play multiple pte after each other

[fh1805]

Geoff,

Create your menu sequence to run through to a slide full of buttons which activate other shows

Done!

... turn off 3d acceleration for the menu sequence

Done!

... select stay on screen until escape is pressed...

Done!

... create your menu.exe file...

Done!

... before running your menu right click on windows taskbar select properties, and Uncheck "Keep taskbar on top of other windows"...

Done!

Your shows will now run and go back to the menu with no desktop or taskbar flashes.

No desktop flashes. No taskbar flashes. But, as I said in previous post, I now get a "double flash" of the Menu image before and after each of the driven sequences.

Cor,

In my case I don't want a chained sequence. When I give my sequences to an audience I like to make it interactive and let them choose the order in which the sequences are shown. So I do need the button driven menu approach. I've already built a succesful chained loop ready for my local Photographic Society's annual Coffee Morning event. The chain works fine. It's the Menu that's the problem.

[xahu34]

Geoff,

I think that Peter uses Vista. For XP the situation is clear, see here!

Best regards

Xaver

Munich

[CorVdK]

Peter,

In my case I don't want a chained sequence. When I give my sequences to an audience I like to make it interactive and let them choose the order in which the sequences are shown. So I do need the button driven menu approach. I've already built a succesful chained loop ready for my local Photographic Society's annual Coffee Morning event. The chain works fine. It's the Menu that's the problem.

The only thing that you have to do is replace the title slides that I have in "my chain", with "dummy" slides with buttons if you want this. You click on the button and it send you to the show. When finished it returns in the "chain" and come back to an other "dummy" with the same list to choose the EXE files. When the audience choose a show, you click the corresponding button in the list, the show start, at the end you come back in the "chain" and.....

Make a "dummy" for every show you have to show. Make an EXE file of this and put it in the same folder as your shows.

I have done it also and it worked perfect. It even worked without a monitor. The beamer connected to the computer and you can click your shows, or your buttons on the screen. Without flickering, flashes, and no "double flash" at all.

Check this:

Some very important basic tips before starting with a project like that, all providers of a EXE show must be sure that:

1) their EXE-show is started and ended with a black slide

2) in <Project Options> <Show Settings> "Close show after last slide" is ticked, otherwise you have an endless loop, or you must push "ESC"

3) in <Project Options> <Advanced> "Hide mouse cursor during show" is choosen

Greetings,

Cor

[stonemason]

Hi Peter sorry thought it may work in Vista but apparently not hope you eventualy find a solution.

Regards

Geoff

[fh1805]

Hi everyone,

The latest issue of "AV News" (the quarterly journal of the Royal Photographic Society's Audio-Visual Group) includes an article by Ian Bateman FRPS MPAGB that offers some advice about the problems of desktop "flashes" at the start and end of PTE v5 sequences when run under Vista. The suggested solution was to run the sequences off a USB Memory Stick rather than off the hard disk. I have not yet had time to do a thorough, detailed test but an initial experiment seems to confirm that this does resolve (bypass? circumvent?) the problem.

I hope to have some time tomorrow (Wednesday) to do more extensive testing involving my desktop and laptop computers both running under Vista. If I get the testing done I will report back.

[davegee]

Hi Peter,

I thought that if Ian said it would work then all of the troubles would be over.

Unfortunately, having just tried it on my Vista Home Premium laptop it does not work.

Is it possible that Ian has tried two or more things at the same time and that he has jumped on the "wrong" solution?

DaveG

[CorVdK]

I just do one more try to explain that the "method" I have used in practice, for an audience of 150 people, has no flicker, no jumps, no interfearing, no flashes, no...,

And can be perfectly projected with a beamer of 1024 x 768 pixels.

Just read the posts and try it out, you will see it is working on VISTA and XP. The most important point is to use a recent videocard.

All the other methods and suggestions in this topic I have tested myself in the past, the black slides, the memory stick, the 1-pixel slides, with or without menu, with or without intro, with or without buttons, with or without...

