Slideshow .exe - Jump 5x slides

[s0kz0551]

* A keyboard shortcut specifically for navigating long presentations, eg 50-100 slides.

* The Key combination (Ctrl+Left/Right?), will jump 5x slides for each single-press.

* Otherwise we are left forever pressing Left/Right button too many times to get through to the middle / end of the presentation.

[Lin Evans]

That's not necessary if you use the new Navigation Bar. You can Drag the pointer and move almost instantly to any point in your slideshow. Just take one of your present shows with say 100 slides and change your current settings to include the default video type navigation bar. Go to "Project Options" "Control Tab" and left click the mouse in "Show Navigation Bar."

You have a choice of having this navigation bar always visible or visible when you move the mouse, etc. You can then simply drag the slideshow just as you would a video to rapidly go forward or backward.....

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Hi Dave,

The problem is in how to approach this. In the past we have been able to easily program going to a particular slide number or slide name, but what happens when the show is changed by adding more slides or substituting slides and the naming convention is not followed? For example, we can now easily program a mouse click to "jump" immediately to a slide name. We can create a "master slide" with slide numbers and jump immediately to that slide then from there to any slide programmed, but that is difficult when we have hundreds of slides in a large manual show.

I don't believe that having an arbitrary number such as "jump ahead five slides, etc" would ultimately be beneficial. From a programming perspective it would be possible to jump forward or backward by an incremented number on the keyboard, as you point out, but then the user would have to create a "key" such as a "cheat sheet" to know which slide was represented by the number and then make no subsequent changes to the relative positions or it wouldn't work.

Right now, a user who truly understands PTE can easily program and quickly "copy" to each slide a means of jumping forward or backward so many slides. This could be done by creating "dummy" slides called (for want of a better word) index1, index,2, index 3, etc. Then by first inserting these dummy slides, clicking anywhere on the screen such as bottom right, top right, bottom left, top left on an invisible object (frame, etc) immediately jump to that position from any other slide. Then rapidly move forward or backward from that indexed slide to the desired position.

Obviously, this would not be as useful as just typing a number and jumping immediately to that slide's position. I see the possible utility of being able to type a number on the keyboard and jump immediately to that relative position, I'm just not certain about all the implications involved in programming such a feature. Perhaps it would not be all that difficult. Probably Igor could comment here....

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Hi Dave,

Yes, the "home" page was essentially what I was referring to. A few years ago I created a template with numbers representing slide positions. I posted it but I don't think at that time anyone was really interested because they had to name their slides according to the template (slide1, slide2, etc.). It was a matrix probably much as your "home slide" in which one simply clicked on the "number" and the show would jump to that slide. Essentially it was just a matrix of invisible frames in which each referenced the associated slide to "jump" to. The user just needed to program each slide to jump to the index slide. The other problem associated is that one needed to arbitrarily choose a number of slides on the index. If the user accidentally clicked on a non-existent slide number an error would ensue.

I suppose it could be a problem as you say "scrolling through 99 slides" but it sure is "quick" with the video navigation bar - almost instantaneous to go from slide 1 to slide 100.

Best regards,

Lin

[s0kz0551]

This is a single keyboard shortcut. That's all I'm asking here. Pretty insignificant changes to the application are required.

This discussion wasn't meant to be about mouse-based navigation, or these other navigation techniques. It's not that they are invalid. They each have their place. Sorry but it's meant to be one concise feature suggestion per thread. That's the rule.

Topic description is updated to make that a little clearer.

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Pop-quiz.

Did you know? There are 4 very different use-cases put forward in this discussion.

a) Use case A: I have a *mouse*. Don't have a keyboard and/or don't want to use the keyboard.

B)/> Use case B: I have a *keyboard*. Don't have a mouse and/or don't want to use the mouse.

c) Use case C: I know my presentation very well. Its reasonably short in length (# slides less than 20).

d) Use case D: I don't know my presentation so well. Its a reasonably large in length (# slides over 50).

Now here's the rub:

* You cannot solve the use-cases A and C with a solution that was designed for B + D.

* You cannot solve use-cases B+D with solutions for either A or C.

[Lin Evans]

Because of this:

"* ..... Otherwise we are left forever pressing Left/Right button too many times to get through to the middle / end of the presentation. "

It's assumed you have at least a keyboard. And because PTE is a Windows "computer" based program, it's assumed you have a mouse. Since you are also assumed to be a new user of the program - new to the forum at least - the assumption based on your question and request for a "poll" was that you were not aware of the feature (navigation bar) which already allows you to navigate nearly instantly to the middle or end of the show. Sorry if the direction of the thread got off-track from your original intent, but that's sort of how these things go. When you ask for a "vote" you are giving implicit consent for discussion pro and con and why... You now only have provisions for a "yes" vote so it will be difficult to know how people really feel about such a feature without counting the total number or thread reads.

For a feature to be seriously considered for inclusion in a software program, it must have utility for enough users to warrant the change. Remember, changes do not just affect the actual functionality of the software, but also require documentation changes, etc., so any changes are quite more than "an insignificant change to the application." Of your four posts to the forum so far, three have been suggestions for "changes."

Best regards,

Lin