A genius amongst us!

[Truelight]

Wow! I downloaded the new presentation from Rudi Reinbold - "Ragtime Jukebox" and am I ever impressed! Great graphics, professional layout, not to mention some great music! This shows a tremendous amount of work and attention to detail, plus the power of PTE in the hands of someone creative. It's been a long time since I've been this impressed with with a "slideshow." My hat is off to you Rudi!

Download this show - You won't be sorry!

Click here to download the "Ragtime Jukebox" from Beechbrook

[LumenLux]

I'll second your (e)motion Rick. This creation is great - in every way. I suspect I'll just let it run while I work (after having oogled over it first). Rudi is a trained professional in video arts and it is apparent in his approach to this project.

Congratulations Rudi and thank you for sharing with us.

[lightning98]

I agree!! This is so creative and very enjoyable Rudi. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Happy New Year.

Kerry

Boca Raton, FL

[RudiRe]

You guys are flattering my ego.

Well, I'm glad, you like the JUKEBOX.

As a matter of fact, I started out, wanting to create something very simple, which I thought, I could realize within five or six hours.

But while working at the JUKEBOX, I constantly had new ideas, that I wanted to have implemented - to my own disadvantage. A lot of trial and error, I can tell you.

So, one idea came to the other, making the whole darn thing more complex with any additional idea, way beyond of what I originally was willing to invest in time.

Finally, I've spent 300-350 hours, to make it work the way it works now.

What I'm still disappointed with, is the fact, that the "loading screen" just won't show up, although I've marked it. Well Igor, now it's your turn.

A Happy New Year to you all.

[masrawy]

Hi Rudi, I must add my voice to the above. Fine example of German Engineering!!!! Thank you for sharing. Happy New Year to All.

[Bob]

Rudi:

Thanks for sharing a terrific show. All the best in 2003 !

Bob..

[LumenLux]

Thanks Rudi for "confessing" the number of hours you have invested in your creation. I sometimes fear to admit how long some of my PTE ideas demand! I understand fully when you start with a simple idea and the ideas just keep flowing. But I have certainly never completed such a complex project as you have accomplished. Fun, eh?

[RudiRe]

Hi LumenLux,

if I had known in advance, how difficult and time consuming the Jukebox finally would end up, I probably hadn't started it at all. So maybe it's quite good, that I didn't know about that in advance.

The really interesting part in making it was the creative process. You have an additional idea, want to see it realized, and then, it's a matter of your own perfectionism, whether you want to see it completed or dump the whole idea, due to the burden you put upon yourself. This procedure can be painful at times, but also awarding, if accomplished.

Now, that the Jukebox is finally finished, I don't regret having made it. Somehow, I now do have the feeling, that PTE is not controling me any longer, but I am controling PTE - the satisfying feeling of finally using PTE as a tool and not being its greenhorned victim any longer. So it ended up for me to be a great learning experience about this excellent piece of software.

Having worked on the Jukebox for so many hours, I still like it, and that's a good sign for me.

That tells me, that something must have gone right - otherwise I would despise it by now.

So let's hope, the (Happy) New Year will spoil us with some other gooddies.

[Monty]

The really interesting part in making it was the creative process. You have an additional idea, want to see it realized, and then, it's a matter of your own perfectionism, whether you want to see it completed or dump the whole idea, due to the burden you put upon yourself. This procedure can be painful at times, but also awarding, if accomplished.

Rudi, I've heard this called "the perfect loaf syndrome." Basically, what that means is that a baker has two choices: he can spend all of his resources, talent, and time on making one perfect loaf and thus sell one loaf or he can make the real-world inevitable choice to make the less than perfect loaf and thus make (and sell) a whole lot of them.

I thoroughly enjoyed your slideshow although I'm not into ragtime at all. The layout, transitions (the coin "thunking" just like in a real jukebox is great), and information on what programs you used to make the images, etc., are extremely professional.

I think you might've managed to make a whole lot of nearly-perfect loaves with this one.

[Truelight]

For the right audience, this program is good enough to be sold commercially (and better than a lot that -are- sold!). Have you considered seeking out some websites of ragtime and/or Scott Joplin fans and marketing your work? 300+ hours is a lot of time to put into a freebie.

I was also intrigued by the relatively small size of the show, obviously due to the fact that .mid files were used. I suppose this same concept could be applied where the music files were .mp3 files, but the program size would become quite big, yes?

Again... congratulations on such a polished piece of work!

[RudiRe]

Truelieght,

you are right. With mp3 instead of midi files, the JUKEBOX would have been approximately 185 MB in file size instead of 6,1 MB, as it is now. Remember, that those 57 midi files (including 1 mute midi, that was necessary) add up to a total playing time of 3 hours and 17 minutes. As a matter of fact, the 57 midis, which are contained in the JUKEBOX, occupy only 968 KB.

Another reason, how I kept the JUKEBOX rather small, is due to the fact, that I only used images in a special gif Format (87a), which is even smaller than the regular gif format (89a). The great screencapture program PrintKey allows conversions into that smaller gif Format, which delivers gifs, that are about 25 percent smaller than those in the regular gif format.

The JUKEBOX is completely made with gif (87a) images, containing 159 slides.

But there are only eleven (!!!!!11!!!!!) 800x600 slides in it. The rest are very small pictorial elements for objects use. All 117 pictorial elements within the JUKEBOX add up to 3,86 MB.

As I figured out by now, the tremendous amount of objects leads up to the long loading time. The first slide for example (The Ragtime Selector), is a 1 kb black gif, with 52 objects sitting on top of it.

