Now some questions about the program

[Tim Z]

With Igor's help, I now have a working version of PTE. So tonight I put the program through its first test run by creating my first slide show. I posted a link for the show at the presentations forum. Now I have a bunch of questions about the use of PTE.

1) Why is there no help file with the program? It would be really nice if the help menu index worked and you could search out info about the program features and uses.

2) Is there no way to fade the music within PTE at a particular point?

3) My show had about 65 slides in it, and I found it cumbersome moving slides around to particular locations. Is there no way to click on a slide and tell it to move before a selected slide number. When I left click and slide the image, it will only slide within the page viewed on the screen and doesn't scroll over. I think the moving and positioning of slides could be made easier.

4) Is there no way to run the Preview form any location with the music? It always seems to want to start from slide 1.

5) Where is it that you set the desired screen resolution? My show was defaulted to 1024x768, which is what I wanted, but where do I change that if I need to?

6) I used the Timeline feature a little bit. Is there no way to shift cliick a group of slides and then globally change the length it is displayed in the show (i.e. say from 5 seconds to 6 seconds)

That's all the questions I had from tonight. I'm sure there will be more BTW, I did go through all 6 of the tutorials, but they don't seem to answer these questions.

Cheers

t

[Ken Cox]

Tim Z Posted: Jun 5 2005, 12:31 AM

With Igor's help, I now have a working version of PTE. So tonight I put the program through its first test run by creating my first slide show. I posted a link for the show at the presentations forum. Now I have a bunch of questions about the use of PTE.

1) Why is there no help file with the program? It would be really nice if the help menu index worked and you could search out info about the program features and uses.

when the program from Igor was unzipped, is there no help file in the folder -it is a standard chm file - he sometime does not send the complete show to somebody he is trying to help

did you install it over the trial program -- did the help file work in the trial version

what is its path

did you install it in a "new Folder"

what is its path

copy and paste help file in the trial version to new install

this is my path

D:\P2E Shows\v4.41 final prog

the show must be installed in a similar path -- you cannot install it with a folder -- do a search of forum and find where i screwed up

2) Is there no way to fade the music within PTE at a particular point?

i pass on this

3) My show had about 65 slides in it, and I found it cumbersome moving slides around to particular locations. Is there no way to click on a slide and tell it to move before a selected slide number. When I left click and slide the image, it will only slide within the page viewed on the screen and doesn't scroll over. I think the moving and positioning of slides could be made easier.

you can move the slides around in the light table

you can copy and paste slides any where you want

you can move slides up otr down with arrows on the screen

4) Is there no way to run the Preview form any location with the music? It always seems to want to start from slide 1.

bottom right corner the is what looks like a piece of toast -- hi light a slide above and click th toast

5) Where is it that you set the desired screen resolution? My show was defaulted to 1024x768, which is what I wanted, but where do I change that if I need to?

you have to change your monitor's display withe the sysetem properties

6) I used the Timeline feature a little bit. Is there no way to shift cliick a group of slides and then globally change the length it is displayed in the show (i.e. say from 5 seconds to 6 seconds)

i pass on this

That's all the questions I had from tonight. I'm sure there will be more BTW, I did go through all 6 of the tutorials, but they don't seem to answer these questions.

now if you had msn or yahoo hawk or i could have talked you thru all these questions and you would not be getting frustrated again

ken

[JRR]

Tim:

There is an excellent tutorial by Al Robinson called "PTE 101 tutorial" available at www.beechbrook.com/pte. While Al has not had time to keep it current with the latest releases it will give you many basics. Fastest way to find the tutorial within BEECHBROOK is to click on "View download stats" at the top of the first page. Al's tutorial is about the 3 or 4th from the top. Click on it and the downlood will start.

A more current thorough help file would certainly help for those that actually use HELP files ( <grin> ).

There are no sound editing facilities with PTE. This has been discussed many times on the forum. All sound editing has to be done outside the program. You can add "sound bites" separate from the background track, by using the SOUND line on the main page. Make sure to click "DON'T INTERRUPT..." on the MUSIC TAB of PROJECT OPTIONS. Also be aware that you won't hear those sound bites when working with the show through the timeline, you have to use the preview function to hear them when working on the show. Igot has indicated that this will be fixed in an upcoming release.

On the timeline, you can do almost whatever you want with a group of selected images by using the normal "cntrl-click"/"shift-click" method one uses with windows to select files. Once the slides are selected, track them around as you want and/or right click for CUSTOMIZE slide.

I think Ken has answered the other questions.

Just to elaborate slightly on the "preview from anywhere" answer, the "piece of toast" Ken mentioned is in the bottom right corner of the large image preview section of the main screen. clikc on the image across the bottom line from where you want to start previewing, which puts its image in the image preview section, then click on the small icon (piece of toast or bread it has been nic-named) and the full screen preview starts from there.

If previewing from the TIMELINE, click on PLAY to get the preview running, then click on PAUSE (not STOP) and click on the time bottom of the TIMELINE will move the blue triangle to where you want to start it and then click on PLAY again. If you accidently or absentmindedly hit STOP, then yes it starts from zero again.

[Ken Cox]

Tim from my files re help file from igor

Friday, February 27, 2004 05:27

I've found exact reason why pte.chtm help file didn't work on your PC.

I've created same folder as on your PC:

D:\P2E Shows\4.20 beta #8\p2e 4.2 beta 8 program\beta 8 ver 4.2 p2e

and copied there all PTE's files. And help also doesn't work.

After several tests the reason was found.

