Slide comments on/off - problem

[Ed Overstreet]

This may seem an esoteric problem, but it is very annoying. I'm not sure whether there's some easy solution in the current software that I'm not aware of, or whether this is a bug that perhaps needs fixing.

In some shows that I produce, I want the slide's file name to appear on the screen with most slides, but not with all slides. To do this, I've been setting the Project Options for showing the file name in the comment field as the default, before I start. Then, when I've finished the show, I go back into the main screen, click on each slide for which I do NOT want the file name to show, go to the comment field for that slide, and delete the entry. Then I save the project.

The problem comes if/when I later re-open the project and launch Project Options and go to the customize synchronization screen to change something (a timing, switch a slide, whatever). On exiting back to the main window, after clicking OK on the changes, I discover that PTE has re-set ALL the comment fields to show the file name, including those slides for which I had earlier deleted the file name from the comments fields. I then have to go through the show and re-delete all those entries. This happens every time I do any edits in the Project Options dialogs, usually in the synchronization window. As you can imagine, this can get to be a bit tedious especially on a longer show.

It seems to me that once I go into the slide properties for a specific slide and remove any comments from that slide, the properties should stay that way and not reset to the default every time I edit any part of the show inside one of the Project Options dialogues.

I am missing or overlooking a simple solution to this, or is this an oversight in the programming that could be corrected relatively easily? If that latter, I'd like to propose this as an addition to the wish-list, albeit perhaps not a high-priority one. Maybe I'm the only producer who does shows with the file names showing on some slides but not others.

(In case anyone is interested, these shows are for my photo club to showcase members' slides; I ask members to identify themselves and any title they want in the file name, which then displays with the specific slide. However there are title and separator slides between different members' groups of slides for which I don't need nor want the file name displayed. It's much simpler and faster for me, the poor volunteer, to have members do the naming work than to have to create text layers or detailed comments on each slide manually. However I'd like to be able to edit these projects without having to re-do all the comment-field deletions every time I change anything. I tried setting the text colour to black for those slides where I don't want the file name displayed, but that only works if I use a black background, and in various places I use textured or other backgrounds so the text will always show in those cases no matter what colour I use.)

[ccmanz]

Ed,

Al tells about a work around for this problem in this post.

Hope it helps you.

cc

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...t=ST&f=2&t=2832

[Ed Overstreet]

Thanks cc and Al. That solution does work, once you've added all your slides to the show. However, if after removing the file-name comments from some slides, you later add to the show another slide which has a file name that you want to display, you still would have to turn the Project Options setting for setting the Comment field to the file name back on, which will re-set all comments to that value, and you're back to having to turn some of them off manually again.

It's not a big issue, but my preference would be for the auto-comment choices to be embedded in the customize slide features not in Project Options, given the new beta versions have the wonderful feature of being able to select blocks of slides on the timeline and make the same customize edits to all those selected. Thus, someone who wants the file names to appear on all images could simply block-select all images and input that edit in the customize window, and someone who only wants some slides to do this and not others can do likewise. New or replacement slides added later could be dealt with individually, instead of having to reset the whole show as is now the case (unless I'm overlooking something).

I appreciate that reprogramming the location of this option might cause more trouble or work than it's worth, but I thought I'd offer that as a suggestion to Igor and his team for consideration.