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Patrick, Thanks for the speedy reply! regards Peter

I'm clutching at straws myself now! But... Open your project in PTE and step through your images until you get to the ones of the Birdwing. Then, keeping a careful eye on the Information bar at the bottom of the PTE window, observe which image has come from which folder. Try replacing the "suspect" image with that which you believe to be the correct one. If image replacement doesn't solve the problem, then delete the offending image, save the project and then re-open and add the correct one back in. The file is a png file. If this means that you are using O&A then you will have to check objects as well as the main images. Again, do an image file replace first and then a delete/add if that hasn't resolved the problem. I'm mystified as to why PTE thinks there are two copies when Windows says there is just the one. Hope the above helps. regards, Peter

I'm helping an octagenarian friend acquire basic computer literacy skills. He has a PC that runs under Windows98. This was a "hand-me-down" from one of his nephew's. It had previously been used extensively for game playing and the software had been deleted rather than uninstalled. I'd like to clean the registry of what must be a mountain of clutter. Can anyone point me at a Registry Cleaning tool for Win98 (preferably a free one)? regards, Peter

Hi PhotoFlora, You can be certain that there are, indeed, two copies of this file if PTE has reported this. You can confirm for yourself that there are two identically named files on your system by using Windows Search or Find feature. Try doing a search for "Rajah*Birdwing.png" (without the quotes). This will show you whether or not the same file does exist in two or more places. You can prevent PTE reporting this situation by meticulous application of three simple rules: - Every sequence has its own folder - Everything for that sequence exists in that folder - Everything used in that sequence is used only from that folder. This means that if you want to use an image, you first copy it into the proper folder. If you want to use a sound file (e.g. music) you first copy it into the sequence's folder. And then you use the copy that is in that folder. regards, Peter

Igor, My weekly full system scan by Norton Internet Security 2008 has reported the following: Risk Name: Suspicious.MH690. It found this in the program SetupVideoInet.exe in the following beta releases: 10,11,12,14,15,16 using its heuristic virus detection techniques. I never installed beta 13 which is why that version isn't reported against. I also still have betas 8 and 9 installed and it didn't report against these either. So the suspicious code would seem to have been introduced at beta 10 and is present from there onwards. I leave it to you to follow this up with Symantec. The same virus scan also reported my login cookie for the forum website as a piece of "adware" and removed it. Perhaps you could also tell Symantec that this particular cookie is a "good" cookie, not a "bad" cookie. regards, Peter

Eric, I find it hard to believe that Windows can distinguish between a <projecta>.pte file created with PTE v5.1 and a <projectb>.pte file created with PTE v5.5 and open the correct version of PTE for each one. I would be grateful if you could perform the following test for me to confirm this is really what is happening on your system: - open the PTE v5.1 project (.pte) file in Notepad (right click the .pte filename in Windows Explorer and select Open With and then select Notepad) and confirm that it was last processed by PTE v5.1 - launch PTE v5.1 (from Start...Programs... DO NOT USE ANY DESKTOP ICONS) and do File...Open... to open that same .pte file - double-check that the PTE version is v5.1 by doing Help...About Pictures to Exe... - close PTE - double-click on the .pte filename in Windows Explorer - double-check which version of PTE has been launched by doing Help...About Pictures-to-Exe now repeat but using a PTE v5.5 .pte file and PTE v5.5: - open the PTE v5.5 project (.pte) file in Notepad (right click the .pte filename in Windows Explorer and select Open With and then select Notepad) and confirm that it was last processed by PTE v5.5 - launch PTE v5.5 (from Start...Programs...DO NOT USE ANY DESKTOP ICONS) and do File...Open... to open that same .pte file - double-check that the PTE version is v5.5 by doing Help...About Pictures to Exe... - close PTE - double-click on the .pte filename in Windows Explorer - double-check which version of PTE has been launched by doing Help...About Pictures-to-Exe Report back with your findings, please Just one further point: you do not need to keep PTE v5.1 if you are happy with PTE v5.5. All your PTE v5.1 project files will open quite happily in PTE v5.5; and the projects will behave just the same under v5.5 as they did under v5.1. regards, Peter

Eric, When you unticked the two boxes for "File associations" during the install of PTE v5.6 beta, you left the file associations "bound" to PTE v5.52. Now, having produced a .pte file using PTE v5.6 beta, you are double-clicking that file - which carries the .pte extension. This causes Windows to do a look-up in its file associations tables to find out which program it should use to open a .pte file. What it finds is that .pte files are associated with PTE v5.52 and so it uses PTE v5.52 to open your project file. Windows knows nothing about who or what created the .pte file. All it knows is that it must use PTE v5.52 to open the .pte file. To open your v5.6 project into v5.6 you need only launch PTE v5.6 from the desktop icon. PTE will open the last used project automatically. If you are working on several v5.6 projects, then you must use File...Open... from within PTE v5.6 to pick the one that you want. regards, Peter

