jevans

Lin, This is a fabulous show with stunning pictures. I was rivetted to the screen until it finished. Despite the image size, it ran smoothly with my Radeon 9200. 128mb graphics card. PTE seems to be an ideal medium for that kind of demonstration. If I was a buyer, you would have a large order - and I am tempted anyway. Jeff

Thanks Al, I had not appreciated that you could now select more than one object and then apply PZR. You are right, both commands are required. Just checking! Jeff

DaveG, Interested to know how you think the two features you mention above can be used differently. I need to be sure I understand all the features when re-wrting the user guide. Thanks Jeff

Bill, There is no facility in PTE to edit the attached sound files. You have to do this separately to get the correct length, volume, fade, etc using an audio editor. Jeff

Igor, Thanks for all your hard work on Beta#3. You must have a great team. Just two very very minor points to mention. 1. The "Transparent For Click" and "Ignore Not Selected Objects" functions appear to produce identical results. If you select "Ignore Not Selected Objects" then there does not seem to be any need for "Transparent For Click", as you can select an object which is behind another one and vice versa. 2. Assuming that there is a need for both functions, might I suggest that the labels be : - "Transparent To Selection" - "Ignore Objects Not Selected" Incidentally these functions are a great improvement over Beta#2 as Thedom has mentioned above, and make the manipulation of objects much easier. Jeff

Very interested in your ruler.exe program. As you may have seen, Lin Evans and myself are considering combining forces to update the tutorial material we both have produced separately, when the next beta PTE version comes out. I have noted your comments on the previous version and will incoporate them in the next revision, plus including any new or changed features. How did you produce Ruler.exe. Did you take a number of screen shots and then compile them into a PTE show? I was thinking of using Widows Media encoder to produce a video tutorial. This may be quicker than having to make a large number of separate screen shots and then make up the PTE show. Jeff

Jean-Pierre, What a wonderful show. I agree with Thdom's comments. Many of the very clever demonstrations posted so far using Version 5 have rightly been trying to explore the extent of its new features, without worrying too much about producing a finished show, i.e. trying to find the boundaries of what PTE will do. But, in practice, I suspect that we will all be trying to make a show such as yours using the special Version 5 features as you have to make a show which will delight specialists and non-specialists alike. Very well done, I enjoyed it very much. Jeff

Lin, This is fantiastic art and shown to such good effect using PTE. Really impressed. See separate email about download links. Jeff

Rather a red face here. I was clicking on the value boxes instead of the text. Yes it works of course Thedom : It works best if the keypoint is after the start of the next slide. But it also woks if you drag the keypoint before the start of the slide, although the sizing seems to be fixed until the slide actually starts. Jeff

The question was actually raised by Thedom and I was just replying. But you are correct. I tried it out and it works as you suggest. I had not thought of that use and I will include the comment in the guide revision. Thanks Jeff

Thedom, Excellent show. I never would have thought of using the rectangle like that. Jeff

Thedom, Thanks for very useful comments. I will amend the guide to take these into account. here are some further comments on your suggestions. "This is the window zoom control with step settings from 10% to 500%". (p.6). Happy with all these comments, except that Do not see purpose of alt + mouse drag to move screen in O/A window zoom with mouse whee does not work with my mouse (radio mouse) "When an image is paced into the O/A Editor window, it's size (Zoom), locations in the window (Pan) and orientation (Rotation) can be physically changed by dragging on the image handles". (p.7) Cannot reset zoom.pan, etc by clicking on fields "The figure shows the timeline of a slide, set to have a duration of 15s and a transition time of 1.5s...". (p.12) As I understand the O/A timeline display, the slide time plus the previous transition and the next transition are shown. Thus if I have a slide of 4s with transition time of 1.5s, I will see the 1.5s transition and slide starting at t=0s and ending at t=4s. The next slide transition of 1.5s will start at 4s. So the timeline shows me the full 4s of the slide plus a further 1.5s of the next slide. "There is always a keypoint at the beginning of the timeline for each object" (p. 15). Yes, by default, but this first keypoint can be moved if needed (in combination with the starting line by example). question : Why do we have the ability to move keypoints of an object OUT of its own slide timeline ?!? Is it a bug because it seems it doesn't have any effect... I do not know the answer to this question. I can see the point of moving either of the two blue lines to restrict the time over which an image is viewable, but not why you can move a keypoint outisde the timeline points. Jeff

Lin, I entirely agree with your comments. I think that both approaches are needed. In your version you walk a user through the various steps to completing an animated image. However a user may also want to look up a control function at a later date and that is where my appraoch comes in. When I get some new software, I always like to try to understand all of the functions. I have found in the past that if you do not explore these, there is always some wonderful trick that the software will do that you do not know about. So a joint approach is definately what is needed. Jeff

