goddi

================== Peter, It does appear to be that but I think I have an good card (old, but good). Here are my specs: NVidia GeForce FX 5600, 256mb memory. Gary

==================== Greetings, I have downloaded and tried to play JPD's PTE show mentioned above. However, I am having trouble just getting it to play. Sometimes, I just get a black screen after it starts. If I get it to start to play, it gets through the rain sequence and then the panoramic sequence. When it gets to the next sequence with he tree with red flowers as an insert to a larger image; the music continues to play, but the slideshow stops. I am assuming that my PC can not handle this show, for some reason. It is a large file but I have never had problems playing any other PTE show. I am running WinXP with 2GB of RAM. What might my PC be lacking in trying to view this slideshow? I was particularly interested to see what everyone was talking about in reference to the 'video' he included. Any ideas??? Thanks, Gary

Xaver, I did not think of doing that. I'll give it a try. But...it would be nice if Igor could factor in this little calculation in the Autospread mode. Thanks for the instructions. Sincerely, Gary ============

Xaver, I took a look at a PTE file but I could not make sense of it. I am not a programmer but I can't see why it can not be done. The Customized times would be somewhere in the PTE program as an input. The program already does a calculation to determine what would be the normal display time for each slide when the Autospread is check. All that has to be done is to have the total of the Customized display times subtracted from the total music time before the Autospread does its calculation. Seems simple to me but maybe it is not that simple. I hope Igor will chime in here to let us know if it can be done. Thanks... Gary ======================

When you check Autospread, you can not 'customize the display time' for a particular slide. I would like to suggest an enhancement to the Autospread function. I normally check the Sync'd and Autospread functions so all my slides will be spread evenly across the music, automatically. I also want the flexibility to extend the display time on some of the images, while using Autospread. But you can not customize the display time of a slide if you have the Autospread checked. I would like the Autospread function to subtract the total seconds of the 'customized display times' you have put in your slideshow and then recalculate the remaining time (total music time less the customized display seconds) and then spread that remaining time over the slides that don't have a customized displayed time. Now you have a more flexible program for basic slideshows. And it would be neat if it could work with reduced display times for particular slides, too. Gary

Peter, I am glad you see what I am trying to accomplish. I think I will post it to the "Ideas..." Forum. But I think the "Lock slide to here on the timeline" might not be understood correctly. When I first read it, it made me think the actual current position of the customize display time is to be locked where it currently might be on the timeline. What is to be 'locked' is the customized amount of time for the slide, not 'here on the timeline'. And I don't think it needs to be an 'option' that you choose. When 'Autospread' is checked, any customized display time should be automatically factored into the autospreading of the remaining slides. If you are not using 'Autospread', then the 'customized display time' choice will work automatically, as it does now. Right? Gary ==============

Peter, That is not my point. The above attachment with only 4 slides was only a demo of what I am trying to do with larger slideshows. I want to use the Sync'd and Autospread function so all my slides will be spread across the music automatically. I also want the flexibility to do what Lin showed me, and that is to extend the display time on some of the images. But you can not (at least I can't) customize the display time of a slide if you have the Autospread checked. If PTE can Autospread the slides you have over the length of music you have included, why can it not also be made to subtract the total seconds of the 'customized display times' you have put in your slideshow and then recalculate the remaining time (total music time less the customized display seconds) and then spread that time over the slides that don't have a customized displayed time? Now you have a more flexible program for basic slideshows. And it would be neat if it could work with reduced display times for particular slides, too. I think this would be a pretty neat improvement. Does this make sense to anyone? I understand that this might be meaningless for those who don't use Sync'd and Autospread. But I think it makes lots of sense for those who would like to adjust display times while in the Autospread mode. Gary ======================

