aplman

Sounds good! As long as it's an option. Some may prefer to continue to work in the current way. Personally, if we're talking about the "Play" button in O&A, I would most times prefer to test my animation WITHOUT the transitions. Ken T (APLman)

Further to my suggestion above, I would like to propose an alternative, perhaps a better way. Currently if one selects multiple slides in the Slide List, then clicks Objects and Animation, the multiple selection is ignored, and the O&A works on the previously selected single slide. I think that is a little quirky, and possibly not what the user wants to do. My suggestion is that when O&A is invoked on a multiple selection, a few functions could be presented in a dialog box -- functions that make sense in a batch manner. One example would be "Remove All Keypoints". I would like to see the facility to Add Keypoints -- the user could tick any or all of SlideBegin, LastEffectEnd, NextEffectBegin and SlideEnd. There may be better names for those options, perhaps "Before Intro Transition", "After Intro Transition", "Before Next Transition", and "After Next Transition". This would be an enormous time-saver for me, and perhaps for many others too. Here's hoping! Ken T (APLman)

Hello Igor ... Thank you for this good news! Whilst I can see that the easiest way to meet our needs is simply to use the font chosen by the user in Project Options / Comments tab as a default font for new text objects, I feel that may make things a little obscure for new PTE users. I would prefer a new tab/page "Text" in the Project Options dialog. Whatever you decide to do, I am sure your sense of good program design and elegance will prevail. PTE is so impressive in that regard ... Keep up the great work. Thank you for a marvellous (and fun!) piece of software. Best wishes Ken Travers (APLman)

PTE project files these days contain 800-plus lines (17 KB) at the bottom that are to do with "windows" - startup, help, and custom windows. Would it be possible please for PTE to omit those lines if the project uses none of those features? I have found that a project can work nicely without those lines ... but they reappear on the next Save. Ken T (APLman)

Thank you so much, Igor and team. Fantastic effort, fabulous news. My special thanks for this one: Option to automatically reduce volume of background music during sound comments of slides I will make regular use of that. I'm glad you saw the merit in my suggestion, despite the several negative comments from others. Best wishes for the next version! Ken T.

Thanks John ... I agree entirely! I suppose I've never had more than 6 or 7 text objects on a slide, so was not too bothered by the non-unique names. Now that you have mentioned it, I will no doubt be conscious of your point, and may even become annoyed by it! Normally I complain about any software aspect that I feel needs improving. However, with PTE it's been different, because it's such an impressive and lovable product, and Igor seems very responsive to our wishes. Thanks again for taking the opportunity I presented! Ken T.

Hi John ... I'm intrigued as to what other shortcomings annoy you. I've been happy so far with the text facilities, apart from lack of a default font. It probably means I'm not doing fancy stuff, so I'm sure I could learn from your experience. Best Regards Ken T.

With respect, I think you are wrong on two counts. Firstly, you appear to have your own meaning of the term "File extension". Throughout the life of Windows (and DOS before that), "extension" has meant the part of the name after the dot -- e.g. the ".PTE" part of "MYNAME.PTE". It does not mean the extra info that makes Detail View different from List View. Neither of your screen shots in the previous post shows file extensions. For the benefit of anyone who is unaware, both Detail View and List View can show file names with or without the extension. See Folder Options, View tab, "Hide extensions for known file types". I very strongly advise NO TICK on that item. Secondly, point (3) ... On a new project, the first "Save" behaves the same as "Save As". Whether you use Save or Save As on a new project, you can change the file name and/or extension from the default PROJECTNAM.PTE to whatever you want. It's all very well to say "Enough said" -- but let's get it right first! Cheers and Best Wishes to all Ken T.

Hello Jose ... I'm glad you have the same approach to file names as I do. I apologise if I made any wrong assumptions as to how people work. It really was because Brian's carefully documented screen shots were lacking file extensions. He is much more experienced with PTE than I am, so I guessed if that's how he works, possibly others who are less experienced work the same way. We all have our own golden rules, don't we? What's golden to one may not be so golden to another!!! Nice to be in touch and in tune ... Regards from Down Under Ken T.

My apologies -- that link insertion did not work. Please copy/paste this one: http://www.granneman.com/techinfo/windows/showextensions/ Ken T.

I have been reading this topic with interest, but with decreasing interest. I have resisted the temptation to throw in my "two-pennyworth". May I offer just one thought. Windows allows the user to see file names WITH or WITHOUT the file extension. In my opinion, ANY user is better off seeing the file name WITH extension. MYTRIP.PTE is far clearer than MYTRIP as an identification of a file. Why hide the extension? It gives at least a clue as to file type. I absolutely abhor file listings which do not show the file extension - they can be confusing and/or misleading. As an example, consider a Panasonic Lumix digital camera that allows a sound comment to be recorded with each image. The image file P1010123.JPG is accompanied by a sound file P1010123.MOV - the first part of those names shows that they correspond, and the second part - the extension - shows which is which. Yet if a file listing does not show file extensions, both files would appear to have the same name. That, in my view, is asking for big trouble! Here is one opinion on the matter: http://www.granneman.com/techinfo/windows/showextensions/ So I would nominate it as a GOLDEN RULE -- think of any file in terms of name.extension (e.g. MYTRIP.PTE). If this golden rule is followed, there would be no chance of thinking that a .PTE file is a .DAT file. I sincerely hope some members (especially Jose) get some value from my comment. Ken T.

