NAV bar. Thanks... Gary

================================ Igor, The original file is very large so I chopped it down to just a few images and it does show the problem. Here are the links to the exe and to the PTE files on MediaFire: http://www.mediafire.com/file/gyl8ha9hst34boo/Test%20Nav%20Bar.exe http://www.mediafire.com/file/9oo635dtu85r033/Test%20Nav%20Bar_Sep1-2010_15-31-12.zip I just looked at another show I have made with 6.5.2, and the NAV bar seems to be working OK. Maybe it is just a glich in this other example. Thanks for looking at it. Gary

============ Ken, If I read those links correctly, they are about looping back from the first slide to the last slide, using Previous Slide. That is not what I am talking about. When I am anywhere in the slide show, I just want hit Pause and use the Next Slide icon. It tends to go to the previous slide instead. Gary

Greetings, I just finished creating a show using 6.5.2. I included the Nav bar, as I usually do. During this process, I noticed that when I click on the Next Slide icon, it actually does a Previous Slide. It sends me back one slide. I was about to upload my final show to Beechbrook but I noticed it again in the final run-through. Can anyone duplicate this problem? Gary PS Sometimes it works correctly, but mostly it seems to do the Previous Slide.

================== Jan, Here is one that I just made. My first successful(?) attempt. After you have played it, change the Order of the map, in O&A, so that the map is sent to the back. Then you will see the 3 red rectangles (KotorRed) that actually fill in the route. The route was so wiggly, it was difficult to not have the red rectangles appear when they shouldn't have. So I needed to have the 3 separate red rectangles to get the job done. Getting them timed to flow properly was the difficult part...trial and error. The other thing that I did was dealing with the background color. The map did not cover the entire frame and the background of the slide was black. So this made the route, before the animation started, to be black (it showed through the transparent route). I changed the background to a yellow to more closely match the other yellow routes on the map. To hide the now yellow background, I had to add 2 black rectangles (KotorBlackSlide) to overlay and block out the yellow background that was showing at the top and the bottom of the map image. I hope this helps. I made it in 6.5.2 (the latest version). It might not play in earlier versions. Gary Kotor Map Route_Sep1-2010_7-39-23.zip

================= Ken, Thanks for the pointer to Lin's tutorial. I have to really thank Lin for this tutorial. I have been wondering how this 'trick' was done. I just gave it a try and I actually made a map with a moving route. It turned out fairly well. It is really fantastic that members of this forum take the time to help us that need the help. Sincerely, Gary

Greetings, I just was schooled in how the 'Sound Editor' (View/Advanced Options/Set Sound Editor) functions works (...or does not work). It only works after you have inputted a sound file using the 'Add Sound' icon (upper right hand corner of main screen). Then, the 'Edit Sound Comment' choice works, but only for any sound 'comments' added. So let me add my suggestion: Make it so the music files that are put in the Project Options/Music tab have the same ability to be opened in the selected sound editor as it does for music added with the 'Add Sound' function. And change 'Add Sound' to 'Add Sound to Current Slide' (yes, the mouseover is there but it would be better, I think, to add the full description on screen). Also, the word 'comment' has little meaning to me, in the audio sense. Perhaps, change the 'Edit Sound Comment to 'Edit Sound Added to Current Slide'? Thanks... Gary

============== Peter.... Aaaaaaaahhh.... . That dang little button, I have used it before but my bifocals just didn't let me notice it again. Thanks. And I see now that the Edit Sound Comment will take me into Audacity!!! Beautiful. And if I click on 'Don't interrupt sound comment...' the sound effect continues even if the slide advances to the next slide...super!!! Thanks for the help. Now wouldn't it be even neater if the 'Add Sound' menu had the 'offset' capability to be more precise in placement of the sound during the display of the image??? Why was it left out in this menu??? Much thanks, nobeefstu and Peter, for solving my questions. Gary

================ nobeefstu, I am still confused, of course. I don't see any choice to "Add Sound". I only see "Add Music". And my "Edit Sound Comment" is greyed-out, I guess until I figure out how to do the "Add Sound". What does "...Comment" mean?? Can you tell me where the "Add Sound" selection is? When the word "Sound" is used, I am assuming that it is referring to a 'sound effects',such as a wav, not music. And are you saying that setting the Sound Editor is there for no reason? Why can't it be made to actually pull up your sound editor, as would be a neat function??? Here is a more direct question, in the same topic. Say I want to add a sound effect (wav file) at a particular slide. The only way I can figure out how to add this sound effect file is to put it in the Music tab, using Add Music, in its separate Track. Then I have to go into the custom menu and set the "offset" to 'push' the sound to the point where I want it to play. That takes a bit of trial and error. Got to be a better way??? If this can be done, with the 'Synchronize Music and Slides' choice selected, why can't this simply be done in the more logical place of the Customize Slide menu, with the ability to 'push' or 'pull' that sound from the beginning of that selected slide,to be able to place it more precisely? Thanks for your help. Gary

