PicturesToExe v4.30 beta #4

[Igor]

PicturesToExe v4.30 beta #4 is released

http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr_beta.zip (1.4 Mb)

What's new in v4.30 beta #4:

+ Added "Use last slide to show transition to the desktop" option (see "Screen" tab).

+ You can rotate pictures. It's a lossless rotation and it provides exactly original quality. Open popup menu in the File panel or Slide list to rotate picture(s).

+ Also portrait JPEG pictures with EXIF (shooted by digital cameras which write orientation of a photography) will be shown rotated automatically.

+ Vastly improved Push and Slide effects. I hope that it will works more smooth now on various PCs.

I'll closely work on the Cust. synch. window in the next beta.

p.s. please let me know if something works wrong, or if some new function still should be reworked.

[Ken Cox]

Igor

you are a slave driver to your crew:)

ken

[Guest Techman1]

Igor,

Thank you for this latest beta version. I'll test out the lossless rotation and the digital camera auto-rotation. These are both excellent additions to PTE! Also, the last slide to desktop transition will make a lot of people extremely happy. This was one of the top requests for a while after you introduced the desktop to first slide transition. We're always wanting more aren't we!?!?!?!

The last beta (#3) worked extremely well within the light table and moving many (+250 slides) around. The light table has already paid for itself many times over for me just by using it on the last three slideshows that I put together for customers.

Excellent job Igor! Now, I'm wondering what else you'll be introducing in this release.

Fred

[Igor]

Thanks , but please don't forget about critical remarks, because we know that we must reach many new important features.

Ken, our WN2's team works much more hard, because I can often see results, but they're developing WinNavigator 2.0 already more than 2 years.

I never can imagine such patience!

[markoc398]

Igor,

Thanks for all the new options. Any chance of adding a copyright logo option on all the images at once, or a way to add text to all images at once? Hoping to see that addition,

Mark

[fitzner101]

WELL I HAVE TO ADMIT!!!!!! WHEN I'M WRONG I'M WRONG.

IGOR, I AM ABSOLUTELY AMAZED WITH ALL THE CHANGES YOU AND YOUR CREW HAVE MADE.

HARRY

[ADB]

Great work Igor

In particular the PUSH effect is very smooth and if this is the basis of the future ability to show scrolling panoramas then the future of PTE is looking very bright!!

[ContaxMan]

I think the latest version is great - can't wait to see what else you'll do!

[alrobin]

Igor,

I just had the opportunity to try out the new version of PTE for the first time, and am amazed at how well you have implemented the light-table option! It performs much better and more smoothly than I had visualized it doing. The full-screen option works just as well as the slide-list option.

I particularly appreciate the larger preview image presented when one activates the thumbnail option for the slide list.

As far as you know, is there any limitation to the number of images the light-table can handle? I found that with my Adjustor "dark-table" there is a limit to the number of "objects" which Visual Basic can handle, so I could not implement the dark-table for more than approx 600 slides.

The addition of a music waveform is a big improvement, too, and should help in matching the transitions with the "spikes" in the music. However, the dark blue waveform interferes somewhat with easy viewing and movement of the transition markers. Maybe these could be positioned lower down so as not to be covered up as much by the waveform? A different colour than grey for the horizontal transition bars might help make them more visible, too.

I also like the increased zoom capability - you can now zoom right in on the waveform to provide even more accurate placement of the transition markers.

These are very significant steps forward in the evolution of PTE, and it sounds like they are not the last major improvements. Thank-you so much for your continuing efforts on this great program!

[d67]

Igor

Many thanks for this new beta version.

Each new version brings us more and more comfort in handling images and slides !

The possibility of rotating image files and slides without loss in quality is a very interesting feature and permits to concentrate all the job in PTE without loosing time with an external program.

The enhancement in the push and slide effects is incredible in my case (Pentium II, 1GHz)

A big BRAVO !

The last slide transition showing to the desktop is the final surprizing touch for the spectator !

Once more, many thanks for your great job, Igor !

Patrick

[Igor]

Al, there is no practical limitation for a count of slides in the thumbnails view. You can work with 10000...50000 slides and more. It required additional time to make it possible. This table view or thumbnails view is fully our own component, we didn't use any standard controls.

[Gérard de Lux]

Thank you for these improvements !

I have a question concerning the option 'Use last slide to show transition to the desktop'.

According to my first trials, the transition settings for this last image are used to go back to the desktop but the image itself doesn't appear on screen. In other words, if the image before the last is a flower and the very last one is a landscape, the viewer will see the flower but not the landscape.

Is it correct or am I doing something wrong?

