PicturesToExe v4.10 beta #9

[Igor]

PicturesToExe v4.10 beta #9 is released

http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr_beta.zip (1.3 Mb)

What's new in this beta:

* Fixed several small bugs

* Removed mistaken 100 ms' time compensation for transition points.

* Now old presentations which contain mp3 files with ID3 Tag have exact timing in v4.10.

+ Improved speed of opening project or presentation with number of slides more than 300..500.

+ Added "Run application after last slide" option (Project options | "Advanced" tab). Another presentation can be ran when main presentation finished with last slide. This options also requires turned on "Close show after last slide" option.

+ Improved quality of sound during rewinding on the time-line (for 11/22 Khz mp3 files).

+ Status bar displays file name of picture for selected transition point.

[ronwil]

Thanks Igor and working satisfactorily. I particularly like the "Run application after last slide feature". I have tried it OK with just one sequence following another. I haven't tried it as a chain of sequences. Is this possible please?

Ron [uK]

[HaroldB]

Igor,

It looks like it is working great.

Of course, now I have two more what-I-hope-are-minor things that you can quickly fix .

1) Can you not make gray bars on the timeline for slides which don't have a customized transition if the Project Options screen has "enable transition effects" checked and the only transition checked on that screen is "quick (no transition effect)"?

2) I have a reoccuring problem when I am running PTE not maximized that clicking on a slide in the slide list does NOT always cause the slide to be displayed in the small preview box on the main PTE window. I can always "fix" it by maximizing the PTE window, clicking on another slide in the slide list, and then restoring the PTE window to its former size. But can you fix this so it does not happen to begin with? If you can't get to this happen, try running PTE un-maximized for a while. I can't tell you exactly WHAT causes this, since I don't see a repetitive pattern.

Thanks a lot for dealing with the timing problem!

Harold

[think(box)]

New beta #9 tests show success and excellence for high slide count shows with linked thumbnail photo guides

Contents of mega show used for testing:

• Intro slide with button links to photo directory, show slides, help screen and for starting music
  
• Several 70-thumbnail clickable link photo directory slides (high graphics count in object editor)
  
• Photos are displayed full-screen
  
• About 5200 slides total in show
  
• Show mode is unsynchronized
  
• Music is played from a separate P2E "music player" show to allow independent music track selection
  

Test results on 400MHz P2 Win98SE system:

• 20 minutes PTE show create time in v4.01
  
• 10 minutes PTE show create time in v4.10 beta #9
  
• 128 seconds P2E show start time, created by PTE v4.01
  
• 5 seconds P2E show start time, created by PTE v4.10 beta #9
  
• Eventual show crash from memory leak bug when playing thumbnail slides, created in v4.01
  
• No crash, No memory leak whatsoever, created in v4.10 beta #9
  
• 504696KB (492MB) show .exe file size, created in v4.01
  
• 504711KB (492MB) show .exe file size, created in v4.10 beta #9 (just 15KB more in a 502MB show)
  

Show playback performance is now flawless, very fast to start, and bug-free. It even plays on a 150MHz Pentium 1 system with 72MB RAM. On that system the show started in just 15 seconds. And in that case the 150MHz system was reading the show from the network. This demonstrates that PicturesToExe shows do not have to be first copied, then opened, to play. For that 150MHz system it would take about 5 minutes to copy the show file first over the network. Without copying it, I was able to play the show in just 15 seconds with P2E reading small amounts of the .exe file as the show played flawlessly.

This is an important and "enabling" change to PTE - supporting very large, indexed random access shows

Cheers to Igor and Aleksey! (Igor said Aleksey made the large show load time improvement)

[Igor]

Ron,

Of course, it possible to make sequence from several .exe files of presentations. Each shows should contains enabled this option. 1st show runs 2nd show, and 2nd runs 1st show and etc.

Harold

Thank you very much for the help with debugging of exact synchronization!

p.s. I'll also check up these two another problems you've described.

Bill

Thanks for wonderful result!

Yes, this abosulely new module for reading .pte project file was developed by Aleksey Elin for beta #9. He also created those PTE's transition effects with smooth line.

The new module has similar performance up to 200 slides. And it works in several times faster if presentation has 500 or 1000 or 5000 slides.

[alrobin]

Igor and Aleksey,

Thank-you so much for the new beta release - it works perfectly now with my test files (available for anyone who wants to test for his or her self at this Page .)

I have another request for the next beta, similar to Harold's. Could you please make the transition to image #1 changeable from the timeline, too, just as you did for images #2 and higher?

Harold,

I support you on your two requests. I have encountered many times the same problem as your second one. I once also encountered one other strange effect when clicking on and moving images around in these two windows. I couldn't even get PTE to recognize that I wanted a new file dragged and dropped into the second slide-show window - it kept repeating the image I had already dropped, so that I ended up with 3 or 4 copies of the same one. I had to exit from PTE in order to clear the problem. It's only happened once, though.

Harold and Bill,

Thank-you both for all your work in making constructive suggestions and beta-testing to solve the timing problems.

