Johannvdwalt

Ken, For the record, I tested your suggestion and it also works, so both the "relative folder" and "current folder" syntax works. Thanks Johann

It Works! The relative path suggestion works. Two things I did wrong: I did not have the quotes arround the pdf name and my last test I did from the PTE designer, which is obviously looking for a relative folder of the PTE executable path (c:\program files\....). I was busy experimenting with a batch file, and when I added the relative path for the batch file, and put quotes around the name, and then createded the executable slideshow it worked. I then did the same with the PDF files, and they also worked. I can now move the executable slide show together with the subfolders to another drive and even another deeper folder structure and it still works, as long as I use the syntax "documents\MyPDF.PDF"! Thanks for everybody's help on this. Much appreciated Johann

Thanks for the quick responses. I was away from my computer for 2 days, so I only testing the suggestions this morning. The first possible issue is now resolved. It works without specifying the acroread32. I was specifically worried about this as some people uses 64bit machines and then this will not work, and you all are right that there are always people out there who will use another pdf reader. By just specifying the pdf name works. Windows knows which executable is associated with the PDF extension and loads the file correctly. But the path issue is not working correctly yet. Let me explain what I have tried up to now. 1. I browse to the file from the action of a button. This put the whole path in. I created the executable slideshow and run it. It works. If I then move the executable slide show and the PDF file to another drive and delete it on the original location, it does not work any more. The path stays hardcoded. 2. I change the path to be relative. Example "documents/trainingdoc.pdf" or "documents\trainingdoc.pdf". Does not work at all. Not in the original position or when moved. 3. Move the PDF to the root and change the path to "\trainingdoc.pdf". Works. Moved the executable and pdf to another drive (pdf in the root of the other drive), it still works. So, seems like no 3 is the only way to do this (quite frustrating). The consequences: as long as the person keeps accessing it from the CD, it will work, but they will not be able to copy it to their harddrive, unless they put all the PDFs (about 20) in the root of their harddrive. Windows Vista is likely not to allow this, and most people will not like to put these files in their root folder in any case. I tried playing with a batch file, but its a catch 22. Unless I put the batch file in the root, it still does not work, and putting the batch file in the root, is defeating the object. Is there really no way to specify the path of the executable from the shell command as an environment variable. As a programmer myself it seems so logic!

I found one previous thread in this regards, but it did not help me with my problem. I have a slide show (turorial) that has several PDF documents associated with the tutorial. I want to have buttons that will automatically open the PDF document. What I've tried is to call and external program like this: "Acroread32 supportingdocs/detail1.pdf". "acroread32" is the acrobat reader. (lets not digress by talking about the fact that certain people may not have acrobat installed). "supportingdocs" is a sub folder under my PTE project. I use the normal syntax for specifying a relative folder. When I click on the menu option, acrobat reader is started but it cannot find the file specified. It tries to find it relative to acroread32.exe. I dont think I can make use of a full path as I want to burn the slideshow as well as the supporting documents to a CD and I obviously do not know what the user's CD drive letter will be. How do I overcome a problem like this? What I hope to find in response is that somebody (maybe the developers) will tell me to use the following environment variable which will contain the path to the executable PTE slideshow, and that I can therefore use that to specify the place for my supporting docs. Something like this: Acroread32 "%PTE_BASE_PATH%/supportingdocs/detail1.pdf" This will obviously solve the problem as %PTE_BASE_PATH% will then be expanded to whatever the drive letter and folder name is where my slideshow exists! Thanks in advance Johann van der Walt

Just want to say, that I am very impressed with the smoothness on my Laptop. Pentium Celeron 1.8ghz with 1 GB ram and a build in Intel Extreme Graphics 2 card with share memory (64 mb). On PTESHow, only a bit bumpy when the two other photos with the white frames are coming in, otherwise amasingly smooth! Great job, looking forware to the beta. Johann van der Walt