jkb

Hi Happy Cat, Welcome to the Forum & the wonderful world of PTE. Frames are used when you wish to group several Objects together so you can animate them all at once. A Frame has zero Opacity so is not visible. You can have several different objects each performing their own animation, but you may wish to move them all across the screen together. You would add a Frame above the individual Objects & then make them Children of that Frame. (Select all the Objects CTRL+Click, Right Click - Cut. Then select the Frame - Right Click - Paste) You can then apply animation to the Frame & all the Children Objects will follow. Hope this helps. Jill

It would be really useful if when we insert new slides into the Slide List they were inserted before or after the current selected slide. I am finding it more & more frustrating that I position the slide view at the point I want to add new slides with a slide selected. Then when I double click on a slide in the File List it is inserted at the end rather than the point I want it to be. I know I can drag the slide from the File List which is easy for one slide or even a group of slides to be inserted at the same place. But I often use CTRL+D to select & add the whole Folder. This normally occurs when using PTE to display single images at the Camera Club for competition or appraisal. Each person's images are in a separate Folder so it is easy to go through the list of Folders & CTRL+D to add all the images into the project. If we could choose to add the images at a particular place this would be a great addition & speed up workflow. Jill

We go around Camera Clubs, AV Groups etc trying to encourage more people to use PTE. Not just to make AV's or even Slides to Music, but to also show that PTE can be very useful to the single image worker who wants to give talks or simply show their single images in a better way. The basic use of PTE in this way is extremely easy & we can demonstrate in 5 to 10 minutes how you can put a simple show together. Even to adding Titles & doing simple Pan or zoom animations. I am not sure how much easier you could make the basics. It is only when the user wants to move onto more complex animations that they sometimes struggle. I agree that it is much easier to learn something new when you are shown, rather than being faced with new software & not having a clue where to start, especially for those not that computer literate. But the documentation is available for those who look. Maybe we need a separate section on the forum for new users with some simple explanations of how to make basic shows. This way they wouldn't have to wade through the numerous posts from more experienced users trying to find how to do the simple stuff. Jill

The recent AV News Magazine Issue 194 November 2013 contains an article on the new features of PTE 8.0. This article is available to read online Here Scroll down through the list of Contents to page 47 & click on description to read the article. Subscriptions are now due for 2014, we can now offer Direct Debit for UK Subscribers & Credit Card payments for overseas. Payment will not be taken until February 2014 for DD or January 2014 for other methods. To Subscribe please fill in the PDF order form available on the website & return to the address shown. Jill

Getting back to the topic at the start of this thread, if it is possible to show the offending slides when a duplicate name is found, this would help. Better still allow the duplicates to be replaced with the file from the correct folder at the point of creating the backup zip. It is not only bad practice that can lead to this problem. This situation can occur easily when collaborating on a sequence with someone else. John & I made a joint sequence, each working on particular parts of a very complex animation which were then combined to form one slide. We each created a backup zip of the parts we had done. Because of this the images were coming from different folders but had the same name. I have never managed to go through & sort out the objects from the different folders, so am unable to create a backup zip of the completed project. Ended up with a Template instead. Jill

If you want the file to be played on a Windows PC the EXE is highest quality & easiest to make. This can be sent to people electronically so saves having to burn & post discs. No additional software is required to play the EXE Jill

Try converting your WAV file to an MP3 & use that instead. If the problem still exists then send us some more information, length/size of music & video, full computer spec etc. Jill

Igor, It is something that is unlikely to happen very often, as normally people will not go repeatedly changing the times. So if it is easy to fix, then update 7.5, otherwise leave it until 8.0 comes out. Jill

You are right. I have just tried this & got an error, PTE stopped working. Have posted it under a new topic Here Jill

Changing the Slide or transition duration on several slides at once. I highlighted several slides and changed the time by clicking in the box & typing in a new time. Trying to change the time several times PTE crashed. It let me do about 3 times then I got the error. It also happens if you use the mouse wheel to change the time. Jill

Thanks, that does seem to be the case. It starts from the one you click on & goes to the end of the list, then back to the top. So always click on the first to drag a group in a set order. Jill

Chris, once you get used to PTE you will find it extremely easy to use. And as you can see from the replies there is usually more than one way to do things! Get into the habit of saving the project with a new name every time you get to a point you are happy with. Then if something does go wrong you can always go back to a previous version & start again from that point. Play around with a few sample projects first before trying to make something major. You cannot do any harm, as you can always not save the project if you do make a real mess. Everything you do on a slide or sound file in PTE is only a logical change, your original files are never altered. Jill