Summing up, I meant this topic to be about how we specify the font we want. Certainly not about the merits of particular fonts. We can already choose any font we want, it's just that it requires user action for EVERY TEXT OBJECT. To specify our preference once per project would be really good. To specify our preference once and once only - for ALL future projects - would be even better (templates to the rescue!) If I really must labour the point ... a DVD of 8 projects, 120 slides per project, just 10% needing a couple of text objects, that's about 200 text objects. Multiplied by 5 (?) clicks per text object -- a thousand clicks where just a few could do the job. As for the merits of specific fonts ... the web is of no concern to me. I am producing shows for PC or DVD. Discussion of web-safe fonts surely belongs in some other topic. Thanks to supporters! And thanks in anticipation to Igor! Regards Ken T.

Hi Jose! May I make two points ... Firstly, the message is not false. Whether they exist or not, these are two different folders: E:\PTE\109-PTEs\...\101-Slides JPEG and E:\PTE\101-Slides JPEG Secondly, you might try to fix the PTE file by editing it with Notepad (or any text editor). It should be an easy matter to fix the file or folder name of the offending slide - but be careful to find all occurrences of the name. Regards Ken T.

Hi John! Thank you for reminding me of the relevance of Templates. I realise that I have not made full use of that facility, and I shall now do so. However, templates provide no help with a default font for text objects. Captions, yes, but not text objects. If we had a way of nominating a font for new text objects, then that choice would presumably be encapsulated in a template. Cheers! Ken T.

Thank you, Peter. Good to have returned to the original very simple point! Ken T.

Apparently Text Objects inserted into a slide in O & A always start life as Times New Roman. I do not like Times New Roman - I do like Comic Sans MS for my shows. I spend much tedious time changing the font for every new text object. However, I would not like my preference to be forced on other people. May we please have a project option to set a preferred font as the default for new text objects? I would like to suggest an additional tab in the Project Options dialog - either "Text Objects", or "Fonts", where fonts for other purposes such as Comments could also be included. Ken T.

Hello Peter! Nice to find you and I are of one accord -- not the first time! I wouldn't call it a "major" weakness, only because I feel the programming involved to fix this weakness would be "minor". But if Igor has another think about this, we might get what we need! Thank you, Igor. If I might extend the idea further ... It would be desirable to have not only "Project Options", but also "Default Options" or "Installation Options". Each user probably has favourite items that he/she would standardise on across projects. Project Options enable us to avoid specifying things separately for every slide. Default or Installation Options would enable us to avoid specifying things for each project. Best Wishes ... Ken T.

All my travel slideshows use animation on just about every slide. Perhaps I am not alone in that. I sometimes use a program I have written to add keypoint objects and Ken Burns effects into the PTE file, but that sometimes causes difficulties. Mostly I have to create keypoints on each slide manually, and that takes a lot of mouse-clicks. Much time and effort could be saved if there was a project option to have certain keypoints inserted into all slides of a project by default. I would sometimes choose to have two (PrevEffectEnd and NextEffectBegin) and sometimes four (SlideBegin and SlideEnd as well). That would leave me the task of adjusting the time offsets if necessary. Would this idea perhaps appeal to many others? Regards Ken T.

May I ask the experts please ... How can I set a "default font" for all new text objects that I create in O & A? I've spent a lot of time changing "Times New Roman" to "Comic Sans MS". Copy/paste of existing objects helps a bit, but ... surely there must be a better way? Thanks ... Ken T.

Is this simply because the screen space available for the preview window is changing? I use "Horizontal View". On my system, with the example I have just studied, the slides list takes a little more vertical space than the timeline. So the preview window is taller in TimeLine View. In either view, the image is centred vertically in the available space. Regards Ken T.

On using the "Startup Window" feature for the first time, I found that the "Preview from Current Slide" button causes the Startup Window to appear. Another user action is necessary before the desired preview begins. I suggest that we don't really want to see the Startup Window when we use the Preview from Current Slide button. It's unnecessary, it's inappropriate, and it's a nuisance! I trust this can be fixed very soon ... thanks. Ken T.

Hello Igor ... I was interested to try PTE 6.0.4 (special edition) in relation to my previously reported problem. http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11578&st=40&p=74125&fromsearch=1entry74125 Here is what I found. Previously I had both "Show real slides in Slide list" and "Show real slides in Mini-player" ticked. I disabled "Show real slides in Slide list", and got the same strange behaviour as before. I have a movie picture of the screen behaviour, which you could access at: home.pacific.net.au/~kentravers/PTE-Win7/P1030964.MOV (apologies for the file size - 143 MB, still uploading as I write this) Here is an additional observation from a few days ago. Once when I encountered "the problem", I decided to let the thing run for as long as I could. After a long time (perhaps 20 minutes?) I got a Windows message to the effect that my system appeared to be performing very poorly, due to shortage of resources - would I like Windows to disable the aero interface?". I replied Yes, and the program then continued without a problem. I hope this is useful information for you. Please let me know if I can tell you more. Dell Studio XPS 8000 Core i5 750 4 GB RAM ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 Series Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Regards and Best Wishes Ken Travers (professional programmer since 1962)

There seems to have been some confusion about the difference between the Folder Tree (display is optional) and the File List (which I would like to be optional, but we're stuck with it). Nevertheless, may I suggest that a far more general facility would be the ability to drag-and-drop images from outside PTE ... for example, from the desktop, or from another open application. Please? Ken T