alrobin

Dave, You really have to be liberal with your timing at the beginning of the show. I always try to allow at least 3 seconds before the music starts (by having 3 seconds of silence at the front of the piece) and the second transition (the first occurs right at the beginning when the dark slide starts up. Also, I usually make that first transition a "quick" one (20 ms), and then wait 3 seconds before any dissolves kick in. Also, as Guido pointed out, you have to leave lots of time for transitions between slides, and make sure the transition has time to complete before starting another. If Igor is listening, I would really like to see a change in operation to avoid these annoying glitches, and have the timing take control in situations like this. The program should move on to the next transition if there is not enough time to complete the previous one, even if the previous one is not yet finished. This way, one will still know if there is a conflict, but the conflict will not cause the annoying switching on and off of an image, or restarting of a transition. Such a feature would also be useful in being able to have an image fade partially on, and then start fading off again, in an orderly manner.

Hi, Mark, It sounds like the "ptesource.xls" file has not yet been imported into the worksheet. You first have to "import" it using one of two methods: "Method 1. "Drag and drop" the PTE file (original ".pte", not the ".exe" file) from MS Explorer or "My Computer" into the open spreadsheet. This will open a new worksheet with the same name as the original PTE file, but with a ".txt" suffix. Save the new spreadsheet as an Excel file, "ptesource.xls" and leave it open along with the main "Adjustor" spreadsheet. You will have two spreadsheets open at once. Method 2 (Excel 97 users): Click "Open PTE file" and follow the instructions. ........... Method 3 (Excel 2000 users): ................etc..............." (I did not give the file-opening step a "Ctrl-Sh-xxxx" command for this operation as once the file is loaded, executing the command again will result in an error message, and, rightly or wrongly, I wanted to have more control on when it could be executed.) If none of the above methods work, please let me know. Method 1 is there mainly for odd situations where for some reason, the other two methods do not work. Thanks for the feedback!

Hi, Mark, Thanks for the feedback. I haven't had anyone complain about that particular problem before - it's a strange one. The VBA code is protected by password, but should not interfere with the proper running of the spreadsheet, unless, possibly, the model cannot find the file as indicated, and is trying to send an error message. If you do get an error, you may have to exit Excel before trying again, as the VBA does some funny things like forgetting the values of variables until the program is started up again. I have tried to have everything reset properly upon pressing "Restore", but there may be something I have forgotten to re-fresh. Excel 97 and 2000 seem to react differently to problems such as this. If you have time, please try different .pte files, and if the problem persists, and if you wish, you may email me the .pte file (without images or music, of course), and I will give it a try with my copy of Adjustor to see if I can replicate the problem. The model is very new, and so it is likely that someone like yourself, for instance, will come up with a special situation which the model cannot handle until modified. By the way, what version of Excel are you using? And on what version of Windows? Sorry for the inconvenience.

Hi, Mark, Right now there is no such feature in PTE. However, in the "Adjustor" spreadsheet model, you can do it several ways. You can also select two or more images, and automatically spread the total time between evenly over the slides in each selection. To accomplish what you described, in Adjustor, you incrementally change the start time of the slide at the beginning of the selection you want to maintain, and decrement the time for the slide at the end of the selection by the same amount, thus leaving the relative times of the images in between intact. In this manner, groups of images can be shifted either ahead or back in time with only two timing changes. Note: if the last slide does not have sufficient slack to accomplish the total shift, you must make appropriate decrements to several slides until the total shift is accommodated. The alternative in PTE is to manually adjust each image on the timeline - this can be a difficult task, especially for a show of over 100 slides in size.

Dennis, One possibility is to join several of the MP3's together in one file, using one of the several sound/music editors such as Cool Edit 2000, Audacity, Cubase, etc.

Joy, Boxig's suggestion is a good one, provided you are not moving the files, as I have tried to do, from my desktop to my laptop, where the files on my desktop pc are on drive "F", and I only have a drive "C" on my laptop. If you are familiar with spreadsheets, you can use my Adjustor model to see all of the image filenames at a glance, and do a "replace" to convert the pathnames to what you want it to be on the new pc. One of these days I'll add an option to Adjustor which will automatically re-name everything, including objects, to whatever you want them to be, without having to resort to "find and replace" or a manual operation.

