Peter S

I tried this myself and it works fine. I had added several new styles on my iMac. I selected Styles and used right click on the Category name and then selected Export Category. I saved it using the same Category name but added rev1 at the end. I opened PTE AV Studio on my MacBook opened Styles and selected Import Style. I had expected a completely new Category with the rev1 name to be created but PTE recognised that some of the Styles already existed. It gave me the opportunity to overwrite the existing ones or two Skip them and imported the new ones all into the Existing Category. If you have not tried this already it is certainly worth a go.

I recently saved a project as a Backup in Zip and copied to my laptop. When I came to unzip and run it I found that some slide styles were missing. I copied the ones I needed across but it was a bit of a struggle identifying them all. Is there anyway in which the slide styles, and themes, could be included in a Backup in Zip. Have I missed something in my process?

While trying to sort out my problems with Styles I noticed that, in The Styles and Themes window, you can right click on a "Category" and then select Export Category. Does this help?

I did notice that in Preferences/Templates I have the PTE-AV-Studio selected as my folder for custom slide styles and transitions but where are the standard ones that ship with PTE?

I am trying to create an AV covering 20 weeks worth of travels on a narrow boat. I am doing this on an iMac and using Version 11.0.2. After week 3 I thought I needed to do a lot of housekeeping. I had lots of images and music in different places so I sorted them into folders and identified and moved any "Missing Files". This all worked fine. I then decided to create a Back Up in ZIP for each week and this all looked OK. I copied the Back Up in Zip to my MacBook Pro and when I opened the file in PTE AV Studio on the MacBook it said there were missing files. I located the first file and PTE reported All missing files were found. I selected File Save and the Information panel showed Project has been saved but one or more files could not be found. Click "OK" to view error report. I click OK and see there are 6 missing files. These were all associated with Styles and I realised that I had not Imported the missing Styles onto my MacBook. I did this and it solved the issues apart from one Style that I had to amend. When I looked at my iMac I found a Folder under my Home Folder named PTE-AV-Studio and in this all my installed Slide Styles and Transitions. My memory failed me here. Did I create this Folder myself and copy the Styles and Transitions here as a "safety net" - possibly following advice from someone on the Forum - or did PTE create it for me? On my MacBook I find all my Styles, Themes and Transitions in my Library under Application Support/PTEAVStudio/Styles and Transitions. Application Support/PTEAVStudio on my iMac only contains ProjectsExtraData, Registration,Templates and Versions. I would appreciate any help[ in trying to understand this rather frustrating position that is probably of my own making. I am guessing that it is very similar on a PC with minor differences in the folder names. Peter

Thanks Dave, I had tried a search but failed to find anything. I should perhaps have thought to look through the Suggestions for next versions. I have now added my support to one of the earlier posts. Peter

I too would like to see an indicator to tell me when an image in the File List is being used in O&A. I frequently use 6 or more images in O&A. Having a separate indicator in addition to the Bold font for used images would be a real benefit. Peter

I know that a slide placed directly in the timeline becomes identified in the slide list. On my Mac it changes to blue text. I cannot however tell if a slide has been used in O and A as this does not seem to be highlighted in any way. Is there a way to achieve this please? Peter

Igor, Many thanks for such a quick resolution. 10.5.5 beta downloaded without any problems. The slide styles I have tested with commas in the name work perfectly. Thanks again Peter

I mention this just incase someone else hits the same problem. I had successfully exported several Styles and then found some that would not export whatever I tried. I found that the reason seemed to be a comma in the name so 6 image, rotate, text would not export. I removed the commas and all was well. If I save a Pages document my iMac is quite happy with commas in the file name so I wonder why the Style file will not accept them. Peter

Thanks indeed Dave. I didn't know that either and wondered why my sections weren't visible In O&A. Peter

Hu MUR It's interesting to see how small changes in the position of the centre change the motion. This is one of those slides that has taken me much longer than it probably should have done but I have learned a lot along the way. As this is only represents a few minutes in a 119 day journey I think it is time settled on what I have now arrived at. This is a much better result than I would have achieved without everyone else's input and many thanks for your contribution Peter

A bow thruster is certainly tempting but they can use a lot of electricity and are not problem free on canals with lots of rubbish in the water. I decided that it all looked a bit too easy as our narrow boat was 60 ft long and the passage under the bridge is only 50 ft wide. This meant I spent another hour rescaling the boat! Your technique still makes it look a lot easier than it sometimes is but I am very happy with the result. Paul also seems to have spotted the reason for the course correction. It made me look more closely and have another go at making minor adjustments. Thanks again for spending time on this and answering all my questions. Peter

