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Dave, Just a word of caution on Ralph's suggestion. If you programme your sequence using the "Go to slide xx" feature and then, at a later date want to add in some more images or take some images out or even shuffle some images around, the "Go to" slide numbers are not adjusted to reflect your changes. You will, potentially, have to reprogramme your sequence. Earlier this year Igor and I had a discussion about this and came up with the idea of introducing a "Go to label" feature and couple that with the ability to assign a label to a specific slide. It is possible that this feature might be part of v5.6 (I've not had any further feedback from Igor and the developers on this suggestion). Provided you are not working to a tight deadline you might want to hold off and wait and see what is in v5.6. It's release date is imminent, last I heard. regards, Peter

And that's just answered all my questions! (See post #20). I didn't use 'Manage Current Attachments' and yet the image file was attached. I've been doing an unnecessary step all along. Brian (Conflow), you have a full and public apology from me for claiming that you were wrong. Once again, we've proved that there are more ways than just one to achieve a particular result on a computer system. regards, Peter

OK chaps, let me make a little test here. I've used ADDREPLY to initiate this post. I've prepared an image file in Photoshop and have saved it as a JPEG. I have then clicked on Browse in the Attachments section of this webpage, navigated to the JPEG file and Open-ed it and then clicked on the green UPLOAD button. The file has uploaded and I've now got a line across the bottom of the "Attachments" section that says "Upload successful and is available from the 'Manage Current Attachments' menu." Now this implies to me that I have to do something with the 'Manage Current Attachment' menu. Do none of you get this line after the Upload completes? Or are you saying that you ignore it and just go ahead and click "Add Reply" and the attachment gets picked up automatically? regards, Peter

Hi Colin, Thanks for the comments. I'm fortunate in that the North York Moors railway is only a 40 minute drive away. The one-way journey from Whitby-Pickering takes between 1 hour 30 minutes and 1 hour 40 minutes and the cost of an all-day ticket is £20 (GBP20). Believe it or not I haven't yet actually ridden on the train. All my visits this year were to do the filming at the stations and at trackside. I'm intending to go again next year at the same time of year (April) and this time ride the train and do some filming of the passing scenery. If I get a successful shoot I'll try and incorporate some of the new material into the second half of the sequence. regards, Peter

Brian, Things are a little different under Vista (surprise, surprise!). I operate my Interent Security on "Custom" settings that are based on Vista's recommended defaults but with a selection of additional tightenings up. There are nearly fifty different options in the Custom window and I cannot now remember which ones I altered from the original default settings. As I am in the fortunate position (touch wood) of never having had any problems with hackers, viruses, trojans or any of the other "net nasties", you will appreciate that I would be very reluctant to make any changes. I might make an exception if it was required in order to get me past an absolute "showstopper" of a problem. And I use Outlook and not Outlook Express. I've never used OE because I've always felt it had too many loopholes that were being exploited by the hacker community. Added to which, I used Outlook for nearly 10 years at work and so knew my way around in it well. Thanks for trying to point me in a different direction, but I'll stay with where I'm at. Let's just accept that it's another example of the fact that, on modern computer systems there are always several different ways of achieving the same end result. regards, Peter

Dave, If you take the option on Project Options...Advanced tab to "Customize Navigation Bar" you can reduce the "hide after" time down to 1 second. That's as good as it gets. If what you are wanting to do is to control the sequence manually, then turn off the navigation bar and use Project Options...Advanced to set your left mouse button and right mouse button to "Next Slide" and "Previous Slide". Ensure that "Permit control of show..." is ticked and then you have the ability to pause the sequence using the spacebar and advance or reverse through the slides using the mouse buttons. You will also need to tick "Wait for a key press..." on Project Options...Main tab (this turns off all automatic advance). You might also want to have "Always show mouse cursor" set on the Advanced tab so that you can use the mouse pointer to draw attention to points that you are talking about. regards, Peter

