jevans

Ron, I am working on it now but, in the meantime, look at Lin Evans' tutorial here, http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/index.html I am trying to write a description of every function and element in the editor window as a reference document. Lin's tutorial is more an example of how to put images into the editor and obtain the various movement effects. Jeff

No Theo, it is not possible to rename the slides in the slide list window becasue these images are just linked to the original file. If you click on a slide in the slide list window, you will see under the information box marked "Show Image", details of the path to the file of the original image. What you normally should do is to collect all the files you need for a show into a single directory and use this directory for all the information required for the show, including any sound files. Unfortunately I have just checked and, if you rename a slide, the slide in the slide list becomes unavailable. so I am afraid you will need to re-order your slides in the show. Jeff

Yes DaveG, I see what you mean. I did not spot the difference the first time as all my slides were the same duration. It only works however if you insert the slide in the slid list, not if you insert the slide in the timeline. Jeff

Igor, Thanks for quick replies. Global Time Changes : Yes this solution is great. Just did not see this new facility in Project Options. Object Editor Screen : Attached are three images. Screen 1 shows the object editor screen in the normal position, i.e. in the centre of the screen with the scroll bars centred. Screen 2 image shows the picture and background screen rectangle pulled to the top left corner of the screen using "ALT + Drag" as you mentioned in another post. Why might we want to do this? Moving the background screen rectangle to another position in the editor does not seem to have any effect on the preview picture. Scroll bars : Screen 3 shows the same picture as Screen 1 except that the scroll bars have been pulled down and across to their end stops. Presumably the extra space around the basic black screen rectangle which locates the monitor size is to allow for larger images and images to be located outside the screen boundaries and you have just chosen a default size for the amount the screen can be scrolled. Jeff

Another question. In order to use the objects and animation editor, there must be an image in the slide listing window. That image can be deleted in the editor window and replaced by another alterntive image. However in the timeline view, the only image available is that in the slide listing window and NOT the images in the objects editor window. Will this be the smae in the final version? Jeff

Igor, his does not seem to have any effect on my Version 5 copy. If I have three slides set at 10 sec intervals and I add a fourth slide between any of the first three, the subsequent slides just move along so that the time interval of 10s is maintained. This happens whether the "Hold time points" is checked or not. If you add an intermediate slide in the timeline view, then the subsequent slides do not move, again whether the "hold time points" is checked. Are you referring to adding an object in the Objects editor when you refer to keypoints? Jeff

As I undestand it, you had a number of slides, say numbered 1 to 10. Each sldie was 800 x 600. You then applied a batch process using Photoshop to chamge the size to 1024 x 768. This should not have changed the file names, unless that was part of the batch process. In PTE, if you have a slide in the file listing which is then added to the slide listing window, changing the slide parameters results in these changing in the slide listing, since this is just a link to the original file. Thus the order of slides in the slide listing in PTE can only have changed if you changed the original file names. Repeat the process, making sure you do not change the original file names in the bacth process. You cannot change anything in the PTE slide listing without changing the original flile parameters. Jeff

I have some questions about the Objects Editor window. My default screen resolution is 1280 x 1024. If I prepare an image of 1280 x 1024, it exactly fills the black rectangle in the objects editor window which represents the screen. If I change the monitor resolution to 1024 x 768 and prepare an image with this resolution, then the image again exactly fills the black screen background. Thus the black rectangle always represents the monitor dimensions on which it is displayed. However in the editor window, the window can be scrolled horizontally and vertically with the scroll bars. What dimensions are represented by this additional area? Presumably this has been designed to allow images to be placed outside of the normal screen viewing area. Igor has indicated some keyboard shortcuts in a posting. One of these is ALT + Drag. If you try this on the black screen rectangle in the editor, it is possible to move this off centre. If you then add an image, this covers the screen rectangle in its new position. Why should you want to displace the screen position indicating rectangle from its default centre position? Finally I note that in previous version of PTE, changing the global time duration for the project will change the duration for all images which have been added to the project window. Thus a global time change can be applied to all images. This cannot be done in Version 5 and I assume that this is because it is necessary to avoid messing up the individual movement edits for each image. Thus the only way to make a global change (remember that users may not want to use any image movements) is to select all images in the slide listing and apply a custom edit to change the global image duration. Jeff

