Using both PTE 10 and 9

[aplman]

I would like advice please on how to conveniently use the latest PTE AV 10 for new projects whilst keeping my many older projects on PTE 9.

I have defined a new file extension ".pte10" and specified (to Windows 10) that files with that extension are to be opened with the latest PTE AV 10.

The standard extension ".pte" opens existing older files with PTE version 9.

Just one problem so far ... "Save As" with the pte10 extension does not save the slide list.

Any ideas please?

[Igor]

Hi,

Please tell me, why you want to keep old PTE 9?

PTE 10 can open correctly all projects saved in old version 9.0.

If you don't use slide styles, format of .pte project file absolutely identical for versions 9.0 and 10.0. Any project created in PTE 10 can be opened in PTE 9, and ad versa.

[aplman]

Hello Igor ...  I thank you for your interest in my dilemma.

I needed to make changes to some older shows (version 9), but also to learn version 10 gradually.  All my shows use exe files, including for menus, and I have been careful not to mix PTE versions.

I have also realised that my brain (now 80 years old) is stuck in the PTE 8 era, so I have not yet mastered the latest version 9 developments in the O&A side of things.  I might even be stuck in the Version7 era, as I have not yet learned to appreciate styles.  I thought the first implementation of styles was poor, useful only as a first step before adding text and animation.  I have avoided styles ever since.  Therefore I found your specific mention of slide styles in your reply very interesting.

Possibly my latest effort (that caused me to seek help in the forum) may have been due to my doing things in the wrong order (saving as .PTE10 and defining the pte10 file name extension).

I appreciate very much your interest in my query, and any advice that may follow.

Ken T.

 

[jkb]

Ken, all of the older versions will open in newer versions.

An easy way to see which version you used is to right click on the .pte file in windows explorer.
Select Open with & select Notepad.

This opens the .pte file in the Notepad text editor.
The 3rd line shows which version of PTE was used to build the project.

I never double click a .pte file to open it.
I always open the version of PTE that I want to use & then from the menu select File Open & navigate to the .pte file I wish to open.

This way you can work in whatever version you wish to.

If you do open a project in a newer version, the first thing to do is to save as a new name with the version number in the name.
So if your original was made in V6 & you now open it in V10, then save as Project1-V10.pte
You can then always go back to your orignal if you need to.

If you are happy with using PTE7 then fine, but the changes in V10 make things so much easier.
Being able to see the waveform in O&A really speeds up any processing with keyframes.

I have just finished updating a project that was originally made in V6
Opening V6 to look at what I had done I couldn't believe just how much has changed & how much easier the program now is to use.
The changes really do help to speed things up & you will soon get used to them the more you use it.

Have fun updating your shows.

Jill

 

 

[aplman]

Thank you very much, Jill, for your contribution.

As a Windows user (and programmer) from "way back", I find it natural and desirable to be able to open a file for further processing by double-clicking on the file name (with the appropriate extension displayed in my list of files, of course).  That is a fundamental feature of windows that I am most reluctant to forego.

Now I have  a new problem when I try to adopt your suggested approach.  If I first run PTE 9 and then open the PTE file I want to work on, I find that I am indeed using PTE Version 9.0.22, but a click on "Help/Online User Guide" brings up the Help for PTE AV Studio.  As I am rather rusty as well as geriatriically challenged, that behaviour seems neither correct nor helpful.

Furthermore, on trying to resurrect a project that I put aside several years ago (uncompleted), I have found other mysteries.  Of the 800 slides that I had carefully animated, there is a batch of a hundred or so in the middle where all my wonderful animation has been lost, apparently due to an accidental application of a grey scale style that was intended for a single image.  That must have been the point in my career when I decided that slide styles were a poor idea!!!

The latest annoyance with this project is that every slide has the textual slide number designated as "main object", not the image.

Could it be that I have somehow bungled the installation of version 10?  If I unistall it, can I get Version 9 back?

Should I abandon that project and re-do all my work in Version 10?

All suggestions welcome - thank you!

 

[davegee]

Ken,

Version 9 Online Help: https://docs.picturestoexe.com/en-us/9.0/main#

Version 10 Online Help: https://docs.picturestoexe.com/en-us/10.0/main#

If you are in the process of learning a new version and you have bought Version 10 then I would concentrate on Version 10 and, as suggested elsewhere, open your Version 8 or 9 Projects in Version 10 and then save as a new name before continuing to edit or update.

That way, you can preserve the originals in case you want to go back.

Version 10 does not overwrite Version 9 so if you search your C: dive you will find both versions albeit that Version 10 is in C: Program Files and Version 10 is in C: Program Files (x86). 

DG

 

[jkb]

I also am a programmer from way back and like you always show file extensions and work with explorer always open on one monitor. With most programs I would just double click the file. But as I have most versions of PTE I open the version I want first. They all run happily alongside each other. I don't even have the .pte extension associated with PTE.

I also agree with you on slide styles and never use them.

Can't check on which user guide is opened as not on my computer at the moment. I think you can still get to the old user guides from the wnsoft website if you need them.

Opening the project in 10 should not have caused the problems of missing animation. 10 works in the same way as 9. The main changes were to add the waveform to O&A and the ability to split or duplicate the waveform. Right click on a clip and you will see these choices. Other changes were to video.

Do you have an earlier version of your project?

