fh1805

Jeff, I cannot complete the test because I cannot save a lengthened sound file under the same name as the one that is open in PTE. Audacity and/or Vista will not let me do that. Yet, an hour or so ago, they happily let me save a shortened version! How odd! Just out of interest, what operating system and what sound editor were you using? regards, Peter

Excellent news, Igor! I look forward to the new release in due course. regards, Peter

Jeff, I don't see this behaviour with my copy of v5.6. I tried to follow your sequence of events thus: - Create project and add music file (in my case Music01.mp3 length 30 seconds) - Preview etc and confirm that all is OK at this point - Show Waveform on Timeline view (all is as it should be) - Leave PTE open - Use Audacity to cut the music file down to 15 seconds - Export as Music01.mp3 into the same folder as the previous copy (got the warning about the file already existing, and went ahead with the over-write) - Switched back to PTE - Timeline view still shows 30s of waveform - Project Options...Music shows 15 seconds of music - Click on OK to exit Project Options - Timeline view adjusts to show 15 seconds of waveform Did you click OK to exit Project Options the second time around or did you click Cancel? You have made a change to the Project Options (albeit by doing an external edit of a sound file's duration). It isn't "intuitive" behaviour by PTE, but if you give it a fair chance to update it's Project Options, it does seem to do so. regards, Peter

My apologies. My understanding of the discussion in French was wrong. The issue is that, if the main image is changed using the "Change Image File" icon, then the Object Name for this image object in the Object List in the O&A window is not updated to reflect the change of file. regards, Peter

Igor, I've just seen some discussion on one of the French PTE User forums about a bug in v5.6 If you use the Properties tab of O&A to change the main image file, the Object name in the Objects List below that tab does not get updated to reflect this new file name. It does get updated if you change any other object item. The Object name did update correctly in v5.52. regards, Peter

Xaver, I'm not the perfect, totally disciplined user of PTE that I might seem to be from the advice that I give in my posts. I'm afraid that, like so many others who offer advice, it is often a case of "do as I say and not as I do". Although I do, most of the time, keep the pte and exe files together in the unique folder for each project, there are times when I need to make a very small change to an existing project in order to demonstrate some particular effect for just one audience. In these situations my discipline breaks down and, nine times out of ten, I make the change to the pte, do a Create As into some other folder (possibly retaining the pte file name but sometimes giving the exe a totally different name) and then close the project file without saving (although sometimes I will do a File...Save As... possibly into the normal project folder but sometimes into a different folder). The end result is that, whilst I know where all the main versions of each project are, I lose track of where the minor variants are and of what is in them. Whilst thinking about the problems that Igor and his team will face in providing a utility to "Create" all the exe files that are driven off a launch menu, it struck me that an "Organizer" might be useful to them and could be useful to PTE users also. Hence the suggestion in this part of the forum. regards, Peter

Igor, This suggestion is a follow-on to the PTE v5.6.1 discussion thread in which the following post appears: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....ost&p=62521 Why not add to PTE an "Organizer" function similar in concept to the Photoshop Elements Organizer? If this database stored the Full Path Filename of each .pte, .ptv and .exe file together with their "Created date" and/or "Last Updated" date, it would provide you with the data you would need to provide an "auto-create" tool for launch menu sequences. It would also provide an additional tool to help us users keep track of all the variants of sequences that we produce for many and varied reasons. regards, Peter

Ron, Thanks for those kind words. Just to clarify matters for any newer forum members who are unclear as to what has been discussed above: The majority of the dialogue between Igor and myself has been about a problem where Norton Internet Security 2009 has falsely detected a suspicious event. This problem will be encountered only by anyone installing the current v5.6.1beta code and who uses Norton Internet Security 2009. Igor has inddicated that he understands the issue, that Symantec will not relax their test condition (and I agree with this stance by Symantec) and that he (Igor) will develop an alternative technique. Posts #4, #13 and #14 were discussing the situation as it would affect anyone who builds a menu sequence from which they launch other sequences using either the "Run Slideshow" feature or the "Run Slideshow with Return" feature. The nature of this feature means that all sequences involved in that menu group have to be created at the same PTE version level. This is going to mean that users of launch menus will have to ensure they retain their project files for all their sequences, so that they can, if they need to, pass each project through Create processing whenever a new version of PTE is released. regards, Peter

Igor, Your explanation makes clear why things are as they are, thank you for taking the time to explain in such detail. Your suggestion of a "tool" of some kind seems to be a sensible approach to this problem. I can see that you will be able to identify all the EXE files called from a menu sequence's .pte file. Presumably, you would then have to display those filenames as a list so that the user could browse to the folder where each .pte file was to be found. You will not be able to assume that all .exe files are in the same folder as their .pte files. You would also need to allow the user to nominate where each newly created .exe file should be saved (again, you couldn't assume that the user wanted the old ones over-writing or that they wanted the exe files in the same folder as the .pte files). It isn't going to be a simple job for you and your team. Perhaps it should be offered as a stand-alone program at first, so as not to hold up any other developments in PTE. Whatever solution you decide to adopt, good luck with it! regards, Peter

You need to keep in mind that JPD is a gifted mathematician and a major league wizard with Excel spreadsheets. I know that many of his amazing effects are achieved by applying mathematical formulae in Excel to generate the necessary parameters for PTE. I wouldn't be surprised if he also generates the lines of text for the PTE project file by writing Excel macros. His genius is that of combining his mathematical knowledge with multiple computer-based disciplines into a creative whole that far surpasses anything that we could do with our limited abilities in just one or two of those areas. He is a "one off". regards, Peter