Lin... Ok...I see what you are saying about the logic of putting 1 slide in for 8 seconds (using your method of Customizing the Display Time) is the same as putting in 2 slides in at 4 seconds. I experimented with your technique. However, my point seems to be getting lost in this discussion. Here is how I would like PTE to work. Say I have 4 slides and 16 seconds of music. I want the slides and music to be Sync'd and AutoSpread. (This is why I liked PTE in the beginning. Throw in some sides and some music and, da da...you have a slideshow that fits with the music's length. No need to edit music to fit and the slides' timing automatically adjusts to whatever is the music's length). So I check Sync'd and Autospread in Project Options/Main tab. Now I am happy that the music starts and end with the beginning and end of the music...my main requirement. Each slide lasts 4 seconds. Now, I want to make an adjustment. I want slide#2 to last 8 seconds... but I still want the slideshow to last 16 seconds and with the music spread over the 4 slides. So I uncheck Autospread and I go into slide#2 and change the Display Time for 8 seconds. I play the show: Slide#1 displays for 4 second; slide#2 displays for 8 seconds; slide#3 displays for 4 seconds; and, slide#4 displays for 4 seconds. This is great, except that the music stops at the beginning of the slide#4, after playing for 16 seconds. So what I would like PTE to do is to display slide#2 for the 8 seconds; and then automatically recalculate the remaining slides to 2.6666 seconds, so that I get the 8 seconds for slide#2 and the rest are redistributed with the remaining time of 8 seconds divided by the 3 slides (with Syn'd and Autospread checked). Now wouldn't that be just perfect? Are you telling me that this can be done now? I have tried and tried but I can not get it done. I understand what you are saying that "What you are trying to achieve doesn't require you to autospread slides," but I want to use autospread. Wouldn't this make slides' timing adjustment easier? Having to edit music to perfectly fit the number of slides would not be necessary. Whether a slide lasts 4 seconds or 4.20 seconds would be less of a concern than having to edit a music selection to fit. If I am missing something here, please let me know. Maybe I am not seeing the forest for the trees! I have attached the above AnimationTest-2 so you can see what I am talking about. Thanks...Gary P.S. I am still trying to figure out the "Scale Keyframes" thing... Give me some more time to fiddle with it. =========================== AnimationTest_2.zip

Lin, As I had mentioned before, I have Syncing Music to Slides and Auto Spread Slides Along Music checked. Doesn't this make a difference? If these are checked, then the slides are evenly spaced over the length of the music. So, I don't understand how, if I change the length of one slide using the Customize menu, that it won't change the timing of the other slides (which I don't want to change). I can see what you say if I am not Syncing or Auto Spreading. Then I am just pushing the total length of the show to be longer, ignoring the music's length. So, I dumped the copied slide. And now I have 3 slides and music to last 12 seconds, with Syncing and AutoSpread checked. In slide#2, I went into 'Customize Slide' and put in a value of 8 seconds. I reset the Keyframes to do the full pan from left to right. However, the music stops after the 2nd slide...about 12 seconds, as expected. So that is why I am doing it the way I am trying to do it. Are you sure your method will work in my situation? Also, I don't think I understand when you say: "Scale Keyframe in Objects (on Time Change) allows you the option of either keeping the timing between keyframes precise or spreading the change over the new timing." Can you explain a little more what you mean? Thanks... Gary ==================

In a recent slideshow, I was able to create the panning of 2 identical slides so they look like one slide being panned. However, apparently that was just some luck because I can't quite reproduce this panning to be seamless. Let me explain: I have an image that I want to have it pan from left to right. If I put this slide in only once, it would pan too fast. I am using the 'Auto spread slides along music' so each slide, lets say, last for 3 seconds. I want the panning of this image to last 6 seconds and not change the rest of the slideshow's setup. Here is how I have been doing it: I animated the first panning slide to pan from the left to the right, stopping about half way (the ending keyframe is 00:06:000). I then copied this slide and inserted it immediately as the next slide. In this copied slide, I dumped the first keyframe and moved its ending keyframe to the beginning of the animation line and inserted an ending keyframe so it finished the panning to the right. So now the ending keyframe of the first panning slide is 00:06:000 and the beginning keyframe of the second panning slide starts at 00:06:000. By looking at the timeline, each of these 2 slides last for 3 seconds. However, here is the problem. As the second panning slide appears (and I changed its 'fade-in' transition to 'quick'), this second panning slide looks as if it is panning faster than the first one. If each slide is to last for 3 seconds, why don't they pan at the same speed? I want it to look seamless but I see this slight increase in speed and I don't like it. Any suggestions? I have attached a small example. In this set, slide#2 and slide#3 (same image) are the ones I am trying to pan seamlessly. Watch as slide#3 appears and you will see the slight increase in panning speed. All of the PTE files are attached. I'd appreciate any suggestions. And I hope this makes sense. Thanks... Gary AnimationTest.zip

Peter... Thanks to you and all the other for your responses. I've got another 'unusual' problem. I'll be posting it soon. Gary ===================