Greetings, I set the "Sound Editor" to Audacity in the "View/Advanced Options". However, I can not figure out how to actually active the sound editing function. Can someone point me in the right direction? I am expecting to be able to click on something and the sound file will open up directly in Audacity, as it works for the Graphical Editor. Thanks... Gary

=============== Igor, Sorry it has taken so long to respond. Either I was traveling or my friend was traveling. I finally was able to test out your request on his plasma TV. I created an MP4 video file using the 'iPhone preset', as you stated. I tried to play the show from a thumbdrive (flashdrive) directly inserted into the USB port of his plasma TV. It did not recognize the file. Maybe it does not recognize any video file. I then tried to play it using my 'WD media player' box and it was plugged into the same USB port and it did play just fine. Gary

============ Or the right mouse button. Gary

============ Peter, Of course, I am talking about how my brain works. You can have a completely different intuitive experience. But if you happened to go through my workflow, you might see it differently. However, I see that the current way it works can cause problems (see my reply above to nobeefstu). When something can cause problems by simply trying a function and I have to go back and redo each image, I don't think that is a good thing. Gary Gary

============ Nobeefstu, I am not too clear on what you think I am doing, so let me explain it in more detail. I have been know to get my apples and oranges mixed up. I am now making my slideshows in the 16:9 aspect ratio to play on an LCD TV. So I bring in my images and I have to crop (expand) each image manually in O&A to bring the left and right edges of each image to match the left/right edges of the 16:9 frame in O&A. This gives me the opportunity to manually move the image up or down to lose whichever portion of the top or bottom of the image that is least interesting or makes a better crop. So this gives me a full 16:9 image of the cropped area. Then, say, I play with the '% of the Slide' function and input 80% just to see what happens. And if I don't like it, I put it back to 100%. Now, every image that I have previously adjusted to fit the 16:9 frame has not been returned to its previous position. I have to go back to each and every image and reposition it. This does not make sense to me. Each of the images that I initially cropped (zoomed) could have had a difference zoom setting so I'd have to address each and every image again to get it back to where I had it. Does this make any more sense to why I think the current way it works can cause problems? I just did a little more testing with this '% of the Slide' function. I now realize that the % change is from the original size, not the size I had resized it to. So if I had resized an image to 10%, and then changed the '% of the Slide' to 50%, it actually got larger (50% of the original size), not 50% of my 10% image. Maybe there is a good reason for not working the way I'd like it to work, but this has been a good learning process. Thanks for your input. Gary Gary

========================== Peter, It just does not make sense to me that, if you change a value of the '% of the Slide' to other than 100% and select "Set for existing slides", you can not go back to what you had by re-inputting 100%. I understand that these are complex matters and I don't know how people like Igor does what he does, but if something does not work intuitively, it needs fixing. Just my observation. Thanks for the explanation. Gary

=============== Peter, I now see what you are saying. However, I don't like how it works. Lets say I have set a Zoom value of, say, 121.585 and the '% of the slide...' is at 100%. What happens now is that if you change the '% of the slide...' to 80%, the Zoom value also changes to 80%. What I expect to happen is the image size in the frame should change to 80%, while keeping the Zoom value of 121.585. So if you want to change it back to the original size, you don't have to remember the 121.585 figure, you just put in the 100% value in the '% of the slide'. The Zoom value should be independent of the '% of the slide' setting. Wouldn't this give us more flexibility??? Gary

================= nobeefstu... I get it now. Thanks. I never figured out that was the way it worked (not that I like the way it works). It always seemed to make sense that since you were in O&A with the single image viewed, that the 'OK' would apply to that one single image; and the 'Set for existing slides' meant all the other slides, except that one, would be affected. Thanks for the help. I hope you can clarify my other question as to why it does not return to its original position when set back to 100%. Thanks much. Gary

See replys below: --------------- Gary

==================== Mark, Let me add one more point...one of my pet-peeves that I have with PTE. If you select the Auto-spread function, the slideshow will not play correctly in the mini-viewer. In order to see it play correctly (images spread correctly over the length of the music) in the mini-viewer, you HAVE to go through the selection of Timed Points/Arrange All Points (each time you add or remove images). I have tried numerous time to bring this to the attention of Igor. I believe that the selection of 'Timed Points/Arrange All Point' should be automatically linked to when the Auto-spread function is selected. I think questions like the one you raised will continue unless this is addressed. It was confusing to me, and it will continue to be confusing to especially new users who just want to automatically spread their images over the length of the music (and expect it to play correctly in the mini-viewer and see the images correctly spread in the waveform). Gary