[alrobin]

Gerard,

This is probably because the effects are set to represent the transition to a slide, not from the slide, as would be required for going from the last slide to the desktop. I believe if you use a dark slide as the last slide, this may yield the desired effect for certain transitions.

Igor, I just noticed that when I delete a slide from the "slide list", click "preview" from the main window, and then "escape" to return to the main window, "drop" the deleted slide back on the slide list, then click on a thumbnail in the slide list, it does not have any effect (i.e. there is no preview image, and I cannot bring up the "customize slide" menu.)

Something similar to this would happen in the old version of PTE (i.e. the preview image would not show when clicking on an image in the slide list), but one could still get around this and use the customize slide option.

[MikeL117]

You are correct Gerard. Use either Al's suggestion of a dark slide or perhaps even a duplicate of the last visible slide. It appears that the image of the last slide is replaced with the desktop but most of the other parameters apply.

I love the effect. Very elegant.

There may be some slight issues with preview of this effect not returning to the active desktop, but I have not been able to reproduce it. Suspect it has something to do with the end of the music almost coinciding with the end of the transition.

The push and slide effect is much improved (all we need is the option to leave the background still while the forground moves )

[ronwil]

Whilst I am more than happy with each new beta which Igor introduces I have not found "The push and slide effect is much improved" as reported in previous postings. Am I missing something? The only thing I would like to see improved with this effect, if it is technically possible, is for the transition from one slide to the next to be without any hesitation. I too would like to be able to leave the background still while the foreground moves, but I repeat I am more than happy with what I already have and thank Igor and the team for what they have achieved.

Ron [uK]

[Gérard de Lux]

Thanks Al and Mike for your replies which confirm what I've experienced.

I'm not saying that this function doesn't work; it can even be very useful and I'm going to use it very soon in my next show.

But people have to be aware of the way this works; i.e. if they want to end their show on the landscape in my fictive example, they'd need to add the image twice. Or if one wants to finish with a dark screen, one would have to add two black images : one to have the black screen, and one to make the smooth (or whatever) transition to the desktop.

That's fine with me

[ccmanz]

One thing I would like to see before the final.

Is if I have the show image unchecked.

I would like to see the thumbnail be black or something.

That way I know it is not the picture and is a blank slide.

I have only played with the beta's a little, but I really like it.

My wife put together a slideshow yesterday and she did not ask as many questions.

cc

[alrobin]

Chuck,

If I could get my wife to put together a slide show I would think it was a miracle!!! This is no slur on my wife - she is just not too happy about relying on computers for her photography.

Following on with your suggestion, though, it would be useful to have some sort of indication on each thumbnail for which there are objects added. I realize that it may be difficult to show them in miniature on the thumbnail, but a mark of some kind would help in zeroing-in on those slides with added objects.

[Guest Techman1]

Igor,

I worked on another presentation last night with images straight out of the camera (Canon 10D). When working in the light table, I noticed that the images didn't automatically rotate although the option is turned on in my camera. They display correctly in the camera, so I believe there may be something a miss associated with this new feature in PTE. Also, since I had so many images to rotate I used the light table and selected many (more than 25 images). When I did the keyboard shortcut to rotate them, the first image rotated 90 degrees while all the rest rotated 180 degrees. I did this again, rotating those the other direction and the same thing happened again. So, I only selected a few (around 10) and it worked as it should. So I believe there may be a problem in the latest beta associated with this also.

I still love the light table and this is definately going to save many hours on large presentations.

Regarding the thumbnail suggestions that were made, I think those are excellent ideas for improvements and hope that they can be incorporated if not in this release, maybe the next.

Thanks again for all you and your team do! If you need something tested in this regard, please let me know.

Fred

[Igor]

Fred, thanks for finding this bug! I've also see this bug when try to rotate several pictures at a time. It will be fixed very soon!

Concerning auto-rotate feature. I've tested how it works with Canon A80 digital camera. By default, the camera will not add record that photo should be rotated and I turned on this option manually in the menu of the digital camera. Please check up this moment again.

Download and run this test application which will display Exif info about orientation of a photo:

http://www.wnsoft.com/beta/ExifTest.exe (125 Kb)

[Conflow]

Igor,

I also use EXIf, not for Digital, but other purposes-

I downloaded your "Exif Test"

Ran this on a J.Peg that Al Robins sent to me after his visit to Dublin:-

Results as follows:

Window: "Read EXIF from JPeg"

Window: "Press O.K"

Window: "Exif Test = 1,Normal"

Window: "O.K"

Concludes Test.

Brian Kelly.

Conflow.Dublin

conflow@iol.ie