Starting and Stopping Menu Music

[markoc398]

I've set up a pte show to act as a main menu to other shows I want the client to see. I would like to have some background music playing while the main menu is on screen, but stop playing when the user clicks on a new show where it has it's own music. Then when the user exits that show I would like the main menu music to start playing again. Is that possible??

Right now if I add music to the main menu it doesn't stop playing when the user clicks on another show. So two different songs are playing at the same time.

[gulliver]

Hi,

I was just trying to do exactly the same ... and got stucked as well with the two concurrent songs.

If anyboday has an answer, it is appreciated.

Cheers, Gulliver

[alrobin]

markoc,

There's a work-around you can use:

- add a second appearance of the last image, and check "Play background music" in "Customize slide" without adding any music. This will stop the music for the first show (unless it's synched to music). Set "Customize slide / Main / Run external application" for this last image to call in the second show.

- arrange to have the second-last image go to the next image (the last one mentioned above) when you click on the control button you are using to invoke the next show.

When you click this button, the next slide will appear, but it will be the same slide as already showing (add a button to it, too, so no one will notice). When the last slide comes on, the second show will automatically start up, with no music playing from the first.

[fergy]

Hi

I have had similar problem, and appreciate the advice

My next difficulty is when my menu chosen presentation finishes and I want to get back to my menu screen, but which again has background music playing

Is it possible to have an action on a slide which says 'go to slide No 1' for example, rather than 'run external application'

Forgive me if it's there already - but help

Fergy

[alrobin]

Fergy,

Click on a slide on the slide list, open "Object Editor", select the "button" object, right click on it to open "properties", then select "go to slide #" and enter the slide number on the next line.

[alrobin]

Please excuse the double-posting.

[Lin Evans]

I don't think the original question was actually answered. I believe Mark wants to create a menu with P2E by making a single slide with objects to click on which start other executable files such as other slide shows.

He wants background music on this "single slide" slideshow which is acting only as a menu. When someone clicks on an object or button to start another slideshow, he wants the menu music to stop so that background music on the slideshow being called is played without having the music from the "menu" also playing. When the second slideshow ends or when someone presses "ESC" and control is returned to the "MENU" (which in effect is a single slide - "slideshow") he wants the background music to resume.

What this would entail is code to stop the menu and again call the menu. Unless Igor can code this into P2E (which would make a great feature) the only way I see that it could be accomplished is to code the object clicked on the menu to execute the second slideshow and "exit". Then when the second slideshow ends a command must be given to open the "menu.exe" This would be difficult to do and would not work for executables not created in P2E.

In short, I think we need help for Igor on this one....

Lin

[ronwil]

When you stop to think about this, why should you want to listen to a few bars of music when all that you want to do is to open the next sequence you want to see?

As regards your first sentence Lin, that is without the music question, has been answered already in other threads within the last week.

Ron [uK]

[Lin Evans]

That's the real issue, how to restart the music. Some want a menu with background music playing - it's not all that uncommon on commercial packages.

By doing as suggested in the other post - create a duplicate page, assign the object on page one to call page two, assign page two to execute the slideshow and set the play list to empty on page two to stop the sound, etc.... This effectively stops the music and assuming you set page one to 5000 seconds display time (maximum allowed) then this solves part one of the original question. Part two isn't so simple. How to turn the music back on. When control is returned to the "menu" it's left in a state of "music off" assuming page two had a very short display duration. The sound will not return unless a recursive call is made to start the "menu.exe" (or whatever the menu was named) again.

I think including a "switch choice" in P2E for allowing background music to be turned off when leaving and back on when returning to the menu would be welcome by many, myself included. It would be easy enough to offer a choice of turning off the background sound by clicking on a button or object. Simply have two executable menus - one with sound and one without - but this still doesn't solve how to automatically turn on the music when returning from the executed call.

Saying "why would you want to do this" is not really relevant. The person asking the original question does indeed want to as do others. This same question was asked just yesterday on dPReview....

Best regards,

Lin

[ronwil]

Sorry. I didn't realise the need was commercial rath than amateur.

Good luck with the request.

Ron [uK]

[Lin Evans]

I've set up a pte show to act as a main menu to other shows I want the client to see. I've set up a pte show to act as a main menu to other shows I want the client to see.

In my case it is, and I just assumed from the opening sentence on the original post above that his application was also commercial.

It would be a nice "feature" and perhaps not too difficult to implement in the P2E code.

Best regards,

Lin

[fergy]

Al

Thanks for the advice, but what I was trying to achieve was an automatic jump back to the start of the menu presentation

I think that Lin set out my query better than I did

eg If I use Ulead DVD factory I can create a DVD with music on the menu from which I can choose any one of number of presentations

I am effectively trying to recreate this feel by using a P2exe presentation - just can't work out how to restart the music

Fergy

[Igor]

I just posted possible solution in another thread:

You can do it by another way right in v4.31 or v4.40.

1) In a main slide-show use "Run application and exit" action.

2) In second slide-show. Project options | Advanced tab | Set checked "Run application after last slide" and write file name of the main slide-show.

If you need to open main menu not on first slide, write necessary slide. For example: "C:\MainMenu.exe" 7 (where 7 is number of necessary slide which will be shown when slide-show starts)

3) Save project and close PicturesToExe.

4) Open .pte project file of the second slide-show. Find

opt_runapponexitiflastslide parameter and write 0. I.e:

opt_runapponexitiflastslide=0

Now it will work exactly as want.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Igor,

That works great! But if ths executable being called is not a P2E slideshow there is no way to access the internal code to run the "menu" again.

I'm not certain how others use P2E but we often call video shows or other executables which were not created with P2E. The menu's generated by P2E are very quick and easy to create so are great as long as we don't try to run music. Even when we use two P2E executables - call them Menu1.exe and Menu2.exe which are essentially duplicates except for the inclusion of a "resume music" button which calls the opposite menu. The only problem comes when someone accidentally clicks on the "resume music" button twice and both end up running simultaneously with music from each starting at different times :-)

We can use MultiMedia builder to build the menus with sound so that it's not really a big thing, but if it were an easy feature to add to P2E it would be nice to have.

Best regards and congratulations on what I think is the best slideshow software available!

Lin

[markoc398]

thank you all for pursuing an answer to my question. Igor's suggestion seems the most practical with a few exceptions I think.

my situation: The main slide show has the menu of choices (links) for 1. Play Customer Show 2. Play information show about products I offer. 3. Go to my website 4. exit

When the menu starts I want music to play and continue playing until user clicks button 1,2,3,4

If they press #1 it goes to the clients image show which has music with it. I create a new show for every client so customizing the pte file and changing the opt_run code might be inconvenient each time. I always use the same name for the pte and exe files so maybe if I can do it once and just change the images. If I press #2 it goes to my info page, which doesn't have music so it would be fine if the menu music keeps playing. #3 goes to my website so with or without music is ok.

I will try Igor's ideas first. If anyone else has a solution, please share. Thanks

[markoc398]

Igor, just wanted to let you know that your suggestions worked perfectly. THanks