think(box)

OK bjc, I suppose we should have plenty of obstacles. It takes time for everyone to advance in those devious skills, so they will do less theft overall. A win. In customize slide there is Run App, but not Run app and exit. Maybe Igor will add the latter during the beta releases (I hope so). If not, if the app that you run is a two-line utility script to kill the PTE show running and start something else, then you have a close match to "Run app and exit". Sound requires some effort. One idea is to have custom music (that fades) in the slide customized with the Run app (and exit by external magic). Another is to use a fading utility. Search the forum for "AutoIt" (Auto+It, no spaces). Spend a little time learning about it and read forum notes about usage ideas. You'll be able to do some really cool stuff. When stumped please ask for help so you don't reinvent those wheels. Decryptor: Igor grants your wish (magic performed): You've got it now! Magic in your future: It's not there yet!

Dave, I have a high megapixel camera and know from the file sizes quoted that you must be making shows with very large pixel dimension images, like 2560x1920. That can be so demanding on computers that it is likely causing the freezes (and extreme slowdowns) that some encounter. Excess resolution (pixel dimension) wastes resources and space and doesn't give the viewer a better view. The zero quality setting in Photoshop is giving you maximum compression for least output JPEG file size, but when viewing software reconstructs the image it still has to create a huge amount of data. If your images are 2560x1920 and have 32bit color, each image is constructed as a 20MB screen bitmap, and is a tremendous resource drain to display. If you resize to 1024x768 and use 24bit color, each image is reconstructed for display with a mere 2.4MB of data, regardless of JPEG quality setting once again. Another tip - unless you are using a scanner, ignore anything you see about dpi, or dots per inch. Pay attention to only pixels by pixels, as in 1024x768, and JPEG quality for image file considerations. Suggested guideline is 800x600 or 1024x768. Your shows will work much better if you batch resize and use Photoshop JPEG quality at 6 to 8 for the smaller size pics. And file sizes will be 100 to 200KB. Best of all, everyone shouldn't notice quality reduction in your show images. I hope all of this helps. Everyone has had lots of fun with this whole digital image topic as they learn not to get burned. You'll see it all over the forum.

Long-running, duplicate selection screens - good technique Al - thanks!

Here you go Al - The scaling technique is really smoke and mirrors. It is not as difficult as this may seem: Graphics placed in object editor have an "origin" that is close to the lower-left corner of the placed object. They therefore "grow" upwardly and to the right as screen area monitior setting is made lower. So to make the scalable illusion going left-to-right, for example, you create at least two objects with identical dimensions and define the visible content of the first to extend to the beginning of visible content for the second object (placed to the right) when viewed at high screen area setting. You make sure that there is sufficient width of visible content in the right-hand graphic such that as screen area is reduced the left-hand graphic, that was placed FIRST, is "covered up" by the visible content of the right-hand graphic as BOTH are "growing". The amount of visible content in the right-hand graphic can be small, with the rest transparent on right side of graphic. Both graphics should be same dimensions because PTE doesn't set the origin at the exact, lower-left corner of a placed object. The apparent "growth" from origin causes "mis-placement" visible errors if not same size. You can simultaneously accomodate growth in both X and Y dimensions in this manner, creating quite an illusion. Well Al, you asked! Since a picture (or show) is worth a thousand words, wait for my show to post. I needed the memory leak bug fix to make the show the way I wanted it. Now I can go back to my intended show design and it won't crash when played! Look for this show later this month.

Confirmed - The memory leak "Out of system resources" bug is gone as of v4.10 beta 2! Igor, in the debug show that I sent to you did you notice the bug with slide number display color? This bug is in all PTE versions. It happens when you take a customized slide that has custom comment colors and copy/paste it to make other slides. When you do, the comment text font color changes in created shows as transition from original to copied slides happens. In the demo show I gave you the color goes from light blue to jet black (shadow color). Watch the slide number in top right screen corner as you play the bug demo show. I created only the first slide, and copied the rest. It doesn't matter whether the custom slide comment is custom text, slide number, or other. It still loses color. Thank you Igor!

This could be a file that PTE creates (who knows) and it sounds possibly buggy. Did this start as of trying Preview in new v4.10 PTE? Igor should track this topic if so.