They are not working with PTE v5.1 as described!

The only thing that may be a problem is the configuration of your computer, but when one uses a recent machine, it must work for you as well.

So far I did not see much reactions on my post about the effectiveness of the project, beside Peter. 1154 readers of this topic, 87 downloads of my MediaFire: TEST Chain show and ".pte" ZIP files.

Did somebody else tried it out? Am I alone in this matter? Are you looking for an other implementation? Does nobody believe me?

Greetings,

Cor

[davegee]

Hi Cor,

I must admit to not understanding your description of how your method works.

Could I point out that you were getting problems with running my method whereas others could?

My laptop is brand new with a spec similar to yours.

Could I also point out that I/we are trying to do this with EXE files. Am I correct that you are starting your sequence from the PTE file?

Can you post an example using ONLY EXE files?

Oh, and the other thing - I don't want to have to revert back to a previous version - I am using 5.5.7.

I hope that we can work together on this to find a solution suitable for all.

DaveG

[fh1805]

As promised, I've come back after doing a more extended test.

The scenario: I am about to give an evening's entertainment to a local group and have prepared an Introduction sequence, a Menu sequence and nine sequences driven off the menu.

(Cor, I know this is different to your approach. I want my audience to select the running order on the night; so it has to be Menu driven. If I was to show the sequences as a continuous chain then I would use your method and I know that it would work as I have built an "endless loop" chain of five sequences to be shown during my local Photographic Society's coffee morning later this year.)

The Intro is animated so hardware acceleration is On. The Menu is not animated so hardware acceleration is Off. The system on which I'm doing the test is my desktop PC (Vista Home Premium) and the task bar has been set to not stay on top of other windows.

Three of the sequences are v4.47 builds that now use the v4.49 software engine that I implemented using Igor's 449patch utility. The other six are v5 builds. The original builds were started using v5.10 but some of them have been completed using various beta levels of v5.5.

I loaded all the EXE files onto a USB Memory stick and then ran them as follows:

The Intro - which ran with no flashes of desktop

The Menu - which ran to its end, keepin last slide in show on screen

The three v4 sequences - which all ran with no flashes of desktop at all

The six v5 sequences - which ran with no flashes of desktop except for the first of them which gave a very brief flash of the desktop just before it started. This sequence is the only which which I can be certain has never been processed by v5.5 betas. It also happened to be the first of the v5 sequences to be run off the menu.

I now need to do another test running the sequences in a different order - especialy picking a different v5 sequence to be the first v5 sequence selected. I need to find out whether the desktop flash is associated with the first v5 sequence selected or is it associated with this specific sequence. As a full run-through takes an hour and I have lots of other things to do today, I may be a little while getting back again.

[fh1805]

I'm back!

Using the same setup, and having not rebooted the PC since last time, and having done various pieces of work (Word, Excel and Outlook), I have come back to the menu driven sequences for another test.

Still running them off the USB Memory stick, the behaviour this time was as follows:

Intro - no problems

Menu - no problems

First sequence (a v4 that was previously the second sequence to be shown) - ran OK but hung at the end. I had to use ESC to get out of it and then "End process" on the next pop-up.

Second sequence (a v4 that was previously the first sequence to be shown) - no problems

Third sequence (a v5 that was previously the sixth sequence to be shown) - flash back to desktop just before start, thereafter OK

Fourth sequence (a v5 that was previously the fourth sequence to be shown - but was the first of the v5s last time) - no problems

everything else - OK

This suggests that the desktop flashbacks I'm now experiencing are associated with the first v5 sequence to be driven off the menu. A further test is clearly called for.

But, why did I get a hang on the first of the v4s this time around when all three v4s played OK during the first test? That just doesn't seem logical to me and yet logical is what all computers are by design!

Once again, I'll be back!

[fh1805]

Just bringing this saga to a close (for now):

Ran the tests a third time:

Intro - no problems

Menu - no problems

First sequence (a v5 that was originally 6th up and then ninth up) - flashed back to desktop just before it started

Second through 4th sequences (the three v4s) all OK

All remaining v5s OK.

