A Menu For Anyone Interested

[Lin Evans]

NOTE - for anyone who downloaded this before the time of this update, buttons five and thirteen (5, 13) had no assignment. This has been corrected and the download now works properly.

If you use this menu and have fewer than 25 slides, either delete the extras or assign something like "go to first slide" or to get a null response, simply assign the menu slide number to the extras. Don't assign "none" for the action because that will perform an "exit" from the slideshow. Perhaps a bug on that key.

This is an easy implemented menu for anyone to use to jump to any of 25 slides. You can add it as your last slide. Following is the process.

Open "Menu.pte" file then highlight and "copy" the only slide called "Menu". Do not close PicturesToExe but open the slideshow you want to use it with and "paste" this slide as the very last slide.

Take note of the number of the menu slide.

Open each slide in your show and "add" a button. Drag the button so that it's HUGE and covers at least the upper third of your image. Set the attribute for this button to "go to slide number" and place the slide number of the last slide (Menu). Make the huge button invisible by setting opacity to zero. Be sure that the button occupies the top layer on the slide.

Do the above for each slide except for the button slide. Be sure to set the mouse cursor so it will be visible then save the show. To start, I would suggest you save it under a different name until you test everything.

Any time you left click the mouse button, it will call up the "Menu" then you can simply click on any slide from one to twenty five and the program will go to that slide. If you include a navigation bar you could then pause on that slide if you wish. When you are finished, again click in the upper one third of the screen and go to any other slide.

You could modify this to include more buttons for more slides, but be careful because you use lots of memory this way. I would suggest saving every few minutes if you go over about 40 slides.

Lin

http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/menu.zip

[bmccammon]

Hi Lin. Thanks for the lesson and example. Can you please tell me how you accomplished the "mouse over" effect on the buttons? Thanks

[Lin Evans]

It's just a part of the button creation effects Igor has built into the program - I just selected the default "aqua" button. There are some issues such as proper alignment of the buttons and the fact that the button size and shape is affected by the text written on it. This tends to make the menu of buttons look a bit asymetrical. Perhaps in the future we can have an "align to grid" or similar type feature which along with a button choice which is independent of the text size (i.e., the text is varied rather than button size and shape) will allow a better looking menu. Maybe when Igor and Sergay get some time to rest up, they might even provide a "feature" which looks at the number of slides in a show and automatically creates a menu of buttons properly indexed and linked to automate this process. But until then we can play with the great feature set and make our own - LOL.

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Lin. Thanks for the lesson and example. Can you please tell me how you accomplished the "mouse over" effect on the buttons? Thanks

[bmccammon]

Thanks Lin.

B

[Ednys]

Hi Lin,

Is there an easy way to get all the buttons to line up in such straight rows and columns?

Regards

Glenys

[Lin Evans]

Unfortunately not. If you create a set number, such as five then copy and paste them they initially line up nicely, but as soon as you rename them to something meaningful (not "button") then the buttons themselves become different sizes depending on whether there or single or double digets as their name. For example a button of identical size in terms of numbers (I used eight) will be physically different in actual size because the shape and size changes according to the test. I wish there were a way to keep the button size constant and alter the text in point size to fit, but haven't found that solution.

So the bottom line is only by hard work and precise positioning can you approximate something which looks more or less straight. I'm afraid I didn't do too good a job but I got tired of trying to get everything into order - LOL

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Lin,

Is there an easy way to get all the buttons to line up in such straight rows and columns?

Regards

Glenys