Hi, Fotografer Welcome to the Forum! I tried a quick test and found that it worked fine for me, both under "Preview" and ".exe" mode. I was able to open up the pdf file while the music was starting up, view it, close it, and then go on with the show as if nothing had happened. Try playing around with the options (e.g. disable the timing for slides and put in a navigation bar, etc.) and see if that helps. I did find that once when I tried it with custom timing for each slide, the closing of the pdf file interfered with the transition (maybe I hit the close button at the same time as the transition was taking effect.) To indicate pdf file name, I set the pathname for the pdf file using the "browse" capability available in PTE.

Clive, This question was answered about 3 posts down - it was a duplicate posting. Maybe Gamy could go in and remove or edit this thread.

Steve, I have pretty well narrowed it down to a problem with XP assuming a file was still opened (which I have fixed by rewriting the code), but there still seems to be a problem in XP with creating the thumbs in "Easy Thumbnails" - I get a strange error message from the thumbnail program, and the thumbs which the log says have been created are not where they are supposed to be. I have written to Fookes about it, and hope they can suggest something. I haven't tried Win 2K - maybe someone else will be able to shed some light on it's compatibility. However, as you say, it is easy to create and manipulate the thumbs separately, outside of PTE and Adjustor. Now, if Igor were to add all that to PTE ....................

I tried to run the "Thumbnail" feature in Win XP, and, sure enough, it stalled on the part where I try to rename an existing folder. I checked the properties of the folder, and found that the "Read-only" attribute has a square marker in it, which I have not been able to change, nor have I found any information on just what it means. I can change it, but it resets itself automatically each time. So far I have not been able to determine how to change these settings so that the program will proceed as intended. No problems in Win ME, though. If anyone has a solution, I would appreciate hearing about it. In the meantime, it looks like those persons with XP who wish to use Adjustor will have to run the "Dark-Table" with the image files at full size. This is no big deal for shows under 100 images in size, but the Dark-Table operations become quite sluggish for shows over that size.

Hi, Michiele, I imagine it won't be long before Igor adds a thumbnail capability to PTE, as it is a relatively simple programming project. In the meantime, I have added thumbnail capability to my "Adjustor" model, but you have to be an engineer to run it! (just kidding ) If you are familiar at all with spreadsheets, Excel 97 or 2000, in particular, you might want to give it a try. (See separate posting on the forum). You need to have a PTE show prepared to try it out, though.

Connie, Hope you don't let the odd criticism now and then deter you from participating in the forum. It seems to be the nature of these forums, where everything is in written word, without the benefit of body language (which by the way, constitutes up to 60% of verbal communication), that feathers can become ruffled very easily, and people spout off prematurely with a critical remark. You would think that since it has to be written down, that people would be more careful about their comments, but I find myself as guilty as anyone else sometimes. However, this forum is very good compared to others I've seen, with respect to "flaming" (i.e. making critical or personal remarks). Most people on this forum are only trying to help, even when their remarks rub you the wrong way. I have found personally, in emails (and also forum posts), that you have to be so careful about what you write.

Hi, Steve, Welcome to the forum! Have you downloaded the free thumbnail program, "Easy Thumbnails"? It is available as freeware from http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/ . And, you are correct about only Excel 97 and 2000 as the VBA code used in the model is compatible only with Excel 97 or later. Meanwhile, I'll try it out on a pc with XP, and make sure I'm not missing something.

Ian, I have tried several programs for ripping music files from CD's, and have found that for some strange reason, Audiograbber is the only one, (other than the expensive "Cool Edit Pro"), that will work with my desktop CD player. You can even use the free download version - until you register, it will randomly highlight only certain selections for ripping. However, if you close the program and start again, eventually the selection you want will be highlighted. Of course, it is better to pay the small registration fee and support the maker of the program.

Bob, That's my understanding, too. Duplicate slides require no additional space, except for the very minute space taken up by the additional text in the script that refers to them. Of course, the objects you add to the suppressed slides will take up some space.

Just a note for whoever is interested that I have built into "Adjustor" compatibility with a freeware thumbnail program, "Easy Thumbnails" in order to speed up the loading of images in the "Dark-Tables" for those of you who wish to use it to assist in programming large slide shows (up to 400 images). Previously, loading of images in a large show would take up to 5 minutes or more as the full-size images were used instead of thumbnails. In the new version of Adjustor, if one selects "Thumbnails", a new folder is automatically created to temporarily store the original images, and thumbnails of these images are then created in the original folder so that the model can use them instead of the original images. Then, when finished, the original folder is deleted, and the temporary folder with the original images is renamed back to what it was originally, and the script file can then be exported so that it is available to PTE. Enjoy!

