alrobin

Hi, Ron, That's strange - it works for me. I am using version 7.0. I don't think it's a special plug-in. You do have to convert to "indexed mode". I guess I neglected to add "and select 256 colours". Then resize. The ".ico" option should be there, right at the bottom of "save as".

Ron, Yes, but you first have to convert it to "Indexed Mode" and resize it to 32 x 32 pixels. Then you will find an ".ico" option in "save as".

Mike, Welcome to the Forum! Mp3 is a form of MPEG format (layers 1, 2, & 3). Most audio editors will handle it. I have had very few problems with wave files, and these were due mainly to their size and CD-speed-related problems. Ogg is a "new" format that is catching on more, especially now that Mp3 licenses are becoming so expensive.

I saw him "lurking" on one of the other threads earlier today or yesterday!

Hi, Bill, Welcome to the Forum! What do you mean by "better"? Are you referring to my PTE 101 tutorial? If not, then I suggest you download it (available on Beechbrook), and have a look through it. It covers the timeline in a fair bit of depth. By the way, in order to use the timeline, you first have to add one or more music files as "background music" in "Project Options / Music". Good luck!

Hi, Hlooker, Welcome to the Forum! You have to create the icon separately. I used PTE for a year before I even tried to set one up. You can create one by resizing a bitmap image (bmp or tiff) down to 32 x 32 pixels (for large icons), or 16 x 16 pixels (for taskbar icons). You also need to reduce the colour depth to 256 colours before you will be able to convert the bitmap to an ".ico" file acceptable to PTE (using Photoshop or IrfanView, etc.). Then, just enter the file name and path (or browse for it) in Project Options.

You would have to make one, using your image editor, or if you are inputing via a digital camera, photograph a black screen. You then insert it by locating it on one of the drives listed at the top of the "file list" on the left-hand side of the main window, and double-clicking on it to add it to the slide list on the right. There is a "1-pixel black" jpeg image on my web site HERE that you can also download and use. Or you can make one in your image editor (just a jpeg consisting of a single black pixel).

It's probably either something wrong with the file you are using, or in Windows media player. PTE gives quite accurate times for mp3's, and Ogg & wave files. If you are using .wma files, you should convert them to mp3 or Ogg for use in PTE, and either listen to and time the song, or read its duration in PTE.

Bubba, Just scan for "tiffs",and then use an image editor (e.g. IrfanView, Photoshop, etc.) to reduce and convert to jpegs. Tiffs at 4.5 mb should be adequate for most purposes other than large, high-resolution prints.

Yes, either insert a plain black or white slide, and set up objects on it, or click off "Show image" at the bottom of the main window opposite the image pathname.

Hi, Mark, No, the other ways do not sync to the actual music timing, but use an independent "computer" timing, which can produce different results in different-speed computers. The discrepancies are cumulative, so the longer the music, the more out of sync you will be at the end of the show. You can reduce the perceived timing discrepancies some by breaking the music into several different files, and then keying each to a particular slide in "Customize slide", provided the breaks in the music are such that you can accept this. This will allow the music/slide synch to be reset for each selection. Here, too, though, things get a little risky, particularly if you don't leave enough time before the next slide to allow the music selection to complete (if not, you get a hard cutoff, which is not too sophisticated).

Hi, Mark, Welcome to the Forum! You didn't say whether you are synchronizing the show to the music using the timeline in Project Options / Custom Synchronization. If you use this to synchronize the show, it should keep it's timing pretty closely in other systems, except maybe some of the older, slower ones where you will probably have other problems as well (flickering images, glitches in the sound playback, etc.) In order to achieve fast sequences, you will find that "quick fades" or "cuts" will work better than longer dissolves. If you synchronize, you won't be able to use the nav bar, but Admin are working on this for future PTE versions.

Hi, M2, This is strange. It works fine for me. In fact, I just discovered something new: usually when you are using sounds at the sound level, they cut off if they have not yet finished playing and a new slide appears. However, if you call up a new show from a slide (say from a button object), the sounds of the new show overlap the sound which is still playing on the first show! So, this is another way to have background music playing, with narration over it. Now back to your situation: what version of PTE are you using? Are your sound files mp3's? (I'm just stalling for time here! ) You can accomplish the same effect, since you are not using background music, by adding the individual slide sounds in "Customize Slide" mode. Try that and see if the show can find them. Also, are you using the "browse" feature to search for and add the sounds? Sometimes that works best, as then you call up the exact file which you need. One peculiarity with PTE is that the path name of any sound used via the "sound" line has to be exact (not merely located in the same folder as the PTE file, itself). I'm afraid I don't know what else to suggest, except to experiment, and verify that the sounds are playable. Try using some of the same sounds as you know work in show #1. Good luck!

Eric, I suspect you meant to say "The first show (mp3) totals 41.8 Mb, the second (wav) 287 Mb ....." no? By the way, I don't think you need to go through the defrag process unless you have a very slow hard drive, and/or no buffer over-run in your CD-burning software.