Thanks guys for those comments. Will get on with writing the guide now. Jeff

Lin Evans has alread produced a tutorial which describes the basic steps for getting to grips with the "Objects and Animation" window which you can find here http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/index.html This is a very useful first introduction to the "Objects and animation" functions and is in the form of a tutorial as to how to add and manipulate objects. I have suggested that it might be a good idea to start on a more general tutorial which describes each individual control, information of dialog box in the window as a reference document which can be used to look up control functions. This would be similar to the document I wrote for the Timeline window for the previous PTE version. It may be a little too early to do this as Igor obviously has some more work to finish off the animation editor and add the missing version 4.48 functions. But it is possible to make a start and then edit the document to update existing functions and add the new ones. I am very willing to have a go at this task and have made a preliminary start. However I have some questions about the existing control which I hope somone can answer. 1. There are two controls at the top left of the window. One is marked "Add Frame" and the other is marked "Add Rectangle". If you click either, the text in the "Objects" window is always "Rectangle" and they appear to have the same grouping function. What is the difficerence between these two controls? 2. What is the function of the ">" control between the Undo and Paste buttons? Jeff

Hi Goddi, This is too difficult a subject to give a quick answer to and anyway there are several answers. Here is a quick try. You have to decide whether you are adding slides to a pre-determined piece of music or whether the slides come first and you are fitting the msuic/commentary. Generally my shows are based on a set of slides which iIwant to show. I slect the slides, arrange them in the right order. At this point they are not added to the slide window. Now I record the commentary for a number of slides. I have a slide list and a default slide duration and I record the individual commentaries in Adobe audition on the timeline at the correct intervals. when completed, I attach the completed commentary file to the PTE project, and using the "insert slide" button, I add each slide at the appropriate place. Finally I add the bacjground music in Audition as a separate track, merge the commentary and music tracks and replace the original commentary file in PTE with the composite commentary/music file. Finally I make small alterations to the slide positions/transitions/durations etc to finish off the show. I DO NOT add all the slides in one go, because this means a lot of shifting around which is tedious. Alternatively I could have a piece of music to which I wanted to add slides to match. In this case I would put the music into Audition and make a timing list of the slide insertion points. Then I would add the msuic file to PTE, go into the timeline and add the slides one by one. If you have many slides, adding them one at a time might be too slow. Then you can add them all at once(just put then into the slide window), add your music/commentary file (or a blank sound file if you want to do a first edit) and eventually adjust the slide positions. There are several features of the timeline window to help you organise the position of slides. I wrote a step by step guide to using the timeline features which you can find here http://www.bishopthorpe-camera-club.com/Re...s/resources.htm The file is rather large and the instructions only apply to version 4.43 of PTE. But it will give you a good idea of the general principles. Remember there are probably as many ways of preparing a PTE show as there are forum members, so just look at the above examples as possible ways. Jeff

Might be able to do what you want using Flash files created with an editor such as Swish. I have made animated titles this way and the animation file can be called from PTE. A forum member Marcovelo is the expert and has posted sample shows. If you want to know more, just email me and I can give you some pointers. Jeff

Lin, Looking at the questions which start this thread and your excellent answers, I wonder whether it might be time to start a detailed guide for the object editor window. I had a go at a guide for the Timeline for the previous PTE version. Initially this was for my own benefit, but having completed it and shown it to some of our photo club members, decided to make it available to the forum members. The idea was to identify every control or icon in the Timeline window and then explain what each was for and, breifly, and example usage. I think this would be a good idea for Version 5 and I am willing to have a go. However I will need some help with understanding some of the features, as. like the questioner, I have not cracked them all yet. You answers make a great start. What do you think? Obviously it will need to be updated when Version 5 goes live but it might be an idea to start it now. Jeff

Michel, That is a great demo which runs very well on my computer. Thanks for sending the PTE source files as well so we can see how it is done. It certainly gives one a few idead about what is possible. Great pictures of the bee as well. Very enjoyable. Jeff

Brian, Very useful information. But could you elablorate on your instructions above. What do you type in exactly when the "Start, Run" box appears. Selecting "Start" then "Run" gives me a dialog box. But typing find/vga or any comination in this box does not produce a list of programs. Do you mean select the "Search" dialog box? If so, what is the search criterion Jeff PS : Were you going to email me some information about the Start menu, or did you not receive my email reply.