Brian, Do you not have to go into "Manage Current Attachments" and do an Add operation? I've always had to do this when adding zip files as attachments. I must admit I have never added an image file to any of my posts. I was making an assumption - a dangerous thing to do! If I've got it wrong then: a - I've learned something new and: b - I apologise for any offence caused. regards, Peter

Ken, I'm sorry to have to say this but I think it's your age. Them old ears aren't what they used to be! I can hear it myself and I knew it was there when I posted the sequence. It is most obvious during the first 20 seconds or so when the only soundtrack material is my voice. As I explained elsewhere I knew I had a cold that day but I had a deadline to meet so went ahead with the recording. As I made the recording I was conscious that my vocal cords were heavily coated with mucus and that I was speaking with almost a gargling sound. However, since Brian (Conflow) pointed out in the thread on "H4 Problem Solutions" exactly what he had found in this recording, I have since found the same in several other voice-overs done with the Zoom H4. It would seem that the H4 and my cold have merged to give an especially unpleasant effect to this particular recording. I'm working on a piece of local history research at present with a deadline of Wednesday morning so don't have time to do much with PTE or Audacity this weekend. Once I've got the research complete I'll be getting in touch with Brian to delve a bit deeper into this and improve my knowledge and understanding. regards, Peter P.S. Have a great Thanksgiving weekend!

I had no problems either. I, too, run Vista but with Norton Internet Security active. regards, Peter

Mike, In his post above, Brian omitted the very last step, actually attaching the uploaded item to the post. If you go into the Tutorials section of the Forum you will see at the top of the page three threads on FAQs. In the Forum Usage thread there is an FAQ on attaching files to your post. regards, Peter P.S. for Brian, You've got to stop burning the midnight oil, my son, your brain cells are not performing at their best at such times!

Hi David, If you still have your old computer you could try using the Windows Search or Find feature to track down a file called reg.txt in a directory that you would associate with Pictures to EXE or with where you used to save files that were associated with downloaded software. If you find it, then copy it over to your new PC and then follow the on-screen instruction to Load a Key and point PTE at this file. regards, Peter

Ken/DaveG, I haven't really addressed much on the DVD/VideoBuilder side in the FAQs as yet because I have only limited personal experience. I'm still coming up the learning curve on things like DVD +R, DVD -R, NTSC, PAL, SECAM, 1080p, etc. and, indeed, using VideoBuilder to burn sequences to DVD. I didn't used to read the posts in the DVD section because I had no interest in that aspect of PTE. But now I am reading them all and slowly working through the back numbers - trying to absorb and understand the terminology and the associated problems. I'm hoping to address some of the issues in this area in some of the FAQ drafts that I'll be posting in early November. regards, Peter

Hi Umberto, As far as I know, there is no keyboard combination that will do what you want. And, yes, you are doing the right thing by making other objects "Transparent to selection". Perhaps the neatest way of working, if it was feasible in the coding of the program, would be for Left click on the object name to provide Selection as now but for right-click on the object name to provide both Selection and the new "Lock" function that you are seeking. However, if Igor made everything too easy there would be no fun left for us amateurs! For me, a lot of the satisfaction in producing A-V sequences comes from solving the challenge of actually finding out how to get the effect that I want. On many occasions I don't succeed - but when I do it's a wonderful feeling. regards, Peter

Brian, Thanks for bringing this to the attention of the forum members. I'll now have to go and investigate all this on my Zoom H4. regards, Peter

Hi Mark, If you are copying and pasteing a Button from one slide to another and the button is not keeping all its attributes it might be because, at your button's destination, the button is going to become the child of an object that has been zoomed to a size that is different from the source object. The fonts for the text on the Button are controlled via the O&A Properties tab in just the same way as the fonts for a text object are controlled from there. regards, Peter

Dave, Thanks for the comments. They're much appreciated. See the edits made to post#1 for the explanations about my voice and the image size. regards, Peter

Eric, The show is built to run from a PTE Menu sequence. Because of a problem associated with running PTE sequences under Windows Vista, this sequence has to be built to run "Windowed mode" and not "Fullscreen" mode. In fact, this is true of all my v5 sequences. They are built to be projected at 1024x768 and triggered off a menu sequence. regards, Peter