Hi Tom, I have had another look at your key frames and I realised that the 5th one could be removed without seeming to change the result. That was the one I was most puzzled about as its centre has moved and I couldn't work out why. Did you include this one for a specific reason or was it just a part of your experimentation? Peter

Thanks Tom and Paul for looking into this. As Paul has already said your solution Tom is indeed simple and effective. The motion is nice and smooth and I see you didn't use any modifiers which is interesting. The timing seems fine. I am after all showing something that probably takes half an hour in 36 seconds! You are right Tom it is a very tight turn for a long boat. If the wind is against you it can be a nightmare. On a bad day some assistance from a rope on the bow may be needed. A narrowboat generally turns around its centre point but it may drift sideways. In PTE it does however clearly look better moving the centre. How did you decide where to place the centre which I notice is not consistently in one place? I am still puzzled as to how it moved in relation to the boat so I am obviously missing something. Although many of the fundamentals remain PTE has changed enormously while I have been waiting for the Mac version. I am so pleased that it has now arrived and works so well. Unfortunately there is a lot I have forgotten in the interim and there many new things to learn. Thanks to you both again for your help. I also learned that the best way for me to see your changes was to download my original uploaded zip into a new folder and copy your .pte versions into that same folder. Peter

I have been working on a show that is a record of a journey on the UK canals. There is a particularly tricky 340 degree turn at a place called Hawkesbury Junction. I wanted to show a narrow boat moving down the canal and making this turn. I experimented with various approaches and ended up putting the boat as a child in a Frame. The result is as shown in the attached Backup in zip. I thought that others, with much more experience than me, have probably tackled this problem before and wondered if anyone has a more elegant solution. I found that the more key frames I added the more jerky the movement seemed to be. I also thought that applying the Smooth modifier to most of the key frames would result in smoother motion but that did not seem to be the case. The movement doesn't look too bad but I suspect it could be improved if only I knew how! Another thought I had was to move the turning centre for the frame and/or the boat a long way from the image but I could not get a decent result from this. I must say I found this a very interesting learning experience even if it was rather time consuming. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Peter Moving boat_May4-2021_10-15-31.zip

Thanks for spotting that so quickly Paul. I thought I had checked all the modifiers but I obviously missed that one. I think after studying a particular animation for long enough I get either punch drunk, blind or brain dead. Peter

Thanks Paul, That wasn't too smart. Below is the zip backup. Test 03_Apr30-2021_17-18-21.zip

Sorry I didn't expect the Pte file to appear in the middle of the text! Need to watch mu cursor position more carefully. Peter

I have noticed another, unrelated, curiosity when experimenting further with the style I was struggling with and scaled key frames. I set up an animation where theTest 03.pte key frames are set up with exactly the same intervals for each image. The start positions, stationary positions and end points are also identical. When the animation is played the first and second objects almost touch when one replaces the other. In all other cases there is a much more noticeable separation. This is easily cured by increasing the x pan value for the end of the first image animation but surely that should not be necessary? I have made an mp4 version but it is 12MB so too big to upload here.

Hi Igor, I had to try this a couple of times before it worked but I finally managed to save a style using the scaled key frames and that does seem to work OK. It remains however something I am not keen to use as a default. Peter

Thanks everyone for looking into this. I understand Igor's recommendation I have to say I deliberately do NOT use scaling of key frames most of the time. Say I am building a sequence and decide I want to add another image to a particular slide. I use the slide options to increase the slide duration and then go to add my chosen image only to find that all my carefully timed key points have been moved. This is not what I want to happen. It looks as if I am going to have to chop and change as the situation demands which is workable but not ideal. Peter

I probably spent a couple of hours investigating this before asking Barry. I do not consider it time wasted as I learned a few things along the way. This does however bear out Barry's point. It certainly sidetracked me from the project I was working on. I was very grateful for Barry's clear explanation which enabled me to get back on track. I feel sure the Igor would like to know of any issues, no matter how small they might seem. I also noticed a little + sign after the first couple of key frames within the transition time. I would like to know what these indicate. Peter

Thanks Igor. I do indeed mean the Mac version. I was not paying sufficient attention! I had checked the pop up and mistook ⌦ for ⌫. As you say ⌦ does not exist on the smaller keyboard I was using. It is however possible to use Fn Cmd ⌫ on the small keyboard and I can confirm this works perfectly. Thanks for your help.

Hi Igor, Latest Release version. Today I found a problem using the Backspace key in O&A where Backspace would not remove images and Cmd Backspace did not delete Keypoints. The key works fine in other applications. Peter