JohnFeg

Ken, I've got mine in a separate folder and, yes, "help" opens when you click on it. But, there is nothing in there other than "What's new" Do you have anything different? John

I was, of course, speaking "tongue in cheek" when I made the "2 chevaux" analogy. My own machine is certainly not formula 1. It's more than 5 years old, but, since installing a half decent video card, I'm pleased to say, all the show I've downloaded have run perfectly. Your point regarding the observance of certain rules is perfectly valid. It would be pretty stupid to create something that can only be seen on ones own Super Comuter. BUT, where that self restraint start to limit creativity, then it is surely time to move foreward and get, at least, a modest Jaguar! B] John

Patrick, that a bit like saying "I want to get into Formula 1, but I'm going to do it in my 2 cheval" John

Dominique, thanks, thats fine. If the rain keeps up (preventing house painting activities!) it will be ready before the weekend. John

Dominique, I've almost compled putting the first level of the Tutorial together in the form of a temporary V.4 slideshow. However, it looks to be coming out at about 6MB. Will I be able to get it to you via an Upload Agency, Dropload, or some such? John

Dominique, Thank you. As soon as the first parcel is ready I'll get them to you. I will keep the volume of information, for each parcel, reasonably small. This, I hope, will mean that members will not feel that reviewing/commenting is too much of a chore! Will you post, to this forum, that they are available at your site, or, shall I? John

Jeff, at the moment I am doing no more than prepare slides. That will remain the case until V.5 is released. Reason being, I need 3 functions that are not yet activated. I want to be as certain as possible that the information, provided by this tutorial, will be as: accurate, lucid and brief as possible. For that reason, it seems appropriate to post these slides, into the forum for comment, in smallish parcels, as they come of the press, so that members will not be put off reviewing them because of sheer volume. There will also be occasions where I need more direct assistance. For example, I never now create DVDs, thus do not feel I'm the best guy to write a description of what the "Video" button on the main screen is for. Additionally, I plan to seek permission to plagiarise stuff that has been posted by members, since V.5 #1 came off the slips, where it can usefully be incorporated into the sceme of things. In brief, I'll be glad of any help and advice folk may offer! John

Within the next week or so I will have available for comment the first batch of descriptive notes, intended for incorporation into this tutorial. These notes cover the "controls" on the main PTE window. When the tutorial is put together the note will be displayed, in response to a button click, as an animation, against a background of the main screen. I've attached a sample here. Is this the best method to post them? John

Lin, I'm working on a simple tutorial. It will basically describe what the various "controls" in PTE 5 are for. See the thread I started 24 September. Some of the stuff you have written here, and elsewhere, could be employed to good effect. Have you any objection to me using it? All the descriptive statements, proposed for this tutorial, will be "filtered" through the forum, before being incorporated. John

Bob, a method I use, when incorporating portait format images into a slideshow, is: a) create the image that you want to show behind the main image, in Photoshop, at whatever you use as your full screen resolution. I particularly like textured effects. drop your main image onto it as a layer c) add any layer styles to suit your taste. For Portrait format Bevel & Emboss + a Dropshadow, looks good. d) Flatten and save as JPG. If you use the same background slide for many images, speed things up with an action. Johl

I think that it is easier to do from the main screen. If you want all the slides to show for the same duration, things are very easy. Select all the slides in the Slide List (you can click the first slide hold down shift key then click on the last slide) > Click "Customise Slide" button > Tick the box "Use Customised Settings" > go to "Main" tab and set the duration (In your case the duration of the music divided by the number of slides) If you want your slides displayed for varying durations, you'll have to set the "Customise" parameters individually or in group of the same duration. Good luck John

Use the Crop Tool with Width 400 px height 400px (Boxes on Toolbar) Then crop to obtain the most pleasing image within this constraint. John

If you go to Project Options>Main and set your slide durations to "Customise" so that they cumulatively add up to the music duration. Then remove the music, I'm pretty sure your show will run. John

Jeff, Yes, my plan is to produce a - "What's that for" utility. Rather than a - "This is how you do it" tutorial. As I get futher down the track, it may be that a reference or link, to tutorials such as your's (on Objects & Animation), could comprise an element in the information provided on my "Post-It" notes. John

Ken, the problem with starting in V.4 is that I, particularly, want to add some animation to what I have refered to as "Subsequent Slides" Making a start in V.5 beta 5 is also a No No, at the present time, simply because the functions: Navigation Panel, ability to set active buttons and Sound on Slide are not yet active. In any case, there is such a volume of preparitory work to do that the wait for V.5, or at least the activation of those three missing components, is not really a problem. Bearing Igors projections for the release date. John