Stu, You were right, it's all a matter of layers, and background vs foreground. But, as I told Jim, I like the effect of having a positive indication that the button has been pressed, as the text does become visible again once the slide is viewed again. It's actually quite a neat effect. Almost as good as highlighting a button when it is activated.

Stu, Your comments are very appropriate and important. However, in Jim's case, it seems to me that he must have the layers correct, or the button would not work correctly in the first place. Is there any other reason why the button would work properly when first encountered in the show, and then the Text disappear?

Jim, I suspect it may be because you are coming back to the next slide or a different slide in the show, which may be the same image as the previous one, but without the same objects, so it looks like the button has disappeared. Then, when you back up, you go back to the version with the button. Is this the case? I haven't been able to replicate this problem on my system the way you describe it. If you break away from a non-synched show to run a second one, the first one keeps on playing unless you have stopped it with the navigation bar, or are at the end slide, or have specified a very long time on screen.

Hi, Boxig, I'm not a Flash expert, but I have played around with it. I'll give your programs a try if you like.

Just a note to advise those interested that, thanks to the good work by Gérard Desroches and Maurice Dorikens (from Belgium), there is now a Dutch translation of the PTE 101 tutorial translation on Gérard's AV website. There are now three versions available: 1. The previous French translation by Gérard, 2. A new Dutch translation by Maurice, showing all three languages, and 3. A version by Gérard, for those who prefer to see Dutch and English, only. Thanks very much, gentlemen, for doing this to help out new members in their native languages.

Bob, I made it just for you, and I did know you would enjoy it! Although, I suspect that if we had teamed up on it, we could have put together a far more magnificent show, as I bet you have far more slides of that area than I have, after only two visits to the area. The canyons we explored were Antelope Cayon, Wire Pass, and Buckskin Gulch (not far from Wire Pass). (I think they were all the on other side of the mountains! ) And I might be wrong in my text "intro" in that the last two might be in Utah, but very close to the Arizona-Utah border. Are you familiar with the Paria Wilderness area at all? You must be. I know we crossed into Utah after leaving Page, but we also doubled back down a side road into the Wire Pass area. That was between 10 and 15 years ago. It rained the morning my wife and I drove down that dirt road, and the top layer was like a sheet of axle grease! We came so close to sliding off the road it was scary! Then we ran out of gas, as we hadn't planned on driving so far off the road, and I had to hitch-hike into Kanab to get some fuel to see us to the next service station! I'm kicking myself, too, that we weren't able to spend more time in that area this spring on our hasty trip across the Southwest to the West Coast. Speaking of the West Coast, I enjoyed your show, "That's what makes us sing", from the Oregon coast. (I still haven't figured out which one is you, though, you all look so young! ). That's another magnificent area where one could spend a lot of time. We drove up along the coast this spring, but it was raining the whole time, so we didn't spend much time there. Besides, we were in a hurry to get to Seattle to see our son and new grandchild. Maybe when the little guy gets a little older we will be able to go back and spend some holidays with them down along the ocean.

I think Igor should change his code name from "admin1" to "the wizard"!!

Sure, I'd go along with that. As long as it is optional on the part of the maker - in which case if the maker didn't care, and his or her show didn't use any other "ff" utilities, then "Esc" would still be left as the default "exit" with no annoying "are you sure" messages.

Manny, As I indicated in my previous post, if Igor wants to build in an option for someone to disable "esc", then I would not oppose it, particularly since you, and possibly others, obviously feel a need for it. However, I would object to "esc" disabled being the default, as from then on, whenever someone made a new show and forgot to check "enable esc", there would be a flood of complaints from people used to PTE who would hit "esc" only to find that nothing happened. Also, I fail to see the real advantage of "X" over "esc" as an exit device - first there may be other uses for "x" in the utility being used, and secondly, it is just as easy to hit "x" by mistake as it is to press "esc". Also, if one can instruct the users to use "x" instead of "esc", surely one could just as easily instruct them not to use "esc" in those cases where underlying utilities need to be activated first. My opinion, anyway. Please let me know if there is something I am missing in my logic here.

Manny, One thing to consider in assessing this request is that there are thousands of PTE shows already created where "Esc" is used to exit. It would be very time-consuming, if not impossible, to change all these shows so they wouldn't interfere with underlying programs due to improper use of the "Esc" key. Also, if we change the escape mechanism now, IMO, it would be confusing to users who have been relying on "Esc" to exit. There are already other methods for exiting ("close" buttons, navigation bar), so perhaps these could be used by makers who are worried about the effect of pressing "Esc". As you said, "Esc" is the industry "standard" for this operation. so changing it could make things confusing for some people. Also, I have never experienced a problem with it myself. I have no objection to an option allowing an individual maker to disable "Esc", but I would hate to lose "Esc" as the default. What do you think?

Hi, Marco, Yes, just change the browse criterion from "exe" to "all files", and then browse for the text file, "readme.txt".