I never considered making the JUKEBOX with any marketing thought in mind. For me, it was rather the final "hands-on" test before starting to use PTE for my professional needs, which will mainly be the pitching of german movie/television projects, giving potential backers and producers a first idea of planned movies, which aren't produced yet. I hope, that PTE will help me in the future to foreshadow design, storyline and "special feeling" of upcoming productions. That's the main reason, why I stumbled about PTE, looking for a program, that had the potential to deliver that task. I can say by now, that PTE will fulfill my professional needs perfectly.

[Igor]

Dear Rudie!

We all were so impressed by your great job you have done!

Your presentation fully uses objects, and I hope that coming v3.90 will vastly help you in the future projects. New Visual editor has the Undo and Copy/Paste features (which we just completed).

Also, as I have checked, "Jukebox" contains about 27,000 lines of the .pte file. So we have optimized .pte file reader module and your presentation will run in 3 times faster now.

With kindest regards,

[JSlugman]

rudie,

I got a big smile on my face from viewing your JUKEBOX and a big headache trying to figure out how you did it...

AWESOME job my friend.

[RudiRe]

New Visual editor has the Undo and Copy/Paste features (which we just completed).

Also, as I have checked, "Jukebox" contains about 27,000 lines of the .pte file. So we have optimized .pte file reader module and your presentation will run in 3 times faster now.

What does that mean? I copied/pasted slides before. Or did I misunderstand your posting?

Thank you for your advice. I reassembled the JUKEBOX now and yielded an exe, that loads now on my computer within 29 seconds, instead of 152 seconds before. I will try to replace the "slow" Jukebox with the new fast one.

I did not count the lines within the pte file, but with its 592 KB, it is rather big for a text file. I assume, it's all the objects, that create a vast amount of data.

[Ken Cox]

RudiRe

are you going to make a rev # for id'ing purposes

or just upload over the existing file

ken

[RudiRe]

I just uploaded an updated version of the Ragtime Jukebox.

The new version loads within 30 seconds, whereas the old

version took two and a half minutes. Besides that, the two

versions are identical.

Bill from beechbrook will replace the old version with the

new one, as he just mailed me. So the new version will have

the same address, which is

http://www.beechbrook.com/uploads/Jukebox.zip

[Jerry S.]

RudiRe, Thank you for posting the Jukebox. I really enjoyed your "The Sting" start page with the pop up photos and titles. I'd like to attempt something along those lines. I (and I'm sure other P2E users) would be grateful for some ideas on how you did it. Thanks again for your show.

[RudiRe]

I would be grateful for some ideas on how you did it.

Jerry S.,

the more specific you ask your question, the more specific I can answer it.

The way you asked here, however, I just can give you this vague advice:

Use PicturesToExe and all of its possibilities

until you run out of a two months supply

in coffee, booze and cigarettes.

[Jerry S.]

I would be grateful for some ideas on how you did it.

Jerry S.,

the more specific you ask your question, the more specific I can answer it.

The way you asked here, however, I just can give you this vague advice:

Use <span style='color:blue'>PicturesToExe and all of its possibilities

until you run out of a two months supply

in coffee, booze and cigarettes.</span>

RudiRe,

Specifically; pop up titles like the ones on 'The Sting'. I'm new to P2E. It doesn't look like the background flickers like I believe it would if you just added a title to the same backgound on the next slide. Does it involve a lot of programming outside the usual options of P2E? I can understand you may not want to give out what you earned through numerous hours of hard work. Maybe it's too complicated to easily explain on this forum. Thanks, Jerry S.

[RudiRe]

Jerry S.,

the pop-up titles within "The Sting" section (The Entertainer, Solace, Easy Winners, click a title, go back, Stop, the poster to the bottom right and the movie image to the top left) are very small gif images, added one by one to the same white background image.

The titles then are associated with a mp3 sound effect and their respectice association to their next slide.

The best way how to make these effects flickerless, is first to make the complete image with ALL titles and objects, then copy it a couple of times and taking away all objects, which are not needed in the first slides.

It really gets complex with the linking. For example, when you click on the STOP object, you return to a completely new (identical) slide with a new sound effect.

[RudiRe]

Continued.....

Finally, the whole "The Sting" section consists out of 14 1x1 1 KB gif slides with alternating 11 image objects sitting on top of them with 5 different mp3 sound effects.

If you use a slide within a presentation repeatedly or more than once, PTE will not add additional disc space - it counts as one slide, just shown in different order positions.

[Jerry S.]

RudiRe, Thank you very much. It was easier then I expected. I already did a quick test. Thanks again. Jerry S.

[RodB]

Hi

Nice work Rudi , but l feel you used the wrong program to create it , with the elements all edited and ready to use , an app like Multimedia builder could put it together with much more interactivity if you wanted , in just a few hrs , once the interface graphic is made the tunes buttons are just typed links to pages based on a masterpage background with some other elements that are scripted hide and show , it took 350 hrs to make because you used Pte to make it .

Pte is a good slideshow program but as far as interactivity goes it cannot touch an app that supports scripting like MMB .

Very nice work Rudi but it was kinda like making a 10 minute video out frame by frame giff animation software , can be done but boy its taking the long route to do it , l hope you dont take this post the wrong way

Regards Rod

[RudiRe]

Hi Rod,

most time, I spent on the midis and the graphics, which I would have had prepared for any program. The time consuming factor was not PTE, but constantly having new ideas, revising old ones and preparing the midis and the images to built the Jukebox functionality.

If I subtract the time spent for building these elements, the leftover for PTE was rather small, not even 5 percent of the total time spent.

But thank you for the recommendation of Multimedia Builder, which I didn't know yet.

I will have a closer look at it.