Support for dual/multiple monitors

[largactyl]

I've been trying to make a screensaver with PicturesToExe and it's wonderful except for one thing - no support for multiple monitors...

I work with two monitors, and when the screensaver runs, it shows up on one monitor only. The other one is unaffected and continues to display the current windows session.

It would be nice to be able to select between the following behaviors:

1) Display the same screensaver on ever monitor attached, or

2) Display the screensaver on one monitor only, and black out the others

L

[fh1805]

I have no experience of screensavers or dual-monitor setups but are you sure this is an issue with PTE? Might there be some settings in Windows or your graphics card drivers that would achieve what you want when the screensaver kicks in? Just a thought!

regards,

Peter

[largactyl]

I have no experience of screensavers or dual-monitor setups but are you sure this is an issue with PTE? Might there be some settings in Windows or your graphics card drivers that would achieve what you want when the screensaver kicks in? Just a thought!

regards,

Peter

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the insight! I do assume that this is a PTE issue, though, because I have other screensavers installed on my computer that do work with dual monitors without having to change any Windows or driver settings.

Also, I have experimented with a different program for screen-saver creation, and that one does give the option of explicitly turning multiple-monitor support on or off (when it's off, it behaves exactly like PTE as described above on my system).

PTE is a *much* better program overall, though, so I vastly prefer it over the other one. There's only this small issue of multi-monitor support that could be addressed.

L

[fh1805]

Well, you've placed your request in the correct part of the forum for it to come to the attention of the developers. All you can do now is wait patiently and see what happens!

Best of luck with your request. I can assure you that the development team do read and consider all the requests we make. Each new release includes some of our requests and some of their own ideas for improving the product.

We (the user population) are expecting the next version (v5.6) due out in its first beta release any time now.

regards,

Peter

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Well, you've placed your request in the correct part of the forum for it to come to the attention of the developers. All you can do now is wait patiently and see what happens!

Best of luck with your request. I can assure you that the development team do read and consider all the requests we make. Each new release includes some of our requests and some of their own ideas for improving the product.

We (the user population) are expecting the next version (v5.6) due out in its first beta release any time now.

regards,

Peter

Have you got your base monitor set to "Clone"? Are your monitors the same resolution. To get my laptop to show the same picture on a remote monitor I click and hold the FN Key and pulse the F4 key which displays 4 different types of monitor LCD CRT CLONE & another I can't remember, If you stop pulsing on clone your second monitor will show the same picture as your base monitor. If this doesn't work, go to control panel, display, click the settings tab the move the slider across until both monitors show the same picture, then click apply. Not sure if this is what you are looking for???

Yachtsman1

[barrygordon]

This is the one feature that is missing that is keeping me from buying this product. I use dual monitors in my Home Theater. The main or small monitor is vga output and set as the primary display at 1024x768. The Theater projector has as one of its inputs the DVI output of the PC which runs in dual monitor mode. The second monitor, projector, runs at 1920x1080 with its upper left corner at (1024,0) and has the desktop extended onto it, and has a completely different aspect ratio and resolution than the primary monitor.

In my own work I just place the images I want on the second monitor at the proper coordinates and the job is done. Sounds like the configuration I have is an easy one to be implemented by allowing the user to specify the coordinates on the desktop for the upper left hand corner of the slide show, and the pixel resolution of the screen.

I can not see it being a very difficult coding job.

[dpearcePNG]

While I am hesitant to add my voice to this issue...

It would be nice to be able to had the EXE show the presentation on both monitors of a dual setup. I frequently show my presentations on dual setups. So far I've used systems I could switch to "clone" the main screen on the secondary screen (usually a video projector). But someday I may not be so lucky (some laptops don't do this easily).

If all else fails, perhaps a command line switch? Then I could use a shortcut for the secondary screen.

Thanks.

Dave

[JPD]

What you ask is include in my proposal see 2.3 "Fit to height" mode will be for the use of several displays. It's today possible with V5.5 to have a sildeshow on several screens when using the Windowed mode, I made tests on 6 screens (4 at home).

To day is possible to make 2 displays see by Windows like one (Dualview) if you have a graphic card with 2 output.

[barrygordon]

JPD,

I recognize that I am not yet a user as the only thing as I mentioned above is the inability to get the show on my projector which is configured and works properly as a dual monitor (extended desktop) with coordinates of top=0, and left 1024 pixels which puts it just to the left of the main monitor.

Today I tried to launch the slideshow exe from an application using the ShellExecuteEX API with the monitor handle set to the second monitor. That did not work as the slide show always appeared on the first monitor.

I have tried windowed mode but to no avail. If I set the screen size to that of the second monitor the image always shows starting at coordinates 0,0 which is the upper left corner of the desktop. If the resolution is high enough it does spill over to the second monitor.

I will try and do other things and report back here, but currently I am having no success. I would really like to see this application be able to build for a second monitor either as an extended desktop by specifying the coordinates of the slide show upper left corner, or by specifying the monitor to be used. As a minimum. There are many situations today where the presentation environment is multimonitor with one of the monitors being a high resolution projector

[barrygordon]

I am admitting defeat. I can find no way to get the finished slide show to appear on a second monitor in a dual monitor configuration. I have the desktop spread across the two monitors and that operates normally. The slideshow however always starts at 0,0 and there is no getting around that it seems.

I am very surprised that the developers refuse to address this since dual monitor configurations are very common in todays world, and not to support that seems rather silly.

[tom95521]

+1 for render slideshow on multiple monitors. Currently screensaver limited to primary 1 monitor. I have a screensaver that has option to extend or duplicate (serene screen marine aquarium 3). So maybe this is possible, not sure how difficult.

Thanks,
Tom

[Peter Diehl]

When doing a live presentation, I place the notebook in front of me while facing the audience. So, the projector screen is behind me, and I can see the presentation only on my notebook, unless again and again turning around for the screen and becoming less audible for the audience in the process.

The current situation is this:

If I run the presentation from the program, this implies that I have to declare the projector a duplicate of the notebook (main) screen. This is fine, if the resolution of the projector is not higher than that of the notebook, otherwise the resolution of the projector output will be unnecessarily scaled down to that of the notebook screen, while the resolution of the images usually is higher. Even reconfiguration of the projector as the main screen does not help in this case.
If I run an EXE of the presentation, it only appears on the main screen. So, again, I have to make the projector a duplicate of the notebook screen and the situation is unchanged from the previous case.

- So the first suggestion would be to include a mode, where the projector is declared as an extended screen, and each of the screens shows the presentation at its respective max. resolution.

However, my actual suggestion is another one:

I would prefer to have a different view on the notebook than what is shown on the projector, for being able to see the next slide before it actually appears on the projector screen. The view on the notebook (main) screen could be similar to the current program display, but the slides in the slide list at the bottom should move on, while I step through the presentation, with the current slide shown in the middle and also magnified at the top. The projector, defined as an extended screen, would just show the actual presentation at the projector's resolution.