[ronwil]

Thanks again Igor. I made copies of three of my projects, changed the settings, created the *.exe (slideshow) files and played them back. They ran through one after the other. Perfect.

Ron [uK]

[Guest Techman1]

Igor,

I'm just a new user (1 day now) and am enjoying PTE. I've created a menu PTE Show and in that menu have 5 seperate PTE Shows that are selected by the user via the Object Editor Hyperlinks. This seems to work well. I'm playing music on the menu show so I'm having to exit it to run the other PTE links (so the music doesn't continue to play since the other PTE shows have their own music).

When a user is running one of the Hyperlinked Shows, it would be great if they could either "Right Click" the mouse and return to the Menu PTE Show. Is this something that could be added to the Project Options-Advanced Options-Action for Left/Right Mouse Click or as an option under the Customized Navigation Bar? This would be like the Run Application and Exit! This would allow them to sample different parts of these sample shows without having to wait until the end of each of the Hyperlinked shows (in which I can now automatically run the menu program "thanks to you" or have another Object which they can select to be routed to the menu).

Thanks and your program is excellent. It is very intuitive and works wonderfully. I'm very impressed with the lastest changes that you are making and the response you are giving your customers! Very Impressive!!!! This forumn is also an excellent source for information, which I have searched and found so much info already.

Keep up the great work. Maybe this could be added to a future version if not this one. Please advise if I was unclear in any way above (I probably was, but I tried ;-)

Fred

[alrobin]

Hi, Fred,

If you are in the second show and hit "Esc", you will return to the first menu page (provided you have set "Project Options / Show settings" to "when show ends, keep last slide on screen").

[LumenLux]

I once also encountered one other strange effect when clicking on and moving images around in these two windows. I couldn't even get PTE to recognize that I wanted a new file dragged and dropped into the second slide-show window - it kept repeating the image I had already dropped, so that I ended up with 3 or 4 copies of the same one. I had to exit from PTE in order to clear the problem. It's only happened once, though.

I want to thank you several "super testers" as well as Igor. Real dedication I'd say.

The problem from Al, quoted above, occured repeatedly as I used Beta #8 on the fishing show. I don't know how long the problem has been around, but it is definitely a pesky bug in #8.

Thank you all again for such work.

[Guest Techman1]

Al,

Thank you for the response. My problem is that I also have music running on the menu. If I leave that PTE show active then that music is playing in addition to the music I have running on the Sub-show that I jumped to from the hyperlink.

I had read in this forumn that the only way to get around that would be to "Run the program and Exit" so that the music on the menu stopped playing and the new Show's music started. As a result, if my client presses ESC during the sub-show the program ends and they are left looking at their Windows desktop.

I was thinking that with this addition to the Right or Left Click options, I could direct them back to the menu or to another program if desired. Just that added flexibility.

Anyway, this is a great program and I look forward to using it for a lot of different clients.

Regards,

Fred

[alrobin]

Hi, Fred,

Sorry, I missed the part about playing music on the introductory page. You're right, the only way to stop the music is to exit, in which case you have lost your introductory page.

I agree with you that more work needs to be done on the logic around the control of music in PTE. Maybe now that Igor has the internal player functioning satisfactorily, he will be able to devote some time to the whole area of control of the music under different scenarios.

[potwnc]

Igor,

Before I had time to do the test you asked me to do, you'd posted beta #9. I replaced one of my 7MB

mp3s with a 2.8 MB. I still see the pausing/reversing behaviour. I repeated the test with beta #9 and

got the same result.

I tested my old project (with the 7MB mp3) with beta #9 and got the same result.

If you like I can zip up all the files and upload them to a web server for you to download and test

for yourself.

Ray

[Igor]

Dear Ray,

Thanks!

I just reproduced this situation under WinNT 4.0 on PI-233 Mhz.

It's may occurs only under WinNT/2000 under such PCs. No problem with Win95/98/XP. I'll make some special optimization for displaying of the time-line (in the "Customize Synchronization" window) and new music player will has enough CPU resources for perfect playback.

[Igor]

Ray,

I just posted beta #10 which should solve this problem!

Please try it out.

[Igor]

Dear Harold,

1) Can you not make gray bars on the timeline for slides which don't have a customized transition if the Project Options screen has "enable transition effects" checked and the only transition checked on that screen is "quick (no transition effect)"?

I just fixed this problem! Thanks.

2) I have a reoccuring problem when I am running PTE not maximized that clicking on a slide in the slide list does NOT always cause the slide to be displayed in the small preview box on the main PTE window. I can always "fix" it by maximizing the PTE window, clicking on another slide in the slide list, and then restoring the PTE window to its former size. But can you fix this so it does not happen to begin with? If you can't get to this happen, try running PTE un-maximized for a while. I can't tell you exactly WHAT causes this, since I don't see a repetitive pattern.

I several times seen similar bug not with Slide List but with File list. Can't repeat it to fix, sorry. I'll check up the code of program to find reason.