Igor, Thanks, I'll be looking forward to the next version. But, for now, your priorites must be to get v5.6 stable and into final release - and then take a very well-earned vacation. regards, Peter

Hi Lin, Here's my contribution for what it's worth... I've downloaded your "Foolish Rotation Madness" zip file, extracted everything and opened the pte project file into v5.6 beta 16. Preview ran everything smoothly but I did notice some shimmering espcially on the following images: - chipmunk and coyotes pivoting in the coinbezel - horse in paddock during rotations I then created two HD Videos for PC and Mac: - SD 1024x768 - High quality - Pan and Scan enabled - HD 1280x960 - High quality - Pan and Scan Enabled Both of these showed jerky, stuttery horizontal movements and rotations. In particular, the rotating discs seen in perspective alignment all showed jagged edges. I then went back to the PTE project file, which was still loaded, and Previewed a second time. This time I didn't see the shimmer on the chipmunk and coyotes or the horse - and was definitely looking for it! I've commented on this phenomenon in the forum on a previous occasion. It sometimes happens that I can Preview a sequence and see some shimmer but if I Preview it a second time without closing down PTE or making any other changes, I no longer see the shimmer. The situation has never been consistently reproducible so I've never reported it as a bug. I don't like asking Igor to try and track down something that is only intermittent and may be an artefact of my system rather than his software. Both of the videos were played back using VLC Media Player. The PC system is an Intel Core2 Duo @ 2.33GHz, 2GB RAM, nVidia GeForce 8400GS with 256MB dedicated memory running Vista Home Premium SP1. Just one further point.. The DxDiag report from my PC shows this line under the Display Devices heading: Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (75Hz). I am presuming that this indicates that the monitor is being driven at a refresh rate of 75 frames per second. Is this a correct interpretation on my part? If so, then is the visible quality loss attributable to the difference between this (which I also suppose is the frame rate that PTE builds when running an EXE file) and the much slower frame rate of the video stream? regards, Peter

Gérard, Thank you for bringing that to my attention. regards, Peter

Igor, I think your idea of colour-coding the keyframes for different objects was a good idea. It just needed thinking about a little more. In the way in which you implemented it, it didn't add any value. But it would be of great potential value if you approached things a little differently. If we had the ability to Ctrl+Click to select a collection of objects out of the Objects list, and could then Right-click to have an option to "Show all keyframes" for the selected collection; it would then make sense to colour-code the keyframes and to highlight each object name with the same colour as its keyframes. There have been times in the past when I have wished that I could see the keyframes of a small number of objects all at the same time to check that the logical flow of animation was correct. I know that some of us (Lin Evans with some of his animations and myself with the likes of "Kaleidoscope") sometimes have several hundred objects on a single image. Obviously, you would have to set some upper limit to how many objects could be selected at once - but I would have thought a limit of, perhaps, no more than 5-10 would give a degree of function that would prove useful for many of the more common animation situations. A facility such as I describe would be most helpful when programming animation events that overlap each other on the timeline e.g. fade up object A , fade up object B, fade down object B, fade down object A. We would be able to see instantly that we had our keyframes in the right order along the timeline. regards, Peter

Igor, I don't immediately see what has changed in the timeline display. Could you explain in more detail, please? regards, Peter

Igor, I don't know whether you will consider this to be a bug or not... I had used v5.6 beta 14 to build a menu to drive six other sequences, calling each one using the "Run application and Return" feature. I then opened each of the other sequences in v5.6 beta14 and did a Create of an exe. I then tested the sequences and everything was OK. The menu sequence and the six called sequences were all at v5.6 beta14 level. Today I use Photoshop to make some minor changes to a couple of the images in one of the called sequences. I opened that sequence in PTE and created a new exe file in order to pick up the modifed images. When I tested that everything was still OK when calling this sequence off the menu, PTE said that there was a version mismatch. On checking back over what I had done, I discovered that I had used beta15 to create the new exe of the called sequence instead of beta 14. I hope that PTE doesn't need to have an absolutely perfect match of version across all sequences. It is going to be a real pain if we have to re-build all our sequences every time you release a new version of PTE. I would have thought that the check being made by PTE should be that the called sequence has been built using a version of PTE that supports the "Run Slideshow" feature (i.e. that the sequences are built at v5.6 or higher). regards, Peter