I always save mine with a different name - 1; 1a; 1b etc when I make any significant changes. This way I can always go back if something does go wrong. The .pte file takes up very little space so doesn't matter if you keep several.

If your slides have been messed up with a style then try selecting them and applying 'no style' it won't bring your lost animation back but may return the image name. Not sure, as I said I never use styles 

Jill

[aplman]

Hello Jill ...

I am delighted with your response, glad to know a little more about you, and quite excited to find that a PTE user as experienced as your good self shares my view on slide styles.  How, I wonder, might we go about encouraging Igor to rethink the matter?  To me,  it is as if a deputy designer concocted styles while Igor was on a holiday - the implementation is not consistent with the usual Wnsoft quality that we expect and appreciate.

All things considered, I think I shall start the new year with a clean slate in Version 10, and hope to rekindle my fondness for that 2015 adventure in Argentina and Chile.

Thanks again Jill.  I would enjoy further discussion with you on technical aspects.  Would a private message be more appropriate?

Regards

Ken T.

 

 

[Lin Evans]

Keep in mind guys and gals that applying a slide style is not a "permanent" change as long as you have your PTE file and have not overwritten the original. A good practice is to change the saved name perhaps with a number such as "filenameoriginal" - "filenameoriginal1" - "filenameoriginal2" and so on so that if you want to back up it's entirely possible to do that. While you're working you can always "undo" a style by simply selecting the altered slides then going to "basic" in slide styles , select "no style" and apply it. It will undo any styles which have been applied. Of course if you have accidentally applied a grayscale style to slides where you don't want grayscale, you can "undo"  it in objects and animations. PTE makes no permanent changes to any of your original images. The code which produced the grayscale can easily be "undone" and you can make a slide style to undo it for multiple slides with a few clicks.

One should not be afraid to use styles because they are a tremendous time saver. Repetitious actions which might take hours to do for a number of slides can easily be quickly applied to hundreds of slides in a few keystrokes. There are excellent tutorials on styles and if you need or want help understanding them please just say so and there are many of us here who will be more than willing to help you.  If you animate a single slide as you want and post a link to it as well as the slides which you've lost the animations, I for one would be happy to "fix" your slides for you.

Best regards,

Lin

[jkb]

As I have said in the past, the biggest pproblem for me with Slide Styles is that they change the slide's transition time and duration.

Even something as basic as fit or cover, adding a simple caption, or changing to greyscale all change the timinings for the slide.
These styles which are not adding any animation should not, in my opinion adjust the timings of the slide.

For AV workers, every two slide combination is unique and requires it own timings dependant on the soundtrack at that point.
Something as simple as changing from 4:3 to 16:9 requires a slightly different transition time and maybe effect.
So for me I would never want to reapeat anything in the same or a new project.

The only style I may want to use is the cover if I had a mixture of 3:2, 4:3 or 16:9 images.
But this would have to be done before anything else so I could preserve my own timings.

As I normally build my projects 1 slide at a time it is just as easy to adjust as I need in O&A

Maybe one day we will be given the option to preserve times when applying a Slide Style, this may make them more useful.

Jill

[jkb]

10 hours ago, aplman said:

Thanks again Jill.  I would enjoy further discussion with you on technical aspects.  Would a private message be more appropriate?

Hi Ken, no problem to PM me if you wish to.
Best Wishes for Christmas & New Year

Jill

 

[wideangle]

Hi Jill and Ken
 

Regarding your comments on Styles:

It seems that Slide Styles don’t yet have a place in your use of PT AV Studio for various reasons, and that is absolutely fine. 
However, they can be, and indeed are, a very powerful tool and a great timesaver in  some instances, and many people have said so. 
I do agree with you completely in the issue of Styles changing a slide’s duration and there has been much discussion in the past about it. 
It is a significant problem when slides consist of single video clips. If you wish to apply a style of some sort, the timing of each video is destroyed and has to be reinserted manually one by one. Enough to put anyone off. 
I thought, maybe wrongly, that a consensus had been reached in those earlier discussions, whereby the user could be given the option of whether or not to let the slide’s duration be changed when a Style was applied. 
 

Regards

wideangle

[Igor]

Hi,

Probably slide styles will allow keep existing slide duration and transition in future version. I remember about this request. And I agree that it's important.

[wideangle]

Thank you for that, Igor.

..........and by the way,  Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!

Regards

wideangle

[jt49]

3 hours ago, wideangle said:

 ... It seems that Slide Styles don’t yet have a place in your use of PT AV Studio ...

Do you think that people not using styles produce AV on a lower level? Let me comment this with a smile

[jkb]

Think you may have a 'not' where there shouldn't be one!! 

[aplman]

I confess I do not understand the reason for that question, nor the smile ... bu I do thank you for the challenge.  I think this forum is teaching me stuff all the time, but the simple answer might be that my brain switched off when I turned 80!  Is there an amusing name for that phenomenon?

A person not ever using styles would not have encountered the difficulties I have experienced and sought advice on.  If it helps this discussion, I shall explain that I have found styles useful at the start of each new project, simply to give each main object image a few keypoints, to reduce the work involved in animating each slide.

Sincere thanks to those who are still following this thread.  May you enjoy other pursuits over the festive season.

Ken T.

 

[aplman]

I have raised too many issues in this one thread.  My apologies - I shall start a new thread for each issue that still concerns me.

Ken T.