alrobin

Hilary, Welcome to the Forum If you disable the default "synchronize" mode, you can start music at a particular slide by adding it to "Customize slide / music" for that slide. However, if you want to use "synch" mode, you will either have to edit your sound separately to add the appropriate amount of silence to the beginning, or else create a small mp3 file of the amount of silence required and add that in Project Options before the main music mp3's. For a key-stroke shortcut to edit a slide in your favourite editor, highlight the slide in the slide list and press "Ctl-w". It will open in whatever program you have designated as the default viewer for that type of image. I'm not aware of a similar shortcut for editing the sound.

ripigio, Welcome to the Forum! Please provide more details about the parameters and design of your show (how large are the image files, music - what type, etc.) Also the specs for your laptop (amount of RAM, processor speed, amount of video RAM, etc.) If your image files are too large and occur too close together, sometimes the pc's processor can't handle the load and some desired transitions could be skipped over. Also, sometimes it is necessary to close down all other non-essential processes to make more resources available for the slideshow program.

kpnutt, Welcome to the Forum! The program asks where you want to create the avi file. But, if you are using the PicturesToExe codec, you will create only a temporary file which must be followed up with a third-party video program such as Nero or Pinnacle. This avi file will disappear when you close PTE. However, if you choose a different codec, such as MS MPEG-4, the avi file will be saved permanently in the folder of your choice. See screenshots below.

Jeff, I've done the same with my complex AV presentation. However, I am using a few example sub-shows which were created in v4.48, and after these have played, I notice that control does return properly to "Show 2". I then created a new version of one of the "mini-shows" in v.5, with hardware acceleration turned on, and the problem recurred, with control reverting improperly to Intro show #1 after playing the "mini-show". However, when I pressed "Esc" to close the main "Intro" show, "Show 2" reappeared, at the same place it had called in the v.5 "mini-show".

Hi, Jeff, I created a set of three linked shows as you described, and lo and behold, you are right - I am finding the same problem. I discovered one additional anomaly - when the link skips back to the first show, if I click on the image with the mouse, the second show comes back. ( I have the shows programmed to advance on pressing the left mouse button, and reverse with the right button). I went back and checked my other example where I thought everything was OK, and sure enough, it behaves the same way. I had thought it was OK, but had checked the return from the second show in the chain by mistake. However, if one disables hardware acceleration for the second and third shows, the action returns to the second show as desired.

Jeff, I guess I misunderstood your previous post where you said: "Show1.exe has 1 slide. On this slide there is a button whose action is to run Show2.exe. If you try this, when Show2.exe ends, it returns to the Show1.exe slide whose button called it up". If when show-2 ended it automatically returned to show-1, then that would be the reason for the problem with show-3. However, since that is not the case, then, as you indicated, the problem lies somewhere else.

Jeff, The problem may lie with the setting for show 2. It should also be set to "keep last slide in show on screen" at the end. If not, it will end while you are away looking at show 3, and so there is no show 2 to go back to at the end of 3. I think the only way to get this to work the way you want is to add a button or action to show 2 which closes it and returns the viewer to show 1.

Hi, Frank, If you like, send me the pte program file, without the pics or music, and I'll take a look at how it is set up. (alrobin @ alrobinson.com - remove the spaces). Also let me know how long the music is (by clicking on Proj Ops / Music / Show music duration, for each music selection if there are more than one).

On my system, the key is called "reg.key", and it is located in the "VideoBuilder" folder, not the main pic to exe program folder. Don't think this makes a real difference, though, but it would help keep the two keys separate (the one for the main "pic to exe" program, and the one for VB). By the way, it looks like this: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WnSoft\VideoBuilder] "Key"="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx=" And it is exactly 247 bytes in size.

I tend to usually use the "reply" button associated with the posting, but I usually delete the portion of the post not applicable to my response. It is useful to have at least a portion of the post repeated since sometimes a thread has more than one question going at a time, and it is useful to know which post one is responding to or commenting on, and who the author was.

Open the timeline. You can see all of the transition points there, and if you "scrub" the timeline by clicking on the little blue triangle at the beginning of it and moving it back and forth over the transition, you can view the effect of the transition itself. Then if you want to change it, double click on the transition and you will be able to make the changes you want in the "customize slide" menu for that slide.