Ralph... Thanks for the nice words. Colombia IS beautiful. Since my wife is from Bogota, I, as a 'gringo,' have had the opportunity to see a lot of Colombia...probably more that most Colombians. I might be able to squeeze out another short slideshow from this short trip. And soon I will be in Austria for about 22 days so I hope I will have more 'fuel' for more slideshows. Thanks... Gary ===============

This is just a portion of our recent trip to Colombia. For one days activity, my wife and I did a 'Canopy Tour' that had a 7-section zip-line over the coffee fields in Quindio, Colombia. We have made many trips to Colombia and, as usual, the people, food and service by the Colombians were superb!!! In this show, I tried a few new (to me) ways to animate images and text. http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/

Lin... I was watching the Performance Tab in the Task Manager as I did a 'Create Exe'. Interesting. Normally it sat around 8 - 10%. Then, as I did a Create Exe, it jumped up, as expected, to about 75%. If I did another 'Create Exe' before the graph reduced down to the normal range, I got the error. I also noticed that the peak of the graph comes down to 'normal' a little after PTE is finished doing the Create Exe. I must admit that I tend to do a Save and Create Exe after I make any changes, and maybe I am doing them too fast. What is strange is that now if I wait a little longer to do another Create Exe, I don't seem to get the error message. But I thought before that I had waited sometime and still was not able to do a Create Exe without getting another similar error message. I think you are correct in pointing out that it is probably a RAM issue, though I do have 2 Gb of RAM. I will keep my eye on this more closely. Thanks...I am pretty sure now that it is something connected with my PC. It only has happened with this large PTE show. Much appreciated... Gary ======================

Lin.... Ohhhhh... I think I see what is going on. I had not set any Custom settings. I used the Project Options/Screen/'Display shadow behind slide image' to get the white shadow. So that is the only place I looked. Now, with your idea, I happened to look in the Object and Animations/Common tab and I see that the Drop Shadow menu has Black chosen. Now, I don't know what I did to have this happen. What is the difference between the two menus? Is the O&A/Common tab a customize setting for that particular slide? I don't remember doing this to only the animated slides. Can there be a 'bug' of some sort? Yes, I understand about the fonts and rasterizing to PNG. I think I just missed that one. Thanks for the ideas!!! I will now go and check on the resource in Task Manager when I have this file open and I'll report back. I can eventually Create it as an Exe after I get the error message if I reboot and restart PTE. I get one or two chances, then I get the error message. But originally, I did not have this problem. I had Saved and Created the Exe many time. Then, suddenly, this started to happen. Thanks for your time and suggestions... Gary ==============

Lin... Oh...I have saved it dozens of times. I just can't get those slides with animation to change the shadow from black to white. I also clicked on 'Set for existing slides' but that did not help. I set the shadow to be 'white' in the Project Options where I expect all the slides to be effected with this change. Am I misunderstanding the process? Gary ========

Lin and Ken... Yes, I did not think of that. I usually use YouSendIt but the file is allowed to be up for only 7 days max. I will try the MediaFire. This file shows the error. Pause and read the first slide with text for full explaination. This is what I wanted to send to Igor: http://www.mediafire.com/file/k2djtt1mznz/CanopyTour-bad.exe This file has all of the PTE files for the above slideshow: http://www.mediafire.com/file/yw5knz2zyx2/...09_10-27-50.zip And, here is the larger slideshow with all the PTE files that is giving me the problem that when I do a Create Exe, I get the error message: "Unable to create file with presentation..." http://www.mediafire.com/file/zmzzj35utmm/...009_8-17-56.zip I hope I did this correctly.... Thanks... Gary =============

Thanks, Lin... The problem is that the files are too large. I pared down one file that shows the image that was mysteriously moved down and the animated images that will not show the white shadow as the non-animated imaged do, but it is 3.4Mb. Max uploads are 2Mb. The other slideshow that shows the "Unable to create file with presentation..." error is 72Mb. I am afraid that if I try to reduce that file's size by taking out images, it might lose the 'problem' and it won't be able to be analyzed to discover the cause of this error or to see if it will replicate on another PC. Do you have any suggestions? Some days ago, I asked Igor for his FTP info to upload the 3.4Mb file to him but I got no response. I agree with you but I'm not sure what the best method is. Gary ==============