Hi Bob, All you need to do is to break your animation down into steps and then program each step between a pair of keyframes. You can use the animation features (pan, zoom and rotate) in any combination that you want and can have them all take place at the same time if you wish. There are just three limitations ; - your graphics card: older ones may not produce smooth animation on large (in pixel x pixel terms) images or on images made up of many objects - you can work only in 2D not 3D (although Igor has hinted that 3D object animation might come in a future version of PTE - i.e. subsequent to v5.6) - your imagination! Have a good play! There's no substitute for trying it for yourself. To get you started, download some of Lin Evans's excellent tutorials. regards, Peter

AbdolReza, The point that Tom and Xaver are making is that, whilst you might want to be able to delete your entire PC's hard-drive contents from a button in a PTE slide sequence, the rest of us are horrified at the thought of such a PTE sequence being uploaded to a website and then downloaded by the rogues out there who have the inclination to maliciously damage other people's computers. The present inability in PTE to issue the cmd.exe from within PTE is not a bug - it is a deliberate and conscious design decision of Igor. PTE is working as designed - and nobody else is likely to support any request for a change to the design in this particular area. If you want to issue Windows commands, use the Windows command interface and not PTE. regards, Peter

Scorpion, Your PC is well-spec'd. It shouldn't have any problems. How large are your image files (expressed in pixels by pixels) and in what format (JPG, BMP. GIF or PNG)? regards, Peter

Hi Scorpion, Can I just check that you have not confused yourself? If I do: 1. Click - Slide A in Slide List 2. Slide A is shown in mini-player 3. Click - Slide B (a different slide) in File Panel 4. Slide B is shown in mini-player 4. Click - O&A Button 5. Slide A is shown in the O&A window 6. Click - Close (no changes) 7. Slide B is shown in the mini-player This is entirely in keeping with PTE's expected behaviour. The only slides you can take into O&A are those that form part of your sequence. The last such slide from my hypothetical sequence, in the above example, was Slide A and so it appears in the O&A window. Upon return to the main window we are shown the last slide viewed in the Main Window. In my hypothetical sequence, that was Slide B. Are you simply witnessing this behaviour? Or is there something else going on? regards, Peter

Lin/DaveG, I have no wish to "hijack" this thread but, Lin, you made a statement in your post, which if true, is news to me (the underscored bold italics are mine). I was aware of the Auto-Save option, but the original implementation simply over-wrote the existing pte project file. I didn't like this and stopped using it. Your statement implies that this is no longer the case. Did something get improved - and I missed it? Could you please verify and/or enlighten me? regards, Peter

Mike, You certainly have made you wish clear; and I'm fairly sure it is a wish shared by many users of PTE. Perhaps, at this time of year, Santa's helpers might be able to help Igor make our wishes come true? regards, Peter

DaveG, You're making a BIG assumption - that my sound files are compressed! My sound files are WAVs until the very final mix-down - when they get converted to MP3. PTE should be providing the users with a feature-rich product capable of producing the highest quality sequence. It should be the user's decision whether to adopt "good practice" or "bad practice". And I'm not convinced that compression/decompression causes degradation. If I zip/unzip a data file with, say, WinZip I don't get any corruption. The algorithm, during de-compression (unzip), puts back exactly what it started with before compression (zip). If compressing/decompressing a JPEG or MP3 file is introducing "degradation" that is either visible or audible as the case may be then that tells me that the algorithm being used to do the compression/decompression is a load of crap. regards, Peter

Johnny, As I was trying to explain in my previous post; as far as I know you can nominate your favourite sound editor using this feature but you cannot then jump to it. Right now we have an option which we can customise but then we cannot do anything with it. I think the ability to be able to select one of our soundtrack items and then jump straight into our sound editor would be a useful feature. We can already do this with any of our slides (just select the slide in the Slide List and Ctrl+W) so why not with our sound files too? regards, Peter

Johnny, Igor, Unless I've been missing something for the last three years, there is no feature in PTE to go straight to the nominated sound editor. It would be a useful addition if we could right click on an item in the Project Options...Music tab and be taken into our nominated sound editor with that sound file opened ready for edit. Alternatively, perhaps there could be an "Edit" button on the Music tab which did the same thing. regards, Peter

Thanks, Den. I hadn't noticed that Tools button before. regards, Peter

Igor, Sorry if I am being stupid, but where do I find the option to turn on "Color view of keyframes"? regards, Peter

Geoff, Thanks for those extra details. Like Gary, I was struggling to get past an error message. In my case I had done everything except tick the "Preserve Exact Colours" box. Once I ticked that, all the pieces fell into place beautifully. regards, Peter