I now understand what is happening: the flash to desktop occurs only on the first of the v5 sequences.

All these tests were done off the USB Memory stick. I now need to repeat the tests running from the hard drive. The article implied that having run off the USB Memory stick, the sequences would then run correctly off the hard drive. Await the next installment.

[CorVdK]

Hello Peter,

Fine to read that you are making progress. I just try to help for what it is worth.

Have you checked:

1) the EXE-show is started and ended with a black slide

2) in <Project Options> <Show Settings> "Close show after last slide" is ticked, otherwise you have an endless loop, or you must push "ESC"

3) in <Project Options> <Advanced> "Hide mouse cursor during show" is choosen

I have experienced these settings for the EXE files are very important.

It is important, I think, to keep every file of your project in one folder and launch everything from your hard disk.

To avoid the flashes to the desktop, is it possible to put a "black" for a "certain time" to make calculations possible, or did you have this already?

I don't want to be a creep or boring, but there is were I tried to find the solution with "the chain" and launch everything from the same folder on the hard disk.

"By chain" I mean: Make copies of the Menu, the background with the buttons (buttons with titles of the shows), as many as you have EXE files.

Construction:

After your intro

SLIDE 01 A black slide (time 2 sec)

SLIDE 02 The Menu with buttons (every button has the action "Go to slide number..."; the first button has reference to SLIDE 04)

SLIDE 03 Black slide (time 3 sec, 1 sec transition) (to take time to load and calculate)

SLIDE 04 Black slide (time 2 sec) with <Run external application> annex the first EXE show

After playing the show it returns to

SLIDE 05 The Menu with buttons (every button has the action "Go to slide number..."; the second button has reference to SLIDE 07)

SLIDE 06 Black slide (time 3 sec, 1 sec transition) (to take time to load and calculate)

SLIDE 07 Black slide (time 2 sec) with <Run external application> annex the second EXE show

After playing the show it returns to

SLIDE 08 The Menu with buttons (every button has the action "Go to slide number..."; the third button has reference to SLIDE 10)

SLIDE 09 Black slide (time 3 sec, 1 sec transition) (to take time to load and calculate)

SLIDE 10 Black slide (time 2 sec) with <Run external application> annex the third EXE show

After playing the show it returns to

SLIDE 11 The Menu with buttons (every button has the action "Go to slide number..."; the fourth button has reference to SLIDE 13)

SLIDE 12 Black slide (time 3 sec, 1 sec transition) (to take time to load and calculate)

SLIDE 13 Black slide (time 2 sec) with <Run external application> annex the fourth EXE show

After playing the show it returns to...

.............

SLIDE xx Black slide

SLIDE xx End credits

SLIDE xx Black slide

You can push the buttons at random to start the right show. This method must avoid the flashes and keep you free of desktop problems. Maybe there are other solutions too.

Good luck.

Greetings,

Cor

[fh1805]

Cor,

Many, many thanks for your detailed explanation. I had misunderstood what you had meant by a chain of sequences. I thought you meant Sequence A always followed by sequence B always followed by sequence C, etc. By its very nature, an international forum such as this one has to use English as its common language. Those of you for whom English is not your native language face a great challenge trying to explain complex ideas. I think you are all incredible in that respect.

I'll continue testing my existing solution - but alongside that I'll do a re-build following your approach. I'll post the results of both variants in due course.

[CorVdK]

Hello Peter,

Yes, it's not that easy for me to explain what I want to say in English, but I do my best.

All respect to you for finding a final solution to this "problem".

I am really interested in your tests. And thank you to consider and try "my approach".

If we 'll manage to find a solution, this will benefit to all the photoclubs who have to organize their festivals, or projection evenings/afternoons.

Let's hope for the best result.

Greetings,

Cor

[davegee]

Hi Peter,

Sorry to resurrect this one.

Did you find a suitable solution after your research and deliberations?

DaveG