Luc, There's no need to uninstall the old version. PTE v5.6 installs into its own folders and will happily co-exist with earlier versions. All you need to do is take care with which version of PTE you associate the file extensions .pte and .ptv. regards, Peter

Hi Igor, I've run the re-install of v5.6.1 over the top of previous v5.6.1; into the same folders that I used for the previous install - and got the same error. Whilst reading the error message to make sure it was the same, I spotted out of the corner of my eye a Norton Anti-Virus pop-up window fading away over the system tray. It had faded too far for me to note any details, sorry! I then ran the v5.60 install over the top of existing v5.60. No errors! I then re-ran the v5.6.1 install over the top of the existing v5.6.1 and watched carefully for the Norton pop-up. It was reporting an auto-protect block of "Suspicious: MH690.A" (a "false positive"?) regards, Peter

Hi Luc, V5.00beta is so far back in time I cannot remember exactly what it gives you or how it works. But I do recall that the manual control of sequences was not active in some of the early betas during the various v5.xx beta programmes. Maybe that is what you are up against. That's the bad news. Now the good news!! You do not have to remake your sequences if you upgrade to the latest version. Just open the .pte file into the new version, do a File...Save As... under a new name so that you do not over-write your current file and then continue with your development. PTE project files are "upwards compatible" (i.e. you can load a .pte file made with lower PTE version into a higher PTE version) but they are not "downward-compatible" (i.e. you cannot load a .pte file made with a higher PTE version into a lower PTE version and expect it to work properly. It might; but there again, it might not). regards, Peter

Igor, Further to my previous post (#6 above), I can confirm that the program, SetupVideoInet.exe, is present in: C:\Program Files\WnSoft PicturesToExe\5.6\VideoBuilder As far as I can tell, this is the only file that has failed to install cleanly in the v5.6.1 installation. regards, Peter

Eric, I came to PTE from PowerPoint. These button settings were the Powerpoint defaults that I was used to. And in any case, we use Left click much more than we do Right click in all our other PC usage. So it seems to me to be logical - even if its not intuitive - to put the most used direction on the most used button and the least used direction on the least used button: "horses for courses"! regards, Peter

Hi Igor, Thanks for the prompt response. I use Norton Internet Security 2009. I am reluctant to uninstall a good, working copy of PTE v5.6 and risk having a fault when I try and re-install it. Is this problem likely to be specific to just Windows Vista? If not, I'll try installing v5.6.1 on my XP system (which also uses Norton Internet Security 2009) and which is still at v5.52 of PTE (I think) OK, I understand and accept that. regards, Peter

Igor, I built a test set of sequences to check out what happens with a menu driven set of sequences using "Run Slideshow with Return" and discovered that, although both v5.6 and v5.6.1 support this feature, it is not possible to mix sequences built using the two versions. I can accept that you needed to prevent us mixing sequences built using v5.6 with those built using earlier versions of PTE because the earlier versions didn't support the new options of "Run Slideshow" and "Run Slideshow with Return". But now that v5.6 and v5.6.1 both support these functions, it would be a nice touch if we could mix sequences built using these and future releases in the menu-driven set. The only alternative is that we have to pass all the v5.6 sequences through the Create process of v5.6.1. To me this seems an unnecessary restriction on the user. regards, Peter

Igor, Is there a reason why the mouse pointer doesn't change to the "pointing finger" when it is hovered over a Button? regards, Peter

Igor, I have hit the following problem during install, see attached image file. I tried Retry once and then chose Ignore when the Retry gave the same problem. During the install process I changed the two references to "5.6" (for Program Files folder name and Start Menu folder name) to be "5.6.1" so that this beta code did not over-write my working copy of v5.6. I also disabled the File Association tick boxes. regards, Peter

Hi Luc, My technique would be as follows: - Project Options...Advanced... tick "Permit control of show using keyboard" - Project Options...Advanced... Mouse Buttons: Left=Next Slide; Right=Previous Slide Then I use the spacebar to Pause the sequence and to Resume the sequence. At any time I can use the Mouse Buttons or the Left and Right cursor keys to move forwards or backwards through the sequence. regards, Peter

Alternatively, it's here on this forum: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....ost&p=61086 regards, Peter

Hi Robert, Now that's a great tag line! Short, profound and totally true in all respects. regards, Peter

Hi FS, I like that!! regards, Peter

No offence taken! Peter

With 3GB you should have enough memory. I don't think memory shortage is the problem - although it was, perhaps, the most likely reason. Have you established a specific sequence of keyboard/mouse interactions that are guaranteed to re-create the problem? If so, have you tried activating Vista's Resource Monitor whilst you are running all the software in order to see who is using what in the way of resources? I realise that activating the Resource Monitor will exacerbate any resource shortage problem but it should give us a clearer pointer IF resource shortage is the issue - and should rule it out if it isn't. Don't forget that background tasks such as anti-virus updates, anti-virus scans, Vista housekeeping, Windows auto-aupdates, etc. can all consume resource, sometimes surprisingly large amounts. Also, what graphics chipset is installed in your Sony laptop? and how much dedicated memory does it have? regards, Peter