volker
-
Posts
23 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by volker
-
-
Hello,
I sometimes have a German and an English version of a PictureToExe Project,
the only difference is that the text objects are either in German or in English. A
suggestion for a new feature of an upcoming version would be that one could
optionally add more languages to a project (default is one language and nothing
of the present function would change) and enter translations for texts, where no
translation is given, the first language's text is taken. When generating the exe,
one had to choose for which language to make the .exe (or pte could make per
default multipe files, eg. "<ProjectName>_lang1.exe", "<ProjectName>_lang2.exe"
etc.
This is a low priority suggestion, it's quite comfortable to make a copy of the
.pte project file and change the texts in that copy - only when changing animations
etc. later, it's a bit clumsy to do that in both versions...
Rgds, Volker
-
Hello,
I have all my PictureToExe projects on a 8GB USB flash drive as I like to have my pictures mobile on that nice little USB drive, I named the drive "PteUSB". As it seems to me, PictureToExe saves all path names with fixed drive letters (E:\PteProjects\....) in the project files. Now, as long as the USB drive is always the first drive I connect, it will always be mounted as drive E: and everything is fine. But if I had attached another USB stick, my USB CD-ROM etc. before my projects USB drive, it receives another drive letter (F: or G:). If Pte 5.5 had an optional checkbox "use drive name for projects" this would be very convenient, then the paths in the project files would be "PteUSB:\PteProjects\...." instead of "E:\PteProjects\....". It's not a high priority request, I can just eject the other ISB drives and the conect the projects USB drive and it will get E: again.
Regards,
Volker
-
Hello,
As my dad has got an old laptop, I use PicturesToExe 4.49 to create a "simple" version of a new show with simple effects. After creating the .exe from 4.49, I copy the project file, rename the copy to the new extension ".pte5" and I assigned Windows to open ".pte5" type files with the 5.1 version of PictureToExe (tipp: if you want to do that, too, rename pte.exe in its version 5 folder pte51.exe as Windows might not open the right .exe if you give to booth extensions the same .exe name, usually Windows will open both with the latest .exe associated).
Then I do a "polished" version with effects etc. in PictursToExe 5.1, it converts the 4.49 project copy to 5.1 and I have the framework of the show already there. Now, some of you may say, why doesn't he only create the show in 5.1 - as the version5 .exe will also run on any old laptop as it falls back to simple graphic display routines when old hardware is found and some of the fancier stuff will just not display (e.g. some of the animations). Well, you are right, Igor did a really reallly great job to make 5.1 exes also run on old laptops (with little RAM, poor graphics support etc) but I had several shows where the result on my dad's old laptoop looked very bad, some 5.1 features are being executed but they are so slow that it looks bad and I don't want to design animations by always having in mind how to design them that they look okay if some things are not done etc. also black screens one has to skip are not always nice. The way I described it is best for me, the "simple" version is basically pictures with simple fade effects some texts some music and that's it. It's also almost no additional work for me to do it that way, arranging basic pictures adding music - that's what I had to do anyway when I started in 5.1 directly.
So I have two project files of each show, a v4_<showname>.pte and a v5_showname.pte5 (and a v4_<showname>.exe and a v5_<showname>.exe) in my project folders, the .pte opens with 4.49. There is a little problem left: Pte5.1 opens the .pte5 file correctly (as I assigned .pte5 file extensions to it) but when I save the show, Pte5.1 renames the project to v5_<showname>.pte when saving - even though it was started with v5_<showname>.pte5. Of coures, when I double-click that project later, 4.49 will start with it and bring an error message (as 4.49 can not handle a 5.1 project file) so I always have to rename it back to .pte5 after an edit session in pte 5.1.