Igor, Version H is slightly better than original, although if you look carefully, there are still some very slight hesitations. The music is fine. 2.6 GHz AMD processor, 1Gb RAM, Radeon (200 graphics card with 128MB RAM, AGP x 8 socket. Jeff

Ron, I too find the demos are all jerky. I thought it was my graphics card but you have changed yours and still have the problem. My Task Manager window shows zero CPU usage against all the running processes, so that is not the problem. I have posted a question before on this topic but not really had a clear reply. Ken Cox has made various suggestions about processes starting up and how to identify and disable them. But I am reluctant to do this without being sure I know what I am doing. I dimly remember there was a Microsoft site where you could get a list of processes and what they are all for, but I cannot find that site again. I have plenty of disk space, 1 GB memory and a reasonably fast processor. So it is either the graphics card (Radeon 9200) or the effect of running processes. Not sure what Igor is referring to when he mentions Nero Scout. I do not have this on my machine, only the Nero 6 package. Jeff

Thanks Al, that clears up these points. just want to be sure I understand how the system works. Jeff

I am trying beta#2 and have some questions which I hope are not too stupid. 1. I have downloaded a sample show by JPD who uses the object window. I note that the tick box in the main window which, on previous versions of PTE you use to select whether the slide or the object is viewed is missing. Is this just a feature that has yet to be added? 2. In the test show done by Igor, in the objects window there appears to be only one keypoint at the beginning. I thought you had to have at least two points. 3. In the objects window, if you add a single slide, the timeline at the bottom of the screen shows the time of the selected slide plus the time of the transition for the next slide. If you press play, the cursor continues over the transition effect of the next slide. Jeff

Lumenlux, Ran the largest show on self-built machine with Radeon 9200 graphics card, Asus A7V600 motherboard and 1GB RAM. Monitor is 19 in LCD on 1280 x 1024. Most, if not all pans/zooms, etc have slight pause part of the way through the movement but it is very slight. An uniformed viewer may not notice but they are apparent if you are looking for them. Photos are terrific. I know that you are just trying out the Beta#5 facilities but would not like a show with so much movement in practice. Anyway a very good demo of the capabilities of Beta#5. Jeff PS : Just downloaded Beta#2 and it will now run on my machine. Only had a quick look so far but would love to know how you get some of those effects. Have not managed to work that out yet.

The "Trick" here is to remove everything you don't need from the PC.Start Menu into a "Shorts Folder" in the 'Program Folder' and place a shortcut to that on to the Desktop ~ do you remember I advised you of that before ? So just remove the 'Loads' from the Start Menu and make access to your Programs from a simple 'Shortcuts Folder'. You will find in practice that 10~15 Programs on the 'Start Menu' is quite enough for anybody quite apart from the 'Invisible +18 Running Processes' demanded by the PC. for self-operation. Hope this helps.... Brian.Conflow.

I have managed to solve this problem myself by taking a copy of the registration key from the registry and re-entering it again when logged in as another user on the same computer then registering the key again. Jeff

I am re-organising our photo club computer which has an official registered version of PTE installed. It was installed quite some time ago and I cannot find a copy of the original key. The computer was originally set up with a large number of user accounts which are no longer required. I have removed all of these with the exception of the original administrator account of course and have created a single "visitor" account. Temporarily I have given this account administrator privileges. I have upgraded the PTE program to version 4.48. However this can only be run correctly from the original administrator account. If logged in under the new "visitor" account, I am requested for the registration key. I repeat, this visitor account has administrator privilege. Is it possible to make the registration key available to other user accounts? Jeff

Ken, You are amazing. How do you find about these gems. Downloaded Belaric and got a detailed overview of computer which is very useful. I often install different software and it is very useful to have a list of what is present. Incidently I use a system image tool called Acronis True Image (it is Linux) to make a complete image of my main C:\ drive. I stor this on an external hard drive so that I can restore the whole of my main system disk in the event of a major crash. Jeff