Greetings, I have been working a new slide show for several weeks. I already have posted 2 'Bugs' that I have found and have had no resolution or answer as to why they are happening. I have posted both of them directly to Igor but no response. The first 'Bug' is that an image that has been inserted, has mysteriously zoomed/panned down to the bottom of the frame. This has happened 4 times to the same image. I have it set correctly but, later, I happened to see only the top portion of the image is in the frame. Strange, but true. Then, I posted a 2nd 'Bug' that the images that I have animated them to zoom/pan across the frame will not show the white shadow that I have set with 'Display shadow behind slide image'. While all of the non-animated images have my white shadow, those that zoom/pan across the frame still show a black shadow. I have also posted this to Igor, but no response from him or the Forum. Can someone test this out on their system and let me know if this is 'normal'? Now, I have come across a 3rd 'Bug'. When I try to do a 'Create Exe' with this slideshow, I get an error message that says: "Unable to create file with presentation....Tip: try to delete the file manually or just restart Windows and run PTE again." I have to reboot and then restart PTE and then I can do 1 'Create Exe' (sometimes 2) but, then it happens again and I have to reboot, restart PTE, to be able to do a 'Create Exe'. It keeps happening over and over. Can anyone shed some light on any of these things???? (Using 5.61 on Windows XP). Thanks... Gary

I have some of my images panning/zooming in their respective Frames. I have added to all of the slides a white shadow behind the images, using the 'Display shadow behind slide image.' And, I have clicked on the 'Set for existing slides.' However, I have noticed that for the several images that pan/zoom in their Frame, the shadow behind the image is black, not white. I can not seem to get these several images to match the rest of the images with the white shadow. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong??? Thanks... Gary

Ok...As I was trying to figure out another problem I just found (I'll post it later), IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!! The same image moved down to the bottom of the Frame area. Two of the 3 text items stayed where they were, but the image and one of the text items moved down. This is really a goofy thing. And I know I did not move the image or make any adjustment to it. It is just happening by itself. I am attaching what the correct slide looks like (1-CorrectSlide.doc) and the problem slide (2-ProblemSlide.doc). Here are some more details that might shed some light: For Slide#9, I cloned the image and then zoomed/panned into the image to show the top of a map. So the image moves from the full map to the upper portion of the map. For Side#10, I copied Slide#9 and deleted the beginning Keyframe (which showed the full map); then I moved the cloned keyframe (that shows the upper part of the map) to the far left of the animation line, and added text. I did this so Slide#10 will match up with the the zoomed-in image shown at the end of Slide#9. That is all I have done. Then...now the 4th time, the image gets corrupted as it looks in the '2-ProblemSlide.doc'. I hope I have made this understandable. Does this shed any light on what is happening?????????????? Thanks... Gary 1_CorrectSlide.doc 2_ProblemSlide.doc

Brian... Thanks for the drawing. But the 2nd image didn't really flip over (if I understand your description). The 'extra' image just appeared further down in the Frame area. What is so strange is that something put the 'extra' image there...I know I did not. The 'good' image was zoomed-in. The 'extra' image shows the same image but it is panned down to the bottom of the Frame area. It would make more sense if the 'extra' image was also zoomed-in, but it was not. I am also stumped...and maybe there is no answer to this.... Gary ========================

===================== Brian... Just to clarify a bit, Slide #11 (the unexpected inserted slide) really isn't a 'partial image'. In Slide #10, the image of the map is zoomed-in and panned to show the upper half of the map a little better. In Slide #11, this map image shows up as if it was moved down so only part of the top of the map appears. So it is the 'full image' but, somehow, it was panned down to the bottom of the screen's area so only a bit of the top shows. Not sure if I had made this clear or not. So the 'unexpected inserted slide' is not only a full duplicate of the previous image but it is in a different position (zoomed down to the bottom of the screen's area). And the exact same thing happened 3 times.... Gary

I tested this out. I did a Ctrl C as I would normally do to copy an image in the Slide List. I then tried a Ctrl V to paste it into a Word file. It did not work as Xaver indicated. So, this adds to the mystery as to why my '11th slide' has appeared 3 times. Gary ==================

Brian... I have always used the Office Shortcut Toolbar on the right side of my Desktop. I think it is a great time saver to have the programs I want quick access to. However, I don't have any of my Office programs doing autosaves. And if somehow there is an 'autosave' going on somewhere, I don't think there is anyway for a slide to be inserted in PTE the way this happened. I just don't see any relationship there. This is just a crazy thing going on that makes no sense to me. Gary ===================================