Hi Lin, Surely the easiest way is on the timeline as you can see exactly what is happening. You can also simply change the number in the bottom right hand box on the slide in Slide View. No need to go into Customise Slide at all. But each to his own way of working. Jill

Hi Chris, Welcome to the Forum. Click& drag in the middle of the Thumbnail on the Timeline to move slides, then they will all adjust accordingly. By dragging the edge of a slide you are just altering that one slide. Hope this helps & you enjoy using PTE. Jill

We can drag & drop files directly from a Windows Explorer window into PTE Slide View. However the order is not as expected. It doesn't seem to matter how the files are sorted in Explorer, or what the Sort Order is set to in PTE, the files don't seem to end up in any logical sequence. EG if Explorer is sorted alphabetically, so I get slide1, slide1a, slide1c, slide2.....Slide5c etc when dropped into PTE there is no logical order & I can end up with Slide2, slide2c, Slide5c, slide1a ...... They are not in date order either. Does anyone know the order that they are dropped in? Jill

Willemx, If you look at the Slide View (thumbnails) you will see two numbers on each slide. The top left number immediately after the AB is the Transition time - ie the time taken for one slide to 'move' into the next slide. The number on the bottom right of each slide is the duration of that slide (including the Transition Time) You can easily alter either time by clicking on it & using the mouse wheel/arrow keys/or typing directly in the box. You can also select multiple slides & change them all at once if you require the same times on each. OR you can quickly amend times in the Timeline view. You will see that each slide thumbnail has a grey bar above it. This is the Transition time. Put your mouse on the end of the grey bar, left click & drag to amend the Time. By left clicking on a slide thumbnail & dragging the slide you can alter the duration of the preceding slide (the White part after the grey bar). It is very quick once you get the hang of it & by expanding the Timeline (CTRL+mouse Wheel or CTRL+F11 (CTRL+F12 to collapse again)) you can very accurately position your images. To trim a video clip, add your video in Slide view, then click on Objects & Animation. Click on the Properties Tab (right hand side of screen) You will see 3 times, Start Time, Duration & Offset. Click on the down arrow by Start Time. A new window drops down showing your video. Under the video you will see a bar with an orange triangle above & a grey triangle at start & end below the bar. Drag the grey triangles to the position you wish to trim your video, you will see the frames change in the window. Note the new duration of the video & amend the Duration of the slide to match either by changing the number in the Slide view or by dragging the slide in the Timeline view. It really is very quick & easy once you get used to it. Jill

Full Results & List of Entries are now available on the AV News website Jill

The one ProShow sequence that was entered into the Nationals, was by someone who normally works in Film & Video rather than AV which is traditionally 'still' images, although there were several that had some video included. PTE is the choice of most AV enthusiasts in the UK. Jill

Eric, I think you misunderstood my reply. Your test demonstrates what happens when each image in your project is different. Now repeat the same test, but copy Image1 into your project 21 times. (or however many times you want) So all 21 images are exactly the same filename. See screen shot with 5 images all the same. The image is 1mb so the exe file is just over 1mb (as it includes the Blanks & the PTE code) If all 5 images are different then the exe is just over 5mb Jill

Hi Eric, If you have 100 images in your folder each of 5mb & you use 50 of them. Your exe size will be 250mb plus a few extra KB for the PTE instructions. If you use 20 images & they were all the same image, the exe would be 5mb BUT the avi would be 100mb (in round numbers). Hope this helps. Jill

It makes no difference how many pictures, videos, sound files etc are in a Folder. It is only when you include them into the Slide List that PTE adds to the exe file size. Also if you include the same picture many times, PTE will only add the size once to the exe. (But the size will be increased if you create an avi file or dvd output.) Jill

Todd, Can you move the image by using the up/down arrows on the Pan field in O&A Animations Tab? Just make sure that the Object is selected in the Bottom right pane of the O&A window. The only problems I have ever had is when I forget to select a keypoint first. Try posting a screen shot of the window & maybe we can spot something. Sorry can't be of any more help. Jill

Todd, You need to make sure that you are on a Keypoint (the red dots along the Timeline in O&A) Make sure that a keypoint is highlighted & the little blue triangle is below the red dot. If you are not on a keypoint then the green bounding box & grab handles don't show & you cannot move the image. Jill

Hi Jeff, It just shows an animation when you move slides in the Slide List View. Tick it & then move some slides around & you will see what happens. If it is not ticked then when you move a slide it appears as it always has done. Jill

I agree that these would be very useful if possible. Just to be able to turn the shadow on or off for keypoints would be great. Jill