goddi

Jeff.... Thanks so much for your reply and the PDF instructions. I have read them and they helped quite a bit. The thing that still puzzles me a little is the differences between: Add Arrange Points and Arrange All Points. It seems that both, whether the delete all points or not, will "add at equal intervals over the length of the music files." I am still missing something here, but I am way ahead of where I was. The PDF instructions were great. Thanks... Gary

I have been using the pre-Beta versions for some time now but have been intimidated by the Timeline function. I have always used the Sync to Music because I never have been able to understand what the heck I was doing with the Timeline. But now, I feel I had better get a grip on the pre-Beta version's Timeline before I get serious with the more involved Beta version with its animation. So here are a few questions that, I hope, the answers will get me on the right track and clear up some of my confusion. 1- When I open the Timeline, the “Automatic synchronization” button is selected. However, when I hit “Play”, the selection moves to the “Customize synchronization” .button. If I reselect either “Not synchronized” or “Automatic synchronization”, the “Customize synchronization” gets automatically reselected. Why do we have the “Not synchronized” or “Automatic synchronization” choices when they cannot be reselected? 2- When I first get into the Timeline, no Timed Points show up. So I go into the “Timed Points” and click on the “Add Arranged Points.” Then all the transition points show up spaced as expected to the length of the music. Why don’t they just show up automatically without have to go through these steps? I feel that I might be missing something else that I can or should do other than click on “Add Arranged Points”. What am I missing??? 3- I see many really interesting slideshows that are more than just sync’d to music. I see shows that are timed to the beat of the music. So my question is if I want, say, to have the first part of my show to be timed to the beat of some music, then the remaining slides just spaced out evenly to the remaining length of the music, can I choose “Synchronize slideshow to music duration” but then go into the Timeline to choose certain slides independently to be timed to music? I’d appreciate it someone could clue me in on the philosophy of using the Timeline so I can get more creative. It seems to me that I should first choose "Sync to music", then go into the Timeline to, say, move images closer together to match the beat of the music. But then there is lots of music left at the end with no images being shown, just music. So the choice would be to add images to fill in the music space or edit down the music's length in Audacity. It this what is normally done or am I really off the mark??? Thanks… Gary

But I did get a Memory Leak... I ran the PteShow_H.exe for about a minute and it came up with a memory leak the first of 3 tries. You said it doesn't have memory leaks, so I am not sure what this would tell you. Everything else looked great. Gary

Oooppsss, I thought I had installed the Beta#2. I just installed it and, yes, did not get the error message. I agree and now understand that, technically, one can not resize an object Zoomed to zero. I just thought that might get someone into scratching their heads a bit wondering what happened, if they, like me, just accidentally entered "0". Maybe, the "Image" in the Object window could turn red, or something, as a warning, when it is Zoomed to "0"....? Just a thought... Gary

Igor... Yes, I understand that you can select object. But even if it is 'selected', I can not grab the handles of the object and resize it as you might expect. I have to go into the Zoom windows and enter a value >0. When I did initially enter a "0" in the Zoom windows, an error message popped up..."Complanar Vectors in Basis....". Gary

I mentioned a problem I had with 5Beta in another topic but I think it got buried in with other responses. Since it did not get any response, I would like to bring it up again to see if it really is a problem or not. What happened is that I entered "0" into the Zoom entry windows to see what would happen. The image shrunk to a small green retangle as expected. Normally you can grab on the handles of the image and resize it. However, I could not 'retrieve' the image. I could not grab any of the 'handles' around the little green rectangle that represents what is left of the image. The only way I could get the image back to visible size is to type in a Zoom value >0 or some number into the Zoom setting windows. It took me a while to figure this out. Gary

Lin.... You are goldmine for information. Thanks much... Gary

Lin.... Just a clarification, if I may ask you. I have tried to create the autorun.inf file WITHOUT the icon line. It never seemed to work. It would just open the directory of the CD, not start the PTE file. So I tried again recently and included the icon line and it worked just fine. My question is: do we really need to have the icon line in the autorun statement or was it just me doing something else incorrectly. Just curious. The statement below worked well. [autorun] open=menu.exe icon=CD_Rom.ico Gary

Igor.... I understand. I am greatful that you are listening in and looking at the 'problem'. Much appreciated. Gary

LumenLux... Yes, I think you are saying more clearly what is in the back of my mind...one button for the timeline of the particular slide that has more than one Keypoint in it. Push the button and the Keypoints space out or in proportionally to where they were, based upon the new amount of time. Gary

Al, I tried your suggestion but it did not work. However, I see what I did. I actually went into both Zoom entry windows and typed in "0" to see what would happen. The image shrunk to zero. This might be a little bug that Igor might want to fix. You can not 'retrieve' the image like you mentioned. You cannot grab any of the 'handles' around the little green rectangle that represents what is left of the image. The only way to get the image back to visible size is to re-type "100" or some number into the Zoom setting windows. Gary