Suggestion: If pte5.5 could just remember the file extension it was called with (in my case .pte5) it would be great if it would keept that filename when saving. As pte found a legal project file, in my opinion, why not keep the filename including the extension, as the file was before... I described a bit why I would appreciate that little enhancement, if nobody else had a good reason why the renaming - as implemented now - is helpful, I would suggest this change for 5.5
Regards,
Volker
-
Hello, not a solution but an idea. Fill the last black slide with a black picture
and add another black slide. The black picture is to trigger an external
program (animation > on mouse click > run another program) now you
just need to google for a tool that decreases the volume of windows
slowly to zero thus fading the music which is still playing. However, I
don't know such a tool - just an idea...
-
Hello, I'm just a rookie with PTE and maybe I tend do a bit too much with
animation (it can be a good point - don't do it just because it can be
done) maybe I can add another aspect to the pan/zoom discussion.
*panorama pictures* - when showing them, pan/zoom can really make
sense. I usually show the full panorama at the beginning (showing a
small stripe in the middle, big black areas on bottom & top of the screen)
and pause for at least 5 seconds, then I move to the left-side of the
panorama while zooming it to full screen hight, then pausing again.
Then I slowly move to the right side of the panorama, pausing again
when the end is reached.
I do not dare to suggest an «interactive zoom mode» to Igor where an
"over-sized" picture is displayed cropped to the screen size and the
viewer can zoom in/out by pressing + or - keys and move the part
shown using the arrow keys :-) so the user could decide himself which
part to see and where to zoom until time is up and the next slide is
shown ;-) in my slide shows I decide as author of the show as described
above which pan/zoom is best for showing my panoramas... when there
is any motion in the panorama (a river, traffic on a street going in a
specific direction) I would generally recommend to follow that direction
...
Rgds, Volker
-
Hello, I also have Excel 2003 SP2 and it works well for me!
Volker
-
Hello,
I use a tiny tool called "NoSleep.exe" that allows to tweak around the Screensaver.
I used it under NT and now under Win XP, only when I give a presentation from
my laptop. There may be many other tools like it. It's practical as in many professional
environments the screensaver is bundeled with re-login via smartcard to
prevent unauthorized people use the PC when the logged-on user goes away for longer
and often you don't have the right to disable the Windows screen saver
for that (good) reason (security). But when you give a presentation and don't
press a key etc (e.g. answering a longer question) the screensaver disturbs
your presentation and the audience sees the re-logon dialogue. Not too professional.
The tool is here
http://www.geocities.com/helmi79/software/software.html
description is "NoSleep! (19 KB) allows you to temporarily deactivate the screen saver and any standby feature directly from the system tray. NoSleep! is minimal in size, yet provides remote control capabilities, a full (un)installation routine and - as a bonus feature - Swatch Internet Time."
I use an older version without internet time option and I don't know how the
tool actually works, maybe it simulates a short "SHIFT key pressed" or something
to Windows. That tool works nicely so I do not see an urgent need for that new
feature, however, maybe it would be an convenient option for future PTE versions
if you could tell a PTE project to "override" the screen saver while the show runs,
as a further feature possibly for <x> minutes so you could e.g. run a looping
presentation in the display of your shop for let's say 5 hours then allow the screen-
saver to dark the screen etc. Just an idea, I would say very low importance.
Volker
-
Hello, just another idea, sounds easy but maybe isn't,
I tested in v5 beta 11 adding animated .gif image would
it be possible without too much programming to display
the picture's inherent animation when showing it?
Rgds, Volker
(sorry for posting this in the wrong section at first, Ken,
maybe someone can delete my original post)
-
The space key works fine to pause sorry I reported an error
here which is not there. But assigning mouse buttons to "next
slide" / "previous slide" is not working yet (maybe beta 11?).
When in pause mode (either by pressing pause navigation button
or space) then klicking on "next slide button" or "previous button"
or "home button" puts that on a kind of internal stack, nothing is
done but when you release the pause key the last "stacked"
command is executed. I would rather suggest that "home", "next
slide" or "previous" slide automatically ends pause mode and
does what the user wanted right away.
