Subroutines, Once Again

[jimlarkey]

I have a slideshow that runs on my harddisk perfectly and now want to burn the CDR without burning a bunch of "coasters".

Can the PTE group share their experience with me regarding how the compiled exe's must be coded so that the slideshow will play on other machines with CDR players. My slide show consists of several exe's and jpegs that exist in different subdirectories (folders) in my harddisk ("D" drive).

When I created the opening exe with buttons that open exe's in other subdirectories, I used PTE's browse function which designates the location of the exe's as (for example) D:\wem\pte\maps, D:\wem\pte\trip, D:\wem\pte\warmup, etc. So the opening exe which is located in the parent D:\wem\pte calls exe's in the child subdirectories.

Question is, does the compiled exe have the drive letter designation (D:) coded in the exe?? If so, which I suspect, then when the slide show is played on another machine, the drive letter may be incorrect, or not even exist on that machine. So the show plays fine on mine, but may not work on others, depending upon their configuration.

The heirarchical subdirectory structure and file placement on my harddisk is helpful in sorting the files, and creating the various exe's for the slideshow. I don't want to give it up.

Do I need to delete reference to "D:" drive in the creation of the exe's to insure that the show will successfully play on other machines? Any tips or tricks that other users that have extensive number of exe's in a slideshow use to insure that the show will play on other machines.

Thanks in advance for the wisdom of this forum.

Cheers,

Jim

[JRR]

Jim:

Others more expereinced than I might correct me, but if you have all the applicable .exe file in the root of the CD, then it should run OK.

But I have been wrong before....

Jim

[alrobin]

No worries (both Jim's).

Once the PTE show is "created", the references to particular drives are academic and immaterial.

Ciao,

Al

[nobeefstu]

Jim

As Al mentions ... make no reference to any DRIVE locations.

Since you want your CDR to be able to PLAY in any CDROM ... many of us may have several different letter desiginations

just use as example :

\wem\pte\maps

\wem\pte\trip

If you created your SHOWS in the SYNC setting ... they should PLAY as you intended on all PCs. If you creared them in your own custom settings and timing ... there will be variations pending on the USERS PC speed and current loads.

Initial loading times are usually longer when reading from CDROM Drives ... this is the nature of the beast from any CD run program.

If you want your SHOWS to RUN smoothly on all PCs (old and new) ... do not build too complex timings and transition changes ... this senario is for HARD DRIVE or CD - RUN presentations.

Make a few CDs and test among friends and family ... once your satisfied with your results .... keep burning !

Another Note :

Avoid using Long File Names (folders and files) and any special characters and spaces ... this can resolve issues on older OS. Many Users seem to like " Long" names etc ... but to be safe dont ... let your presentation tell the story ( not its name).

[jimlarkey]

Thanks Fellas for taking the time to share your experience and insights.

I understand nobeefstu to be saying that I must delete drive letter designation, but maintain the heirarchical structure.

I understand Jim to be saying that I can keep drive letter designation, but flatten heirarchical structure to single root directory.

I understand Al to be saying that drive letter designation is optional.

I thought I'd check Jim's advice to place only exe's created by PTE of files in their heirachical origin, in the root directory of my Iomega ZIP drive (E:). Jim was right ....it ran OK.

What's puzzling to me is that the native pte file has the following object calls (note the drive letter):

Object1_Action_dop=C:\wem\pte\Maps\Hwy.exe

Object2_Action_dop=C:\wem\pte\Maps\aerials.exe

I would expect that when PTE compiles this pte native file into the exe, it would preserve the "C:" drive designation, and the compiled exe would look for subroutine files Hwy.exe and aerials.exe not only on the C: drive but also in the heirarchical location (\wem\pet\Maps\). However when I ran the exe's as Jim suggested from the root directory (E:\) everything worked.

I'm running WIN98-SE and am wondering if I flatten the file structure and don't delete the drive designation, will the slideshow play on other OSs?

I would appreciate once again any thoughts from any PTE users who have actual experience with calling several exe's in their slideshows.

Once again, thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge and experience....and thanks for being there.

Cheers,

Jim

[nobeefstu]

Jim,

You may want to try your test again ... your Iomega ZIP test is probably reading your Show files from your C destination files and not your Iomega Zip drive Show files. ( Move or rename your original C: folder\files to some other location to test)

Ive been making many CDs ... many years ... this is the safest and absolute way to assure proper file execution from the correct location.

Note: Some progams may have a built-in feature that looks directly into its relative sub folders for files it may not otherwise find in your named path ... but dont always rely it.

Note:

You may want to go to Beechbrook Cottage PTE download site which contains many PTE Shows, Utilities and some helpful tutorials. I have a BASIC TIPS GUIDE #1 that examples using CD and its relative paths.

Beechbrook Cottage link :

http://beechbrook.com/pte/

[Ian]

I understand Jim to be saying that I can keep drive letter designation, but flatten heirarchical structure to single root directory.

You may have slightly misunderstood this point - the "safest" option is to use a flattened hierarchy, with no drive letter at all. That way the various exe files called by your buttons will simply be picked up in the root directory of whatever drive the CD Rom is located.

It may have been called "D:" on your machine, but could be "E:" etc on someone elses. Omitting any reference to the drive letter will ensure the exe files can be found.

Ian

[jimlarkey]

Thanks again guys,

You were right, that when I ran my PTE form the ZIP Drive it was calling the subsequent exes from the HD. Changed subdirectory from "wem" to "Xwem" and calls were then redirected (by the OS or PTE?) to the Zip drive.....extremely different load times between ZIP & HD.

I followed your advice and:

(1) flattened heirarcal file structure (no subdirectories).

(2) deleted reference to drive spec.

Completed the burns, and all seems to be well. We'll see when the other machine try to run.

Seems like PTE might offer an option to in effect "flatten and eliminate drive spec" in the "create as" to ease compatibility on different machines.

Thanks again guys for being there.

Cheers,

Jim

[nobeefstu]

Jim

You only need to "flatten" your heirarcal file structure (no subdirectories) ... if you so desire for ease of your own personal use.

I always use several folders and subdirectories for the projects file management ... then all you need to do is make your execution file paths "relative" .

Yes , I aggree that it would be easier for some users if PTE to was to have a setting that gave them a choice to select specific or multiple use drive paths.

However, I find it much easier to just remove the reference to the drive in the path ... without worry of what settings I may or may not have set ( to many settings to make ... to many little things to forget about also). Again, your folder structure can contain subdirectories of files ... so theres no need to make any "flatten" setting for file use.