Menu

[JEB]

Help please,

I am preparing a talk for my camera club and have created a slide show in PTE to support the talk. I have used the “run application after last slide” option to take me directly to Photoshop in order to demonstrate something – and it works great!

However after I am finished with PS I would like to play a couple of PTE shows, ideally without returning to my desktop and opening up a folder containing them.

I have not yet explored the menu option I hear much reference to and wondered if this would be applicable in this circumstance bearing in mind that the sequence of events would be as follows:-

Menu (small PTE show)

Talk presentation (PTE show)

Photoshop demonstration

Menu – select from number of PTE shows

It’s getting seamlessly back to the Menu after exiting PS that concerns me.

Before going into and learning how to create a menu (I’m a slow learner and time is of the essence at this stage) can somebody tell me if I’m barking up the wrong tree – or just barking mad!)

Thanks

John

[fh1805]

Hi John,

I did something similar for the RPS Northern AV Group earlier this year. In my case I was manually controlling the move from image to image during the "live talk" sections and wanted to breakout into short PTE exe files and into Windows Explorer, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word. I built everything in PTEv4.47 (because PTE v5 was still in early beta). The breakoutpoints were handled by having the same image file three times in succession with the application being "broken out to" linked off the middle of the three.

The breakout PTE exe files were set to "Close show after last slide" and were "full function" AV sequences with images and soundtrack. The master sequence was set to have "Display each slide for" on Project Options ...Main... as unticked. Mouse buttons were set to be Left = Next, Right = Previous. Everything worked just fine.

On the breakouts to the Explorer, Excel and Word sections all I had to do was close these applications down at the end of theire section and the third of the triple of images was there on the screen and waiting for me to click the mouse to move on.

Hope this has been of some help to you.

[JEB]

Thanks Peter,

Now that I know it can be done I will try to make time before tomorrow night to add these frills. As I said above I havn't yet tried to create a menu so even if I don't get the time now I certainly will be looking at it after the event

Regads and thanks for your time.

John

[JEB]

Peter or anyone else listening,

I have managed to get a draft menu working as I wish.

However I have one further embellishment I would like to add. I would like to have music playing when the main menu is visible but switching off when either PS or a PTE show is playing. I have tried all sorts of options but can't get it to stop. I have tried loading it at Project and Slide levels but it still continues when the other application loads.

Any suggestions?

John

[Hawk]

Hi John

Any suggestions?

I have created a quick demo for you with ver 5, one method that should work for you.

You will see in the menu demo show “ Menu_Demo.PTE “ once opened, in section “ Project Options “ I have checked “ When show ends keep last slide on screen.

Also I duplicated slide one and made some changes in slide two.

Slide one I have no active links, as you do not want the links to work with music playing in background. The music would play while Photoshop is being used, so slide two will turn audio off.

Slide two has the links active once the music is turned off, and will not interfere with audio in your presentations.

In order to turn music “ On “ and “ Off “ in this demo I used the “ Customized settings in ( Music )

Also I used “ Stop at end of slide “ in both slide 1 & 2

If you download the demo ( all files ) check out the settings in the .PTE file.

Their maybe ways of tweaking it further.

Just a quick thought, as to your request. Some members may have another method.

Posted Demo on MediaFire – 14.21 MB ( all files )

** I substituted “ Notepad.exe “ for program Photoshop

http://www.mediafire.com/?11mfezdzchy

** Further

If your menu is a small intro show ( say 1 to 10 slides ) then the above would be added as slide 11, the audo " off " would take you to slide 12. Also make sure in " Project Options / Screen - that " Hardware acceleration " is unchecked in the menu presentation.

[JEB]

Ralph,

Thank you very much for putting that together for me. I am at present creating my menu along these lines. I think my audience (potential PTE users) will be impressed.

Thanks to all who contributed.

John

[Ken Cox]

you better haul it JEB

my London clock says it is 04:27

so if it works bottle it and get ready for the club

ken

[JEB]

Just to let you know Ken, I made it with time to spare and it was worth it.

Thanks everybody

John

[Ken Cox]

Glad to hear it went well -- did they buy you a round?

glad that the colonial Hawk was able to help you out

ken

[Hawk]

Hi John

Also glad to hear the evening went off to your satisfaction.

This was a first try for me with the sample, could you take a moment and explain what procedure you finally used for the benefit of anyone else wanting such a structure.

[JEB]

Ralph,

Certainly, but I going to be out most of today so will put something together Sunday.

John

[JEB]

I hope this may be of interest to others.

Basically I followed Ralph’s demo as attached to his post above with a few minor changes.

From Project Options I set all slides in the menu to 5000 sec (83 mins! – a bit OTT but safety in numbers). Ticked “Permit control of show using keyboard to enable me to use the arrow keys to move forward and back.

My first slide was a blank white.

My second was the club logo and one button (Audio off), which was set under the Common tab to go to slide 3. Also under Customize Slide/Music I loaded my music file – a fairly long piece, as I wanted this to play for an undetermined time. From Customize Slide unlike Project Options you can’t instruct audio to repeat. On reflection I suppose I could have loaded a number of tracks or loaded the same piece several times.

Slide Three – also the club logo had three buttons. The first, (Audio on) was located in precisely the same location as the Audio off on Slide 2 and that obviously returned to Slide 2 – not entirely necessary but a comfort to know it was available.

The second button was a large button located at the top of the slide and was labelled and served as the title of the lecture. This was set under the Common tab to “Run application or open file”. That was my main presentation which was of course another PTE slide show set up in much the same way as the menu (white background, keyboard control, 5000 seconds). At the end of that show I had it also set under the Common tab to “Run application or open file” which in this case was Photoshop to enable me to demonstrate some processes. When I exited PS I was automatically returned to Slide 3.

The third button on this slide was labelled A.V. and it was programmed (if I may use that term) to go to Slide 4.

Slide Four – also the club logo but with one large button serving as a title (Audio Visual Presentations) to the second part of the lecture and programmed to go to Slide 5.

Slide Five - also the club logo but with five small buttons each labelled with titles of A.V. shows and programmed with “Run application or open file” to the appropriate show.

Obviously one can do a great deal more with this but this simple structure served me well on the night.

Sorry I have not included copies of the files, principally because I could not improve on Ralph’s demo which I would strongly recommend anybody interested to get hold of while it is still available.

All the best and thanks to all who contributed.

John