-
Excellent work! I rebuilt the project I mentioned with the zooming and
then moving over a very large panorama picture with beta 10 and the
camera movement is much much smoother, I'm really impressed!
I found something little: The space key for pausing seems not to work.
I also assigned "previous slide" to the left mouse button, "next slide"
to the right mouse button - but it has no effekt. Maybe with mouse
control you only meant when using the "add navigation bar" stuff.
Volker
-
I'm think it's too large image.
18245 x 2415 image = 18245 x 2415 x 4 bytes per pixel = 176 MB in video memory.
Yes, thanks, that was the reason. My mistake was not to think in terms of video RAM, the file
size (6MB) looked totally harmless. Now I reduced the image to 16000x2000 (resulting in 125 MB
in video memory) and then it works. For older machines with 64MB video memory, this would be
still too much. At least one could still work with overlapping pieces of the whole picture (and no
effect between these pieces) and maybe a small pause.
Volker
-
Hello, I created a Show that contains only one picture. This picture (.jpg) is
6MB and has 18245 x 2415 pixels (New York City Skyline, Hudson in front,
a panorama combined from multiple photos using Photo Stitch software).
My Show has got two keypoints, first the whole picture is shown fullscreen,
then I zoom into it (2nd) and then I move the camera along the skyline (3rd).
It looks pefekt in the visual editor, when I move the little blue arrow I see
exaclty the hahaviour that I want. But both when pressing "Preview" or from
a generated .exe only a black screen is produced during the whole show.
Maybe it's just because of the sheer size of that one picture, on the other
hand the resulting .exe (also about 6MB) is not that big. Anyways, I just
wanted to report the issue here.
-
You present some interesting options here that I would be all in favour of if and when they could be designed into v.5. I suspect Igor has enough on his plate for now, but they would be worth pursuing once the current development is complete.
Absolutely, Al - I did by no means want to ask for any additional features that could delay V.5 - maybe a hard-coded "right mouse button = next slide, space bar = pause" (pause = wait for another space bar hit or right mouse button before going to the next slide) for the next beta 9 would not be too much work and help Nick for the moment..
Volker
-
Hello,
I don't have a solution here but maybe I can help to kick
brainstorming by giving my experience with Microsoft
Powerpoint with the manual slide control..
A feature for navigation that I sometimes use in MS
Powerpoint is typing a slide number and then pressing
enter. The key sequence "2", "9", "Enter" would jump
to slide number 29. Maybe this would be a nice feature for
a future PTE version. In powerpoint, as far as I know,
slides not shown yet would start with their first animations
while slides already shown would be presented in the
"final" state of the animation sequence. This seems
meaningful, when somebody in the audience asks
"could we just see again that slide where you showed..."
and the "end" state is what you expect when going back.
(A great trick would be if you could indicate if you want
the full animation or just the final state, eg when using
the numerical keypad the final state is navigated to,
when using the normal number keys the animation starts
over again).
When PTE slides are closely in sync with audio, it's maybe
difficult to define the appropriate behaviour what audio
should do when such "jumps" are made. (Maybe, if the
jump leaps over the end of a playing song, the music
could fade out and the new song could fade in. Maybe
jumping should not influence presently playing music
at all)
Such a "got to slide x" navigation could correspond
exactly to how PTE behaves with interactive buttons
that contain a "go to slide X" instruction.
If such a navigation would be solved in general, the behaviour
of "next slide" / "previous slide" is merely calculating which
is the next or the previous slide and executing this as a
regular (but just small) "jump".
Volker
-
That would be great - even not displaying the "allow keyboard"
control (but "as a default" making at least Page Up/Page Down
work for flipping forth and back) and I could also make my next
presentation with the beta instead of using 4.48... impressing a
few people (which, of course, are all potential buyers
) -
Hi Volker,
As the Dom said, this feature only appears on version 5 which is now in late beta but available for you to use. Download the beta from the forum you are in on the second link from the very top.In the beta of version 5 you will find this feature as well as the ability to zoom, pan, rotate, adjust opacity, use multiple layers, etc.
