Kim Miller

Thanks, everyone, for your replies. I appreciate the help. Having read the rather skeletal manual I can see why there are so many tutorials by users. That was something I didn't know about when I decided to give PTE a trial. I have a long computing history (starting with programming in Fortran for engineering back in the 1960's up to teaching programing and coding in Modula2 in the 80's to these days as a more general user) and generally pick up new things quickly. For this project I was asked last Friday to set up the slideshow for a project vaguely related to my work. It is due Tuesday, tomorrow. I went looking for slideshow software on the weekend rather than do it in After Effects, which I have on my work computer and used for a short movie project a couple of years ago. I figured slideshow software would have templates for the format I was looking for, as well as automatically generate photo frames etc. PTE is the most sophisticated of the apps that I trialled (the others were 'pretty' rather than functional), but it is let down by the manual. The skimpy manual also camouflages the functionality of the program. Perhaps they should add in links to your unofficial manual and tutorials. After Effects has layers as well as parent/child linkings, and I'm familiar with the different between them in that application. But that doesn't mean that the same difference appears elsewhere, hence my need for clarification. AE is also keyframe controlled so I'm familiar with their use, although the implimentation in PTE is somewhat different. Thanks, Lin, for the recent post. I can see it's back to school as I work through the tutorials. And to bbdigital, that demo is the kind of project we are setting up, but without music or text. The deadline for the project got moved today to a rehearsal on Saturday, final event on Sunday. It's all up and running. Kim

Hi Yachtsman, Thanks for the clarification. I'm not clear on what you mean by 'read the instructions', whether in the manual or in what Lin Evans has suggested. Either way, I would not have found out how to set one image on top of another without your help. It looks like what Lin Evans called layers are referred to in the manual as parent/children. Perhaps they changed the name with a version update. Now I've got a background image and some pics thrown across it. All that remains is to figure out how to set up the timing for them. Cheers Kim

OK, I've found the box for 'main image' in the O&A properties, which is what i imagine you mean by 'master' slide. However, I've gone right through the user manual and the word 'layers' does not appear. Nor can I find it in any menu. Can you (or somebody) point me to the right place? Thanks Kim

Hi Lin, Thanks for the reply. Ironically I have a tutorial from your website on my screen at the moment.I've also chased up some of the tutorials on the forum but not found what I need but I will keep on searching there. What you describe in your first sentence is far from intuitive, so I appreciate the advice. I've got the pdf manual, but the section on timing seems to be missing some important info. Cheers Kim

I am trying to set up a collage slideshow where the screen fills up with 'randomly' placed smaller photos that overlap each other. This means having a new photo every two seconds, but a display time of about twenty seconds as the screen fills up and they obscure each other. My trouble is that I can only find a control for setting duration of each photo whereby the next photo starts as the previous one finishes. I've seen some PTE demos with overlapping photos, but I can't work out how to do it. Where are the independent start / finish / duration controls? Thanks.