Getting buttons to work on a mini show

[C Kimball]

I am putting together a short 60 second promotional show to highlight my portrait photography and would like to have the last slide stay on screen with a series of buttons to open either PDF files or additional promotional shows freaturing more specific subjects such as weddings and motorsports. I have done this successfully if I use only one slide, however, when I use multiple slides like I am currently using, I cannot get the buttons to function (ie. open other executable PTE shows). Am I doing something wrong? Has anyone had the same problem or am I missing something?

Any help would be appreciated.

[nobeefstu]

Welcome, C Kimball,

You have most likely created your PTE Show using the music sync setting. Using any syncronized settings will disable the function of your mouse within your Show.

This feature is quite normal ... as not to interfere with the sync timing of the Show. It is not yet possible to manually control a auto sync show.

Igor may implement some mouse use with limitations when using the sync mode in some future release.

[C Kimball]

Thanks for the information. I just confirmed that the buttons work if I take the music out but when I leave it in, the buttons don't work. I think I will try to manually sync the slides to the music and see if that will work.

Thanks,

Colin

[C Kimball]

FYI,

I was able to develop a work around solution by playing the music, turning the sync mode off, and having the program display the slides at a specific timed sequence setting. It takes some adjusting of the time between slides and the number of slides but it will accomplish what I want.

Thanks for the info. If the program can be modified later by allowing the mouse to work once the last slide is showing, it would help alot for what I use the program for.

Great Program and excellent forum.

Thanks,

Colin

[ccmanz]

Yes this is a Work around but be aware.

That if you need the timing to be with the song

you will not have the same result on all computers.

Timing a show like this will look different on different computers

many things come into play.

So you might want to see what it looks like on different computers

before you send it out for a promotional show.

cc

[Ian]

This request has come up several times in the past - see Previous thread for some more comments. Igor has said that he will add the functionality in a subsequent release.

In the meantime, I have an alternative workaround that will preserve the synchronisation, though its a bit messy.

I needed a short introductory show as the opening sequence in a recent Digital AV Festival, with the last slide staying on screen with buttons to launch the other sequences. As it would ultimately be run on several different computers, the introductory show had to be synched. As we know, this means that any buttons placed on the last slide are inoperable.

As a solution, I made two shows. One of them was a fully synched show that had the dummy buttons at the end. The other was a simple two-slide show, with the first slide just being a black screen with a single "Run" button, and the second slide a copy of the 'last page' of the other show, complete with working buttons.

The "Run" button on the black screen simply called up the fully-synched show, which ran in front of it then exited. Meanwhile, the two-slide show underneath changed to the second page with working buttons, which stayed there until the synched show exited and revealed the working buttons beneath.

As I said, a little messy but almost invisible to the user or audience.

Ian

[think(box)]

Good creative solution Ian! Here's another that will work flawlessly for a variety of situations:

Install "AutoIt" scripting (click here for info) and have Autorun.inf or whatever opens your promotional show point to your AutoIt custom 40KB .EXE file made from the following two-line .AUT (text) file script:

Runwait,show1name.exe

Run,show2name.exe

No additional punctuation or drive/path info is required in your case, C Kimball.

The windows-universal script .EXE that you make with AutoIt's "Convert Script to EXE" feature will open your synchronized show (looks best to use sync'ed show for what you are doing) and wait however long it takes for the sync'ed show to complete. Then the separate show with buttons will open. FYI the "Runwait" script command runs app and waits until it closes. The "Run" script command runs app and continues script execution without waiting for app to close (you don't need "Runwait" on the second line of script).

You can link together any number of applications creatively with AutoIt. You can even decide when an application running becomes the "active" application (current focus app window, on-top app that fields keyboard input) or not. Best of all, the tiny .EXE script application files that you make will run on any other Windows (95,98,98SE,ME,XP,NT,2K) computer without any prerequisite installation and without any VB runtime libraries, etc.

[nobeefstu]

Just a note of advice : On Bills Topic above about script linking

There something to keep in mind when linking several exes (Shows) together using Scripts/Exes (AutoIt and others) :

When you Close or ESC from the current running Show link ... it will proceed to the next labeled Show in the link. This is normal function ... but be aware that ... Closing or ESC will not end the remaining Show links.

What Im basically saying ... dont expect to totally ESC out of a LINKED GROUP of Shows in one simple press of Close or ESC. (This is one reason RunWait has some limitations ... as you must script other variables to work around this so you can close or ESC out of all the links)

[think(box)]

Good point Stu. Does PTE return status upon exit that differentiates normal exit from ESC or ENTER key used to force an exit?

[nobeefstu]

Bill

It seems PTE "traps" ESC key so as to close the program normally. Therefore when using the normal exit or ESC to quit, the PTE shows closes correctly by dumping its temp files.

However, if you try to force it to terminate ... PTE will just quit and not following it routine by dumping its temp files.