Just had another thought as to what I am trying to explain. I have read Replies from other and sometimes I can not quite follow what their point is....my fault not theirs. I think I might be on a little different wavelength. But anyway...my thought is that there can be a button that will adjust all of the Keypoints proportionally across the amount of duration we give to that slide (in the Customize Slide/Duration of Slide For...). This would be similar to how it is now when you add or remove music from the slide show, all the slides adjust proportionally. Make sense....? or not??? Thanks... Gary

I am a little confused (still). In the slide that I was trying to adjust the 'slide's duration time', I did not see any "+" symbol. So I took a look at the second slide I had. I saw the only keypoint it had (at the very beginning), and it did have a "+" next to it. But if I moved the keypoint, the "+" dissappeared. So I am not sure what is going on here. Not sure how I can add any more keypoints with a "+" so they will "automatically move if you change time of a slide or duration of a transition effect". Did I misunderstand Igor's point??? So, anyway, I fiddled around with this this keypoint and eventually I messed it up so bad that I can not see the slide at all in the "Objects and Animation" window to make any adjustments. The only thing in the window is a small green square that I can not grab any of the edges to make it show up. Any hints on what I did wrong??? Thanks... Gary

Chuck... Yes, I understand that I can do that way but I would like to be able to click on a button to spread the 6 keypoints proportionally over the new increased (or decreased) 'display time' of that slide. It would make it much easier to tweek the 6 animations this way than having to do it manually. I think it would be a useful addition (if possible) if there is no other way than to do it manually. Thanks... Gary

I am trying to understand how the keypoints work and I am making progress. However, I have a question on how I can spread the keypoints over the slide's timeline when I change the slides display time. Here is what I did: I started out with one slide and moved the slide (zoomed in) from the center to each corner of the screen and then back to the center (each movement last 1 second). The slide has an 'display time' of 6 seconds. I felt that everything zipped around too quickly, so I then changed the' display time' of this slide to 12 seconds. All of the keypoints stayed exactly as they were and there is now a 6 second time span after the last original keypoint. Is there any way to 'spread' the original keypoints over the new 12 seconds of display time so I don't have to do it manually??? Thanks... Gary PS Just want to add that I mean to say to 'spread' the keypoints proportionally over the new 'display time'. Hope this makes sense...

Lin... Thanks very much. I'll be giving it a try. Gary =======================

I saw the instruction on making transparent backgrounds for text but I can't find the instructions on making the background of images transparent...like the balloons and the airplanes. Can you point me to the right spot? I looked around but I could not find anything. Pretty neat stuff. Thanks... Gary

Igor... No memory leaks. Ran 3 tests at 30 secs. No error messages. Ran 3 tests at 60 secs. No error messages. Gary

Igor... No error messages. I did 4 tests at 1 minute each. No error messages. I did 4 tests at 30 seconds each. No error messages. Gary

Igor... Retested and got 1 error. GeForce FX5600; P4; 3 ghz; 2MB Ram Ran each test 1 minute and 15 seconds. No Music: 1st-yes, got error 2nd-no error 3rd-no error With Music: 1st-no error 2nd-no error 3rd-no error Gary

Igor.... ran both bats several times and I did not get any Memory Leak messages. Gary

Allocation Leakage Memory Report: Looks great with my NVIDIA card. But, as someone else mention earlier, I also got a "Allocation leakage memory report" error message as I tried to cancel the show while it was playing. Never got anything like this before. Thanks much for the new version with its improvements...!!! Gary

LumenLux... Yes, I see your technique and, in fact, have tried it. However, I want the each Showx.exe to run sequentually without having to return to the Menu.exe, unless a show is stopped by the viewer--only then do I want it to go back to the Menu.exe. Your method makes it return to the Menu.exe after each Showx.exe. Not a bad thing, just not what was in my head. I would use it if each Showx.exe were unrelated. But my Showx.exe's are a single travelog and going back to the Menu.exe would be a 'disruption' in the sequence. This has been an interesting exercise and thanks to all for their help. It seems that one has to choose my method or your method. We can't combine them. :-[[ Thanks..., Gary.

Hawk... Yes, everythings works as I want except for the music in the Menu.exe to quit upon choosing one of the buttons from a list of shows and then re-playing the music once I returned to the Menu.exe. My quest is, at this point, to see if it CAN be done. Having the music play once the show returns to the Menu.exe would be nice...in my mind... but not absolutely essential. I tend to be stubborn when I think it should be able to do it, I will try to see if it can be done. Thanks for your efforts. At this point, the Menu.exe will have no music.... :-[ Gary Al.... Thanks for your help. Your advise might work but at a certain point it seems to be getting more complicated then its wortht. I've already tossed a bunch of CDs because I keep finding a typo or I forgot to do something in this multi-slideshow. Keeping it simple will help me not go too crazy with this. But knowing me, I will probably try your suggestions...but later. Wouldn't it be nice if the new version will allow the automatic fading out of music at a chosen point. But, as I told Hawk, I have removed the music from my Menu.exe and will have my beer in silence.... :-]]] Gary

Thanks, Lumenex, Hawk, et al... You have given me more food for thought and I will give it a try. But right now my brain is fried just thinking about this...(maybe its the beers...?). I will see what happens after a rest. This is a great program and maybe there is a way. Learning new possibilities all the time... Gary