From the symptoms as described I would be suspecting that the PC driving the club projector isn't up to the demands of the complex animations of PTEv5. As we all know so well from other posts on the forum, it is usually the graphics card that is the weak link in the chain when it comes to animation. The fact that the ProShow sequences, that don't put the same stress on the GPU, all run OK is another indicator that this is likely to be the root cause area. regards, Peter

Barry, Was the "warble" predominantly on the voice-over? if so, it was because I had a slight cold when recording the voice-over. I normally wouldn't do the recording in such a situation but I had broken my own rule and accepted a commitment to show the sequence to an audience before I had got it finished. In order to meet the deadline I had to record whilst still being a little "under the weather". regards, Peter

I posted a link to this sequence in one of the threads about sound recording because it demonstrates the capability of digital sound recording equipment. I'm posting the link here to bring it to the attention of a wider audience. The railway runs between Whitby and Pickering through some of the finest moorland scenery in North Yorkshire in the north east of England. The voice-over and the location sound recordings were all done using the Zoom H4 digital sound recorder, captured as WAV files at source and post-processed using Audacity. The A4 Pacific whistle was recorded with the unit lying on the ground in a clump of sedges for additional wind baffle while I did the photography. The station ambience was recorded with the unit held in my hand. File name: NYMRailway.zip; file size: 33MB. The link is here: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7836f6f...2db6fb9a8902bda Following added at 1620GMT on 9 October 2008: The audible problems with the voice-over are attributable to the fact that I had a slight cold when recording it. I normally wouldn't do the recording in such a situation but I had broken my own rule and accepted a commitment to show the sequence to an audience before I had got it finished. In order to meet the deadline I had to record whilst still being a little "under the weather". The show is built to run from a PTE Menu sequence. Because of a problem associated with running PTE sequences under Windows Vista, all my sequences have to be built to run "Windowed mode" and not "Fullscreen" mode. They are built to be projected at 1024x768 and triggered off a menu sequence. That explains the overall image size and the way it appears on larger resolution monitors. All comments very welcome. regards, Peter

Barry, You asked: I've just uploaded a sequence about the North York Moors Railway, (File name: NYMRailway.zip; file size: 33MB). The link is here: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7836f6f...2db6fb9a8902bda The voice-over and the location sound recordings were all done using the Zoom H4, captured as WAV files at source and post-processed using Audacity. The only time they became MP3 was when exporting the final mix of the soundtrack. The A4 Pacific whistle was recorded with the unit lying on the ground in a clump of sedges for additional wind baffle while I did the photography. The station ambience was recorded with the unit held in my hand. regards, Peter

Barry, I'm not familiar with these third party filters. Are they plug-ins to Photoshop? And if so, do you know whether they work with Photoshop Elements? regards, Peter

Tom, I didn't realise Custom was an option under Fullscreen. Yep, I get an Exception condition if I send the aspect ratio negative. I don't get a full-blooded crash: I'm still able to go back into Project Options and correct the negative value. Are you seeing an unrecoverable crash (i.e. restart PTE to recover)? regards, Peter

Tom, I'm running v5.52 and cannot reproduce this error. Firstly I cannot find an option called "Custom aspect ratio" on Project Options...Screen. The nearest I can find is "Screen Options...Windowed Mode". When I key in -999 into either of the two input fields, PTE changes the value to 2. I get no crash. Are you sure you are running on v5.52? regards, Peter

Hi Tom (Tomuk), Taking Barry's sugestion one step further...Be prepared to mix up the sepia styles a little bit (e.g. fade some a little more than others). Not all old photos have exactly the same sepia intensity: some have been faded by excessive exposure to bright sunshine, or imperfect storage). Another thought: begin in full colour, find an image to use to transition to sepia, run through in "old photo" mode and find a second image to transition back to full colour for the ending. What ever you eventually do with it, remember that it's your sequence not ours! It needs to carry your personal stamp on it somewhere, somehow. Good luck with it. regards, Peter