How to play several shows in a row automatically?

[willemx]

I would like to create a menu slide that lets me select to play one of several slide shows (and then returns to the menu to select another show) plus a button that will automatically play all shows 
consecutively (and then also return to the menu).

Is there a way to accomplish this with PTE ?

[goddi]

26 minutes ago, willemx said:

I would like to create a menu slide that lets me select to play one of several slide shows (and then returns to the menu to select another show) plus a button that will automatically play all shows 
consecutively (and then also return to the menu).

Is there a way to accomplish this with PTE ?

Here is a 'Menu' style that might be what you are looking for. Someone had posted it some time ago but I have not had the opportunity to use it yet. Should play one at a time but not sure about the 'consecutively' part.

Menu Style 1.ptestyle

Gary

[jkb]

Hi Willemx,

Create a slide, add a text object with the name of each of your shows.
You can also use a small image as the link to each show instead of Text

In The Properties tab select 'action on mouse click' & set this to 'run application' & navigate to the correct show.
If you remove the path name & just leave the show name - eg "Show1.exe" then you can run them from any drive or computer.
NB you need to keep the "
Just make sure that the Menu.exe & each Show.exe are all in the same folder

Set the Projectect options for this one slide 'Menu' to be 'Wait for key press' & create the exe.

 

To have all the shows run after each other you would need to have a seperate version of each show with a link in the Project OPtions Advance Tab to Run application on exit.

 

Jill

 

 

[Lin Evans]

Hi Wille,

You can create a menu with PTE which will play any selected slideshow and return to the menu but it's not possible to create a menu with PTE which will play "all" shows in succession. There are some stipulations.

When you create your menu slide each choice must be an object on the slide. Select the object then on the Properties Tab under "action on mouse click" choose "Run Slideshow With Return."  Do this for each text object representing a slideshow to run. For exiting the show, choose "Exit" 

In order for this to work each slideshow must be created with the same version of PTE.  

It is possible to create a "chain" of slideshows where each show calls another show and the last show exits, but to do this each slideshow must use the "advanced tab" in Project Options to call a specific slideshow and the last show in the chain must exit. To do this all slideshows must have been created with the same version of PTE. 

So the bottom line is you can do either, but not both. The menu can be used to select a show, run it and return to the menu then exit when the exit selection is chosen. The menu can't be used to run successive slideshows but it is possible to create any individual slideshow which will run another slideshow so that it would be possible to "daisy chain" successive shows to play but they would each have to have the proper coding.

Best regards,

Lin

[jt49]

The methods for running several shows consecutively, as mentioned above, do not work for presentations in a typical (say German) AV group. There you will meet the situation where some shows are videos, and others are exe presentations created with different AV programs. An easy way to obtain consecutive playing is obtained by inserting a blank (black) slide for each show, and start the shows using the run commands in the slide options. Of course, this method can easily be refined in several directions

[Lin Evans]

To expand a bit on JT49's suggestion - you could make your menu in such a way that one of the choices would be to "continue" running the existing show which would be that the second through "n" slides would consist of the blank (black) slides where each of these blanks run one of the shows as an application then returns and continues by running the next "blank" which would effectively run each show in the chain successively.

Best regards,

Lin

[gogs]

Hi Willemx

If they are all your own slideshows there is a way round it I think.

First of all in each project file set the slideshow under the Properties Tab under "action on mouse click" choose "Run Slideshow With Return." Then set up your menu with text or objects as described by the other guys up above. This will allow you to play them one at a time.

You could then copy each project file and give it another name i.e. Your First Show_2, Your Second Show_2 etc and under the Project Options Tab, Advanced, Run application or slideshow on exit and set Your first show to start Your second show, and second to start third etc. and on the final show under Project Options, Main, Show Settings "close show after last slide. You can then set up another text object called Play All. On Objects and Animation tab select your text and under common tab (top right) set action on mouse click to run slideshow. Set the path to the Your First Slideshow_1 and when you click the text play all this should run all slideshows consecutively.

It means having two copies of each of your slideshows, so not the most ideal solution, but depends on how important it is to you.