.chm help files created in Microsoft HTML Help Compiler doesn't work

if path where located this .chm file consists at least one "#" symbol.

In you case it was "4.20 beta #8" folder. So just rename this folder

into "4.20 beta 8" and all will work fine.

I also tried with several help files from another products and they

all act exactly as PTE.chm help file.

Igor Kokarev, WnSoft Inc.

Member of Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP)

pte@wnsoft.com

http://www.wnsoft.com

ken

[Tim Z]

Thanks for the responses.

Help Menu

There is no "help" file in the folder where I unzipped v4.42. However, there is a help menu in the program, but it just doesn't have much in it. For example, I was trying to figure out the transition effects, so I opened the help menu and under "index" typed in "transition". Nothing comes up. In fact nothing comes up for any word I type in. Is this supposed to work, and I am missing a file? Or is there just no help index with PTE?

Moving/arranging Slides

I know you can move the slides around in the light table, copy and paste slides any where you want and

move slides up or down with arrows on the screen. Moving slides in the light table would be fine if I could slide them beyond the current window/screen. Are you able to do that on your system? Copy and paste is not very useful as you have to go back in and delete the original slides. Cut and paste would be much better. The little arrows are basically useless, as they move one space back or forward. Much easier/quicker to just drag and drop. I would like to be able to click on slide number 83 and instantly move it to position 27. On my system this is a bit cumbersome because I keep having to drag and drop within the window and then scroll over and keep dragging and dropping until I get to the right window.

Preview Slide from any point

Where is this button that looks like a piece of toast? I looked on the main screen and cannot see it in a bottom right corner.

PTE Screen Resolution

I wasn't talking about my monitor screen resolution. In most programs they have a place where you save the program to be viewed at a particular screen resolution. Are you saying that PTE automatically detects a screen resolution and displays for that? What I am asking is where within PTE do I say what screen resolution I want the program maximized for?

Ken, when you say "I pass on this", is that because the questions are too stupid, or because you don't know? In ProShow gold they had a place where you could fade out the music at any point. If PTE cannot do this, then I will have to go into my audio editing programs and fade the music myself. However that is a hassle if I then decide I want to change the show length and have the keep manipulating the wave files. I don't think PTE should bother with a wave editing program. Just simply add a feature that says "fade music at x:xx seconds" and have a time length selectable for the fade.

JRR, thanks for the info, I will check out the tutorial at Beechbrook.

I did the shift click for a group of slides in the Timeline menu, but I could not find a selection for globally changing the time spacing between that group of slides. The only way I could see doing it was to manually slide each individual slide, which naturally is very time consuming. I wanted to change a group of slides from 5 second spacing to a 6 second spacing. How would I do that?

Thanks

t

[Tim Z]

For the same reason I cannot view PTE.exe shows created earlier than v4.42, I also cannot view the PTE101_ver2.exe tutorial.

I have asked Igor if there is any chance he could recreate the tutorial in v4.42 so I can use it.

t

[Ken Cox]

Ken, when you say "I pass on this", is that because the questions are too stupid, or because you don't know?

there are no stupid questions - when i say i pass it is because either i do not know or would rather not answer

i will email you a screenshot of the piece of toast -- keep in mind that i use the classical interface -- so i dont know/what it looks like in the other interfaces

ken

[JRR]

The piece of bread/toast is at the bottom right of the large pane image preview screen.

It looks more like a parallalagram (spelling?) slanted rectangle) with a dent in it.

Hopefully Ken will get the screen print to you

You can increase/reduce the size of the thumbnails in the light table by using the the slider at the bottom right of the light table screen.

I am not sure you can set PTE for Optimize Screen res, but I suspect you might be able to achieve the same thing by playing with the PROJECT OPTIONS>SCREEN and take a look at windowed mode. That might not be what you are looking for (and it has problems as you (sometimes) see the desktop behind your show if the person's screen res is larger than the window established)

I understand what you are saying about the moving etc of the images along the timeline. SOmeone might have found a solution for your spacing question and will heopefully post it. We all work a little differently in setting up our slide shows, that has not been a problem for me, but I likely would have different problems in other areas. The latest release of PTE made some major improvements in moving the images around on the TIMELINE, but more refinement would always help.

I think someone did a PTE show that demos all the transitions, you might want to check Beechbrook as that might help you a little. (I just tried any that sounded like they might work for the odd situation)

I hear what you say re the FADE, I am happy with having to do it in an external sound editor but that is with the work routines I use for my types of shows. I know many have asked for this in the past. (Personally I like the Adobe Premiere sound editing - but that is a MUCH more expensive software and has some issues that PTE does not have)

[Tim Z]

Thanks, I finally found the toast

I also found that it actually does work to drag and drop a slide from one screen to another. It is very finnicky where you hold the slide to move it to the next screen, but once you find the right position, it does work. So that makes that job a bit easier.

I also found how to set the time spacing between groups of images in the timeline. After selecting the group of images with shift/click, it is under Timed Points/Set Time of Points (ctrl+t) and the time spacing can be set in milliseconds. I'm surprised no one here knew this one?

For audio recording, wave editing, etc. I use a program called Samplitude. I (and many others) like it better than Pro Tools. Overkill for this application, but still nice to have available. Would be nice though if you could do simple fades and location of fades within PTE. My audio programs are all in another boot on my pc, so I have to shut down PTE and reboot to do any audio editing.

t

[alrobin]

I'm surprised no one here knew this one?

With PTE, you learn something new every time you use it!