The need for sound fade out is a good point Al. I vaguely recall Igor talking about next new PTE having smooth sound halt at show end. I haven't yet tested for that. So to use on last slide it may be best to fade music in next-to-last slide and when faded, the last slide will be scheduled to start and cause application call. The last slide display time would be set to less than a second in this case. A non-sync show issue: With "Run application" here is one other sticky situation for (1) the need for BOTH run application AND exit, and (2) sound fades: When you want an early exit from show with or without running another application. I recently created an AutoIt utility that fades sound to silence. And I've created yet another AutoIt utility that recognizes P2E shows, starts P2E shows and manipulates them as active or hidden. To "force-app-close" the show is just another single command function in AutoIt and hence a cakewalk. So the obvious conclusion is to combine the sound fade utility with a "force-app-close" for the P2E show that started the utility, with optional "Run" of another app or slideshow from the utility. This new feature will open the door to a host of new show magic! But Igor didn't give us "Goto slide number" capability in slide customization, that I could find. A "Goto slide number" feature can allow us to have show flow control where you select a topic by link clicks and the show returns to topic directory slide when done, for example.

OK, no one has commented on how well the new built-in music player works, so here goes: It's great! Music timing is perfect! Music playback of multiple tracks is perfect! Mixes of wav, mp3, and midi play together flawlessly! PTE uses internal patches for midi - they're different from those of my sound card's midi, but just fine! Music is no longer using Windows temp file space as advertised This is an important improvement to PTE that will be appreciated by very many, if not taken for granted (in time). Thanks again Igor! Mike, I had noticed the same about the Browse button not working but forgot to mention it. Thanks!

Nice thought bjc - to detect input, but you go on to say how easily this is foiled. And everyone knows the tricks. You may as well take your finger out of the dike and run! And on another request that you made, you have some rewarding exploration to do in the new v4.10 beta release!: The great Igor hereby grants this ever so popular wish!!! For any slide, click on "Customize slide". In the "Main" tab toward the bottom in the "Advanced options" section, check the box "Run external application" !!! Do this customization on your last slide and you can do exactly what you are asking Igor for in PTE. Your show will run the next and exit! Regarding your other request to the great HO UDINI: I can save you the trouble on that one - there's more magic in your future!

Ian, Al is certainly correct in that only the main images are scaled to screen pixels. PTE's scaling quality is the best in the industry. Object editor photos and graphics are displayed as actual pixels though, not scaled. The higher the screen area the smaller a given pixel dimension will be without scaling (a decreasing fraction of screen dimensions). Well forget that! About two months ago I figured out how to display objects WITH scaling, when placed using the object editor. Even transparent GIFs. I have working examples. I have wanted to display a show made this way on Beechbrook but couldn't because of the memory leak bug that Igor just cracked in response to another bug I reported. So in the near future, after the next v4.10 beta release I'll post the show that features scaled object editor graphics.

Stu, as of V4.00 PTE supports transparency if GIF is placed using object editor. I've used this a lot and it works fine. PTE version 3.80 was the last version made without transparency support. But outside of the object editor, for the main show photos I have found transparency to display "white" as well, meaning it is not supported there. Could you explain what you mean by "transparent background", with respect to transparent GIFs?: Are you saying that if we use a transparent GIF for a background image it will display with transparency? Thanks!

Igor, you're the best! Thank you for the bug fix. That will be a great help. I never suspected the object dimensions could be the problem. And the memory leak that I have also observed when I let shows play a long time is related! All to be fixed with next Beta version. I can't thank you enough!

Thanks Igor! There is still a bug that I was hoping would be fixed in v4.10.... I've zipped the bug report with .PTE file to recreate it and sent to your email address. The error message is "Out of system resources". I'll check out the software more tonight. Thanks again!

I found the same problem. Kidding aside it would be nice if PTE would not allow less than 1ms, as in when you try to set time to zero it shows 1ms instead, which should give you the hint "don't". Accidental zero values will happen.

Beautiful presentation Rainer! Enya was a very nice choice. And that closing mountainscape photo should be framed it is so nice. I would love to have a high-res copy of that photo. Although the summits of Nepal can be a very tough place to visit, your show makes it a cakewalk!

Just read the v4.10 release note. If you are releasing v4.10 in just 3 days who cares about v4.00 vs. v4.01 on Simtel. Thanks Igor!

Igor, the Simtel mirror sites unfortunately have PTE v4.00. I did a compare between downloaded ZIP contents from Simtel minutes ago and found the March 11, 2003 v4.00 release. What I downloaded last March was the March 14 version, v4.01. I tried two of Simtel's sites, California and Georgia and found the same results - v4.00. Presumably all Simtel sites are the same.

I was able to download from the Simtel mirror site. FYI the PTE4.01 that I've been using since release has ever so slightly different downloaded .ZIP file contents when compared to the version presently on Simtel. I did a "Comparator" utility check and found to my dismay that the Simtel download is V4.00. Igor needs to upload v4.01 to Simtel. I'll post a reply to Igor's post announcing the mirror site.