Version 5 Guide : Lin : Thanks very much for your useful comments. I will amend the text but may wait until Igor has posted the next Beta version before posting a revised copy. My thoughts are to revise the basic draft to incorporate all of the new features of Version 5 when it is puiblished in its final form. Ken Cox has posted a comments that you and I should collaborate and, of course, I am very willing to do this. I class myself as a relative beginner as far as avi work is concerned but I do have quite a lot of experience is writing technical documents. One problem that I am facing is that I have just tried to set up a web site via my ISP provider. I have had little success until I managed to get an initial page registered onto which I have managed to place the pdf guide. I am sure that this is not the correct way to do it as it does not produce a download link like so many of the forum members seem to do. I need to research this in a bit more detail. Jeff

Hi Folks, I have finished a first go at a guide for PTE Version 5 Beta#2 and you should be able to find it here http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/jvedette/PTEV5guide.pdf Some points to note. It is a first go and may have some errors. Version 5 is not complete so it may need to be changed or supplemented. I will try to do this when the final version of Version 5 is published. It is in the form of a pdf document. The link above should open the document in Acrobat Reader and you should be able to save the document onto your computer. I am new to using web hosting so I am not completely sure this will work but it has worked for me so it should be ok for others. Would be interested in any comments and will, of course, do any modifications that are required. Jeff

Hi Ken, I too have a 1280 x 1024 LCD monitor and I confirm your results. If I had ssen the small zoomed pictures in isolation, I would not have thought them to be too bad. But when you compare them with the large zoomed pictures, there is a noticeable effect. I have been cropping my pictures to 1280 x 960 before putting them into PTE on the basis that this maintains the asepct ratio of my camera, and also, because many of my shows are shown at our local photographic club where the digital projector resizes to 1024 x 768 anyway. But with PTE 5, I think the suggested method is a good idea. Jeff

Al, Here is some more information along the same lines. Original image : 3264 x 2448, ratio 1.333:1 or 4:3 Monitor size : 1280 x 1024, ratio 1.25:1 or 5:4 New project. Set PO to "cover screen" and aspect ratio 5:4 to match the monitor. Add image and in the O/A window, the screen setting is "Fit to screen". I think this is wrong since setting the Project Options at the beginning should surely set all the default options for all slides. Then you would hange each slide to fit its apecific requirements. Now with "fit to screen", as you would expect the width is adjusted to be correct for the width and there are black lines at the top and bottom. (1280/3264=0.392 and 2448 x 0.392=960, so there are 32 pixesl missing at the top and bottom). With "cover screen", there is a small amount of cropping at either side of the picture. Again this is what you would expect (1024/2448=0.418 and 0.418 x 3264=1365), i.e. 42.5 pixels are cropped from each side. Apart from the OA window not defaulting to the setting in PO, I do not think this small cropping is significant as long as you realise that it will occur. Generally I crop all my imgaes in Photoshop, to either 1024 x 768 or, more usually 1280 x 960 to maintain the same aspect ratio as my monitor. Jeff

Al, Can you just check the statement above. I find that the option to change the screen appearance in the O/A window works fine, "Original", "Fit to screen", "cover screen". But the option slected in "Project Options" has no effect on the slide in the O/A window. Jeff

Igor, Although I understand how this function works, I am not sure that the situation is as simple as your explanation makes it seem. I have done the test that was suggested and the results are given in the attached Word document. I have also added some comments in the Word file which you may find useful. The important difference in Version 5 is that individual slides may well contain complex objects and multiple keypoints. It will be very important to understand what happens to these keypoints when a new slide is inserted. From my checks, it looks as if the default poisition for the "Hold time points" check box is "Un-checked". ADDING_SLIDES.doc Jeff

Thanks again Thedom, would never have found that. I trying to write a reference guide and your answers are very helpful. Jeff

In the Objects and animation editor - Properties Tab, what is the function of the check box to select "Main Image". What particular functions does this give the image when this box is checked? Jeff

Thanks Thedom, That is a useful thing to know if you want to group any collection of objects. I understand it now. Jeff

Thanks Al, I had got that far but wondered why you would want to add an empty rectangle. If you want to group objects then you can do it without the rectangle. However I suppose the empty rectangle just provides a reference object around which to group other objects. Not sure I fully understand the logic of two frame/rectangle buttons but I at least understand how they work. Jeff

Yes Igor I agree with your analysis. What I am saying is that inserting a new slide in the Main Window into the slide list gives a different result from inserting a new slide into the timeline window. When inserting slides in the timeline window, it does not matter whether the "Hold time points" is ticked or not. Not saying it is a bug, just a different action. Jeff

JPD, How do you do this, i.e. have two separate objects and then group them so that pans etc apply to both objects in the same way. Jeff