Best regards,
Lin
Hello thedom,
hello Lin,
many thanks for your replies. Yes, I found it in the
beta 8 and I'm impressed by these new functions!
Just the text comments seem not to work any more,
I did not find that issue risen yet in the forum. Maybe
it's a bit complicated as - ideally - the text would sit
right on the screen while the zoom would be going on
behind it. But it would be fine not to have text comments
when there is any kind of "motion" animation (or to have
the text inserted after the last movement). Maybe in the
next beta the text functions are back again (at least for
"still" images).
Regards,
Volker
-
Hi Volker,
In the Objects and Animations screen under the Properties Tab check the "Perspective Correction for Zoom" box. This doesn't control the degree of zoom, you do that visually when you create the amount and direction of zoom with keypoints and numbers but it does simulate the camera zoom perspective you are looking for.
Best regards,
Lin
Hello Lin,
Sorry I don't find that check-box. I use PicturesToExe 4.48, searching PicturesToExe
Help using Search function does not find anything on "Perspective Correction" so this
must be well hidden... ist it to be found in the Object Editor or somewhere in the
Customize Slide window?
-
Hello,
would it be possible to have an effect that
makes a soft-scroll from one area of a
picture to another area? Let's say a high
resolution picture, and the effect is given
two rectangular boxes, a "start-box" and an
"end-box". When the presentation starts,
first both boxes will be trimmed (hight or
width decreased, if needed) to the present
aspect ratio of the screen PictureToExe is
given. Then, when presenting, a softly
accellerated scrolling from the "start-box"
into the "end-box" is made, scaling the visible
area if necessary. The "start-box" could be
any area or let's say the whole picture, the
"end-box" e.g. any detail within the picture
and then the effect would produce a "camera
movement" zooming into the detail. Optionally
a check-box "stop when any box is smaller than
screen-resolution" so eg zooming to details
would stop when the screen resolution is
reached (to avoid blowing up pixels).
Just an idea.
Rgds, Volker
-
Hello,
there are solutions to make slide-shows for PocketPCs
described ("Slide-shows as video on PocketPC", "Pocket PC")
- but these are a bit work-arounds (creating movies)...
As newer PocketPC models support VGA (640x480) it would
be a nice feature if generating .exes that run directly on
PocketPC would be possible (so the player selects the best
resolution). Then, the pictures could be in 640x480 within the
.exe, the player would scale them to lower resolution (some
Windows Mobile 2005 devices use 240x240, theoretically
480x480 would be an "allowed" resolution, though there
presently seems to be no device on the market using that) if
needed... that should save space on the PocketPCs as .jpgs
are smaller than generated videos... If other people like
the idea, it could become a suggestion for a new feature
(for future versions of PicturesToExe)....
-
Hello,
Great program! Though most firewalls / mailers / anti-spam solitions
don't like .exe files to be sent electronically. Even when we trick
these (sometime zipping works, sometimes renaming the file to .doc
and asking the recipient to name it back later), still some people do
not feel well running .exe files. An export to a Macromedia flash file
format would be helpful. Many people - and even most companies - have
a flash player installed, especially since Web pages use flash more and
more, some browsers natively support to show (web-based and also stand-
alone) flash.
Regards,
Volker
Display waveforms for all soundfiles
in Suggestions for Next Versions
Posted
I would appreciate such a feature, too. In timeline mode, the waveform-button only works when there is sound assigned to the overall show. It would be great if it was active when there is no sound assigned to the overall show - but to any picture and when clicking that waveform button, the waveforms starting at the individual pictures are displayed. This would help all who need to work with precise timing to picture. I think the case where music is assigned to the overall show and to individual pictures as well would needs not to be perfectly handled in a next version, for a first improvement it would be sufficient to only display the music assigned to the overall show.
Volker