Rooskidiver, look at the PTE window title bar for correct version after you start PTE. It says v4.01 while in the Help menu, "About..." says v4.00 is the version. A known bug. Do you have v4.01 after all?

John, whether or not PTE actually caused the crash, since your friend's system is Win98 you don't have long before he can't "easily" go back to when his system last worked successfully. Win98 keeps only the last 3-4 days that had successful startups for "restore". Beyond that you have to use registry backups if you have any (few make them), or full system backups. If this is getting that long ago the backup you need may be off the list. WinXP, on the other hand, is such a bad "house of cards" that Microsoft keeps restore info every day back for months. Here is a procedure that I wrote recently for the last person to need Win98 restore. This only corrects things that have gone wrong with the registry and other system files (99.9% of the failures that happen in Windows). This is written for Win98 and Win98SE: Here are the instructions: PLEASE PRINT FOR USE WHILE USING MS-DOS 1. Get to standalone DOS by either Win98 startup diskette or Start->Shutdown-> ->Restart in MD-DOS Mode (YOU CAN'T USE DOS WHILE WINDOWS IS RUNNING TO DO THIS!) 2. At DOS prompt (looks like C:\WINDOWS or A:\ for example) type each of these commands followed by pressing Enter key: C: CD \Windows\Command SCANREG.EXE If you make a mistake, repeat from the "C:". Note that there is a colon after the C. And note that those are BACKSLASH, not forward slash characters above. This Scanreg is the Microsoft Registry Checker that operates from DOS. It will prompt you for a few things. If your mouse works, just click on things to select. If your mouse is NOT working don't panic - the driver wasn't loaded - just use keyboard arrow keys left, right and later up, down to select (highlight) what you want, followed by pressing ENTER. If mouse clicking works you won't need arrows or Enter key. Here is SCANREG (Microsoft Registry Checker) dialog and what you should do: When prompted to check registry click "Start" When prompted click "View backups" You will be shown 3-4 previous successful startup days from which to select. Click on the date before when crash happened, when system worked OK. Click "Restore" and wait for it to complete (not very long - seconds) You will be prompted for RESTART when restore is done. TAKE DISKETTE OUT if you used it and click "Restart" if they give you such a button, else just press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to restart after taking diskette out. Save these instructions for future use ! [ END ]

Oops, these are not royalty free (unchecked) and not copyright free (definite). This is just excellent, high quality slideshow music. Sorry - since you are looking for freebies this does not qualify. A tough search - high quality but free!

Barry, I can name some nice music for shows. These are excellent, hand-picked selections. The best music is so much an individual preference, so this may well result in other specific suggestions. These have worked well for me. Here you go: Beautiful spanish guitar: ---> La Esperanza by Esperanza ---> Esperanza 2 has less good tracks, don't bother Excellent, uplifting and unusual "New Age": ---> Colour Healing by Llewellyn Laid back and tropical, very nice, very pleasant: ---> Jungle Rythms by Mystical Moods Well done steel drums: ---> Caribbean Steeldrums by Steelasophical By the way, nice work on Digital Photo magazine!

Alan, I too have been hit by that problem - that's good advice! But I don't think aha edited the music file. Quoting aha: This symptom implies that a registry key has been corrupted by the video codec install. Quoting aha on further info: Perhaps this problem should be fixed by going back to the system state before installing "video codecs (Nemo)". If this is a WinXP system aha can repair the problem by going back to before the video codecs install and then contacting the manufacturer about the problems.

Good point Stu. Does PTE return status upon exit that differentiates normal exit from ESC or ENTER key used to force an exit?

Using AutoIt, a simple scripting tool, you can now have mouse-based control during your music-synchronized P2E shows. Here's an example: The show developer (only) will need to install AutoIt: To install "AutoIt" scripting click here for info Next, you create a custom, reusable script .EXE file to perform the magic. FYI the tiny .EXE script application file that you make will run on any other Windows (95,98,98SE,ME,XP,NT,2K) computer without any prerequisite installation and without any VB runtime libraries, etc. Here is the user input/control method: For control or input the user simply moves the mouse cursor to top edge of screen while watching SYNC show A small and windowed P2E show with buttons superimposes on the SYNC show without disturbing it The same mouse cursor movement hides the second P2E show from view This feature thus stays out of view until only when it is needed The second P2E show can field user input or external control during the SYNC show It can have a predetermined screen location It can be set to exit automatically when the SYNC show completes This technique makes it easy to accept user input during synchronized shows. It is like having a new PTE showmaking feature. I originally developed this to make a music player accessible on demand by using a second P2E windowed "show" during musicless unsynchronized shows. The Music Player P2E show has independent music track control *and* sound volume control. This "pop-up" app technique will work during synchronized and unsync P2E shows, or any other application