 

Gogs

[nobeefstu]

You may find some helpful hints/ suggestions in reading this old post about making slideshows play consecutively. 

*Note about the old post:  the Project Settings were made with older builds/versions of  PTE ... therefore some options/settings in v9 builds of may not be available (example: Non-Exclusive Full Screen Mode is not officially available, however it is possible unofficially if you feel you require the option.
 

As per Igor:

Open .pte project file in the Notepad in the section [main]

Find the following line (or add this line if you didn't find it) and set to "1".

opt_scr_noexclusive=1

 

[willemx]

Thanks everyone for helping me out...

The most promising option for me is inserting blank slides with run commands as proposed by  @jt49

I gave this a try, but the results I got were very unreliable:

I created a series of 3 small test shows with just a few slides and a menu show with blank slides containing run commands for the 3 test shows.

When running the menu show most of the times nothing happens; I just see a few black slides and some flickering in between. Sometimes however, one of the 3 included shows will run, most often the last show or the last 2 shows. I did see once that all 3 shows were run, but I can't reproduce this anymore.

I tried both absolute and relative paths for the run commands, fiddled with the slide durations and transition times, but I can't get a reliable result.

[jt49]

I have just made a test myself: 3 blank slides, slide times: 2 seconds, quick transitions, each slide with a run command, absolute paths to executable files with quotation marks in the slide options. I created an exe file from this project. Result: Only the shows called by slides 2 and 3 started, while the one to be called by slide 1 did not. Everything worked well after adding an additional slide without run command at the very beginning. Perhaps a bug!?

[nobeefstu]

1 hour ago, jt49 said:

Perhaps a bug!?

The 1st slide Run Command issue has  been around for quite awhile (several versions ago). ... but its not a bug as per Igor's response on the matter at that time. It was described as a unavoidable  logical issue on 1st slide startup during program improvements/development.

Note: Add Blank Slide to 1st slide position and avoid using Run Command in Slide Options. Use 2nd slide position to start using the Run Command.

[willemx]

I inserted a new blank slide at the beginning of the show, but still I get mixed results:

Sometimes (depending on slide durations maybe, I think...) the show seems to play ok when published to exe, but almost never when in preview mode.

Also sometimes I still get only the last or the last two shows. I have even seen the shows being played in reversed order!

To me it seems that this part of the software is buggy. It is certainly counter-intuitive and the manual/help is also not very helpful. It is not clear to me what is meant by "run external application". Will the application start as soon as the slide is reached or after the slide duration or when the transition to the next slide starts? Will it wait until the application finishes or can another application being started by a following slide while the former is still running?

From what I can see now is that the blank slide is shown for some random duration, then the external application is started and on finishing the same blank slide is shown again for some random duration. Then something is flickering and the next blank slide is executed. Or sometimes not... or in reverse order...

I think I will leave this feature alone until a more stable version emerges.

Wish there was a button action "Run slideshows" in stead of "Run slide show". Shouldn't be too hard to implement I think; just add an extra 's' 

[jkb]

If you use run slideshow then all shows must be made with exactly the same version of PTE as the menu. Eg 9.0.16 

 

If you have shows made with different versions then use run application.

You need to set your menu slides to wait for key press and use the right arrow key to move between them.

Jill

[jt49]

@willemx

Please put some of your project files where you see problems into a zip file and attach it to a post. Then I can have a look at it

[denisb]

Hi,

 

add some blank slides if you have problems with the order of slideshows

Denis

 

menu.zip

[nobeefstu]

For those interested  ... I have attached a ZIP file to help those with my  way of  running single/multiple slideshows from a menu. I made it user friendly from a copy  of my  own stock.

Study it, play with it, and review the settings. Once you get the  idea and workings  of the file ... .many of the  objects are not required and  should to be deleted in a final build.

*All that is required on your part is to supply 3 Slideshows.EXE  following the filenaming as detailed in the ReadMe txt

Enjoy ... let  me know  if any questions or file issues arise

Menu_Single_All.zip