Jeff, I have just created a complex set of menu shows as you describe, and have found no problem returning to the appropriate menu. Perhaps you have inadvertently failed to set the option in one of the menu shows to "When show ends, keep last slide in show on screen" in Proj Ops.

Ralph, You found the answer. In my case, for image dsc_0015.jpg rotated, the rotation ini file reads: "[dsc_0015.jpg] RotationAngle=3" So, in order for the image to retain this orientation in PTE, this ini file would have to be imported along with the image file.

John, Make sure you click on "Set for existing slides" whenever you set something that you want to be globally applied.

Stu, I find that iit makes no difference whether I open from the menu or double-click. You may have a point about the use of the cache, but you would think that the file would not be stable over time and different systems if that were the case. In the zip I use, PTE seems to have lost any orientation customization and goes back to the original EXIF data instead. It's almost as if Igor is tagging the images somehow - but I cannot detect any difference in the script between the original .pte file and the zipped version. Also, if you change the .pte filename in Win Explorer, and open it in PTE, the images still retain their modified orientation in the PTE file list so the registry must not have been altered either. Also, according to the information provided by IrfanView, the EXIF data for the original images is the same as that for the zipped images. I completely reversed one of the images, and the zipped version is still presented in the same orientation by Windows XP as in the original folder. It's a mystery!

If you double-click on the filename of the second show in Windows Explorer, will it run OK? Make sure it's has the ".exe" extension. Also, try renaming it and try it with no spaces in the file name (use "underscores" or "dashes" instead). Also, as Lin pointed out, if the second show is not already in the same folder as the first, try moving or copying it to the same folder. Make sure the correct address is reflected in "Run application ...." in Proj Ops for the first show. Are you trying to play these shows from a CD? If so, make sure the address for the second show is the correct one for the location onl the CD. Try opening a different second show to see if maybe the fault lies somewhere within the second show.

Personally, one of the things I like so much about PTE is the pristine, simple viewing screen - I would hate to see it cluttered up with a whole lot of gizmos like you see in some of the video program interfaces. If it can be added through the use of a keyboard control, without taking away from the present uses for these keys, then that would be fine. I don't even like the use of navigation bars - keyboard and mouse controls are so much more sophisticated. Just my simple "uncluttered" viewpoint on this.

You seem to beon the right track - you should see a menu like the one attached below. Browse through it to find the show you want to run.

Philippe, How are you adding your music to the first show? (Proj Ops, Cust. Slide, or Sound line in the main window?) Do you have more than one music file? (I presume you are using mp3's?) Does the show run OK if you temporarily delete the music? What happens if you temporarily replace the music file with a different one? Lots of possibilities.

Stu, In the meantime, there is a simple "workaround" as follows: Open the O&A window for the first slide, and create a text object, where you can enter any notes about the current project that you want to retain for future reference. Then, change the opacity to 0 % and save. The viewers of the show will never know it is there, and when you want to refer to it, just change the opacity back to 100%. You could even change the "name" of the object to "Production Notes" or "Reference" so you know what it is when you open O&A the next time.

Olivier, Igor has just indicated in another post that he plans to add this capability to PTE in a future version. However, as long as the Project Options are the same for each, you can copy all the slides of one show and paste them to the end of another show. See Hawk's original post HERE (post #5).

Philippe, In "Project Ops / Music" you have to also check "Don't interrupt sound comment when next slide appears".

Hartmut, Thanks for jogging my memory - in looking through your pdf I realized that I had forgotten about that article on digital AV techniques, and in rearranging my website recently had left it out. It has now been reinstated, so the link should still work.

Shito, Try Google "Images", and convert them to "png" in an image editor.

One way to turn off background music is to add another slide (could be a repeat of the first) and check "Customize slide / Music / Play new background music file". You don't need to actually add any music. This will cut off any background music already playing. Then program this slide to open your web page. (you might have to post a message asking the user to click on it again). When you return to it, you can program a button on the slide so that when you click on it, you return to a slide to which you have added your background music. I don't know of any way to set it up so that it continues where it left off, but maybe if you experiment a bit you will find a way.