Connie, Digital camera software is usually designed with prints in mind - hence the reference to "dpi", and "72 dpi" in particular. When you are projecting an image, or viewing it on a monitor, it is only the size in pixels that counts, as that's what you are actually looking at. For example, if you want to view an image at full-screen on a monitor set at a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels, the image will have to be 800 x 600 pixels. Simple as that! So, if your digital camera software allows you to control the size in pixels, you can use it to reduce the image to a convenient size for the purpose you have planned for it. The best way to do this is with a professional program such as Photoshop or PhotoPaint, etc. Some free software, such as IrfanView, will also let you resize the image in pixels. You can also expand the size of an image in pixels, but this requires the software to do some "interpolation", which is not always successful. After resizing, you will likely want to "compress" the image even further, so that it is more manageable, by converting it to a "jpeg", or by re-setting the quality of the jpeg your camera produced. Thus, an image which started out as several Mb in size, could be reduced to one only a few hundred Kb, or smaller. Cropping will also reduce the size of the image in pixels, but this means throwing away part of the image, and you may not always want to do that. Hope this helps!

Welcome to the forum! Unfortunately, the same functions take different lengths of time on different pc's (different processor speeds, time to read files from disks, time to manipulate the graphics, etc. The only reliable way to achieve consistency in PTE, other than by leaving very long times between transitions, using short transitions, etc., is to synchronize to some music. Even in this case there can be problems with running the show on different hardware if transitions are too tight or image files are too large. One of the requests already made of the PTE Admin design people is to provide an accounting of total time based on all the individual interval times and times "on-screen". We are hoping that this will someday be provided in the program, even though, in the case of an unsynchronized show, it will give only an approximate duration. One way to see all the timing used in the show is to import it into the "Adjustor" spreadsheet model, described HERE in this forum. Good luck with PTE - I am sure that in time you will find it as useful, versatile, and enjoyable to use as the rest of us have.

Hi, Connie, Sounds like your image files are too large. Of course it depends on your pc resources (especially processor speed), but jpegs up to around 1024 x 768 pixels in size, compressed at a factor of 50, seem to perform more than adequately. These would be typically no more than 150 to 200 kb in size. 1.5 mb would most likely be too large for most P-3 or P-4 processors to handle, and still be able to play the music properly. Other things you could try are: - make sure all other programs running in the background are turned off. - make sure you have plenty of spare space on your hard drive(s). (if space is tight, you could try defragmenting). - if you have access to a system monitor program (one comes with Win ME, & XP), you could let it run to check on the pc resource utilization. This might give you some clues as to what is wrong. However, since the problem is common over 3 computers, it is most likely a file-size problem.

Hi, Dennis, Are you creating the show in "synchronization" mode? If you are, the synch instructions override the mouse controls. If you are synching the show, try un-checking the "synch" checkbox, and see if this works the way you want it. You can't have both, unfortunately.

Janie, When all else fails, try de-fragmenting your HD.

Sandee, I would suspect that the problem is either the quality of the cd's you are using, or the performance of your cd burner. Is it convenient to transfer the "exe" file for your show over to another pc with a cd burner, cut a new cd, and try that? Of course, to do that, you will need either a network connection to the other pc, or some form of mass storage other than a cd. Or a transfer through the internet to the other pc, which, if you don't have high-speed, may not be too practical. A while ago, I made a cd with some 'tiff" files, and over half of them were corrupted somehow, either by the cd itself, or by my cd-rw drive. Then, a few weeks ago, I saved a PTE show on a cd, and tested it satisfactorily on my own desktop, as well as my laptop. However, when I attempted to play it back through a friend's laptop, some of the images were badly "streaked", and the show skipped so that it was unusable. In fact, when I could not even copy it over to the friend's hard drive due to some data-check errors. This problem seems to be sporadic, as most of the time the cd's I burn are quite satisfactory. Best of luck trouble-shooting your problem. Please keep us informed as to how you are able to solve it.

Bill, I'm enjoying reading your very thorough and detailed postings, and learning a lot about Windows idiosynchrasies (sp?) - please keep it up! One suggestion relating to multiple views: as you undoubtedly already know, if you open two instances of Windows Explorer, you can see the originating folder in one and the destination folder in the other, and freely drag and drop files between the two without having to search back and forth for the appropriate folders.

Yes, and my mouth was watering until I came to the part "I'll sit on it."

Sandee, When you run "preview" you are still in the "prior to PTE creation" mode. What happens if you double click on the ".exe" file you created? If that opens and runs OK, I would suggest it may be a problem with your CD burner.