Cor, Thank you for that clear and detailed explanation. You are bound to see this "regurgitated"! when I start posting component I am proposing to use in the slideshow. John I take the point about avoiding duplication of effort. Until V.5 is fully functional, all that I can do is to prepare slides that it is intended to incorporate. I had thought that, in order to work-round the functions not yet commissioned in V.5, I’d be able to cobble together a draft project using V.4. This, so that I could get some feedback from the Forum, before casting the thing in stone. However, having played around with that for a couple of days, I have decided that that was a silly idea. It would require too much reworking, so, I’ve kicked it into touch! Let me briefly explain how I envisage the format of this tutorial: TARGET a) Newcomers to PTE as a means of familiarisation. Occasional use to those reasonably familiar with the application. PURPOSE a) A means of easy and rapid access to detailed information and advice on all the controls and functions in PTE On a personal note, to make a little contribution, within my own technical capability, to this excellent forum, which gives so freely it’s time and help... PROPOSED METHODOLOGY a) A slideshow controlled by the viewer, entirely manually. That is to say, using left & right mouse buttons and/or the navigation bar. Following some introductory screens, that will provide general instructions on the use of the slideshow; the viewer will be presented with a slide showing the PTE main screen. Here, clicking on a button, superimposed over every control element, will be take the user to a slide giving detailed information on the function selected. This subsequent slide, also of the Main Screen, will be animated to display a “Post-it Note”. In effect, a sort of glorified Tool-Tip. Certain buttons (on the Main Screen slide) will, of course, take the viewer into regions of the application where there exists more than a single control function. For example, clicking on the button over the Objects & Animation Function. In such cases, the subsequent slide will, itself, have multiple buttons. These will enable navigation, ever deeper, into all “the nooks and crannies” of PTE There will be a voiceover commentary for those slides where it will be of assistance to the user. c) A possibility for the future might be that this, or a similar facility, be accessed from PTE “Help” Having said all that, I am open to and will appreciate any comments on the outline of this concept. I’m more interested in it being of practical use than I am of it reflecting my personal ideas. In that spirit, I intend to post, from time to time, the individual slides, as they are created, and while they are in an easily edited format! John

Dominique, Ken & Ron, thank you all for clearing one up for me. As I invariably set project options, I hadn't even noticed the significance of this function until coming to put a few words together to describe it. John

I’m working on Slideshow Tutorial, the purpose of which is to provide easy and rapid access to detailed descriptions of the function/s of all the command and control buttons and icon used in PTE V. 5 I’m aware that it cannot practically be completed until V.5 is published; but, I want to make a start. So, I’m creating a draft, using PTE V.4. This, with a bit of luck and a favourable wind, should be in a sufficiently advanced state, within the next couple of weeks, that it can be posted on the forum for comments and advise on the format chosen. I’m held up, at the moment, because I’m unable to determine the function of the “P” button, on the main screen. (See attachment) Will be grateful if one of you can fill me in. John

This really is an excellent time saver. One little problem, however, if the image being saved as a PNG has a drop shadow, created as a Layer Style in Photoshop, and the "crop" option is selected. The result is not quite what you might expect! I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has experienced a problem. John

I gave up putting slideshows into DVD format over a year ago. My reason being that the quality of the images on a good quality TV (PAL) was not up to the standard I want (shimmering being a particular irritant!) and certainly far below that achieved when shows a displayed as .exe files on my computer monitor. Nero 6 was the software that I used then, though I now have V.7. A couple of questions then, partly to fill in the holes in my technical understanding of matters DVD and partly so that I can make up my mind whether having another go at DVD will be worthwhile. Q1 - Will the results, produced on my TV screen, using the software in PTE Deluxe be a quantifiable improvement? Q2 - Is there an advantage to increasing the size of the image files I use for slideshows? Currently, I use 1024 X 768 pixels for all slides, unless they are subject to PRZ effects. John

Dominique, what exactly do you have in mind? I'll give what help I can, bearing in mind my somewhat limited technical expertise and experience with PTE. I did a bit of technical authorship in those long gone days of working for my bread and butter. One thing occured to me, I think might be useful, that is a well indexed list, all in one place, of all the functions (controls and commands) used in V.5. Probably, the thing could not be "cast in stone" until the final release of V.5. But a start could be made. There are, I know, already on the forum in various posts, a lot of stuff to support this already. Let me know what you, and of course any other forum members think. John

Al, 1) what is Igors address to send him the project file! 2) I hadn't planned going to Cirencester, but, now I know some of the forum members will be there, I'll try to make it. I seem to remember I promised to stand you a real beer sometime! What day will you be there?, where are you putting up?, is Brian Jeffs the contact for booking? If you're in the UK for some time we would love to have you round for dinner. John

Ken, tried it without the music, still no go. Also, I made up a little test show in V.4 Preview worked perfectly normally there. Things get strangerer and strangerer! I'll send a show off to Igor and see if he can make anything of it. John

Ken, I've done that. Still no go. Do you think that removing PTE V5, and then reinstalling would help? It's a damn nuisance; at the moment I've had to resort to creating a temporary .exe so each time I want to review progress, I have to start at the beginning, and this show is already 17 minutes long! John

Halfway through a new slideshow I have lost the "Preview" and the "Preview from Existing Slide" functions. It is not something just related to this particular show. I created a short test slide sequence and get the same result. I've tried downloading V5 beta 5, again, but it did not correct the problem. Anyone an idea what might be going on? John