Lin Evans

Hi Bob, Open PTE and load your pte slideshow file then from the main screen (not the Objects and Animation screen but the one with the slide list) left click on "File" (at the top of your screen on the left) then follow the drop down menu down and left click on "create backup in zip". You can change the name of the zip file if you want to something shorter. This feature will zip up the PTE file and all the relevant data including the photos into a single zip file. Attach the zip file to an email. When the recipient receives the email they simply unzip it, open PTE and load the file and they essentially have the identical thing you see on your screen. This feature is similar to the old "template" but is great because you have all necessary files in one zip archive for any particular show. You can save the zip files in a folder then anytime in the future you don't have to worry that you have moved files or deleted images, etc., you simply open the zip file and everything you need is there to modify your slideshow or make a DVD from it, etc. Best regards, Lin

You don't have to have the Navigation Bar at all to control the slideshow. You can use the right arrow key on the keyboard to go forward one slide, the left arrow on the keyboard to go back one slide the spacebar or pause key to pause. Actually, you can do everything without displaying the Navigation bar so not so "rinky dink" I think. It's just "different" in the way you approach it than 4.48 but not different in functionality. You didn't have animations in 4.48 so the slide could stay on indefinitely until you advance to the next slide. With 5.0 you use it, one would think to have pan, zoom, rotate, etc. So the point is that there would always be some "time" associated with any animations. You could easily control the show with the keyboard via the spacebar or pause key, the right and left arrow key, etc., so the functionality is essentially identical to 4.48, just the way of approaching it is different. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bill, It's probably your email program corrupting the text file. Mine did it too. It's about 5.46 am on 4/27 in Russia right now so I suspect Igor will be up in a few hours and will send out new keys to those who have had corrupted files. Usually they send it zipped the second time around. Best regards, Lin

Project Options, Advanced, Show Navigation Bar. You can set the navigation bar to be always present, to disappear after some interval (you pick), you can customize its look, decide its position, etc. If you just want a "simple" slideshow with no pan, zoom, scroll, rotate, etc., use 4.48. If you want to include the animations then use 5.0. The navigation bar lets you jump to first image at any time (home) go forward, backward, pause, etc. The program will also sync the sound so that you can have individual sound comments for each slide or background music or both. If playing the show manually the program will put the proper sound in the timeline with each slide as you advance, go backward, pause, etc. In essence, you have the best of both worlds. Everything you did before you can still do by using 4.48. If you want all the bells and whistle use 5.0. So if you want to stay on a slide for an extended period just click on pause, etc. Lin

The advanced hour hand transitions are the same for customize slide as in project options, they are just arranged differently. Instead of having all 16 of them on the customize slide menu there is a "check box" for "counterclockwise". You select the basic transition, then set the checkbox if you want it to be counterclockwise instead of choosing the particular transition counterclockwise or clockwise. The offset isn't individually adjustable per slide but set in the Projects Options. Other than not being able to set different offsets for individual slides these are functionally the same as far as I can see. Lin

Hi Andreas, I think you couldn't do that because of the non-linearity. If you notice, set both pan and zoom to smooth then you can't adjust size of object on intermediate keypoints so better to set to linear, adjust keypoints then set both to smooth. Sizes at keypoints won't be the same as with linear because timings are different except at starting keypoint and ending keypoint. Lin

Bob, If you can use the "zip" feature to zip up your PTE file, email it to me and i'll have a look. [email protected] Lin

Hi Jeff, Just click on the Video tab as if you were going to burn a video from beta 10 and you will find a link. Lin

Great News Dom! Best regards, Lin

Hi Bob, It could be that you have two keypoints very close together. Use the small arrows < > located to the far right on the far right to step through keypoints in the direction the arrows point. The quick solution would be to just delete the first keypoint by right clicking on it and choosing delete. Then you can again right click and "add" keypoint then set the timeing to zero in the keypoint block. On the next version I think if there are two identical keypoint there will be a color change from blue to red or something to warn you but in the present version they only way you know there are duplicates is to actually use the arrow keys. When you press the left arrow and nothing else happens then you know you have reached the first (or last) keypoint. If the numbers don't change to zero then the only solution would be to delete the first keypoint and re-create it as described above. Actually there should not be a difference in the numbers as on your example. Even if they are extremely close together the keypoint in blue shoudn't display a different value than the one in the block in numbers - something may be wrong but I can't for the life of me figure out exactly what it is. The way the keypoints work is that the very first keypoint on each slide registeres zero as the starting point for that slide but it's possible to "drag" a keypoint forward from zero and on other than slide one backward so that effects for that slide begin as animations for the previous slide end. In other words slides can overlap which is commonly used to blend actions from one to the other. Subsequent keypoints on slides (after the first or zero keypoint) indicate real time. If you have say the default of four seconds and the second slide has keypoint two one second from the start its time would be 5000 or five seconds. There may not really be any problems with your show. The important thing is whether or not it performs as you wish. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, The navigation bar will be enabled in beta 10 which should be out any day now. It is not enabled in beta 9u or previous betas. Betas proceed and new features are slowly added to facilitate debugging. Version 5 release is tentatively slated for about one month from now with "all" the features enabled. If you read the forum regularly Igor announces the features which will be available in each beta release. Here is a link to the latest statement: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6485 Lin

Hi Bob, That's really strange. Changing the value in the box absolutely "should" set the corresponding value in the first keypoint. Of course the "only" place you will ever see zero in the first keypoint is on slide one of all slides since the keypoints are carried in a cumulative fashion as the timeline represents the entire slideshow rather than on a "per-slide" basis. Could you make a screen capture and post it so we are sure we are on the same page? Just use Irfanview or similar screen capture for a jpg of the timeline and maybe we can sort this out. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bob, Just go to the keypoint time block under the Objects and Animations screen in Animations block and enter a zero. You can always enter values to "fine tune" what you approximate by moving the slider with the small green arrow. The values are in thousands of seconds so the 1000 equals one second, 2000 equals two seconds, etc. Lin

Hi Ron, It was more of a serendipitous discovery than a "fix". We know why disabling the sound card "fixed" the issue with the smoothness of movement, but what is still to be understood is why the problem didn't return when the card was re-enabled. As much as is presently known about electronics and signal interactions, there is still much to be discovered. There are so many different combinations of drivers, sound cards, video cards, etc., out there that it constantly amazes me that anything works as expected. We indeed owe a great debt of gratitude to Igor and the team for the fantastic job they have done in bringing us this fantastic software which is even more amazing when one looks at the myriad obstacles there are to successful results. Best regards, Lin

Problem solved on my system per Igor's suggestion to disable my sound card. After disabling my Sound Blaster Audigy card, the problem with the jerky pan went away. I was expecting to see it re-appear when I again enabled the sound card, but it didn't! Everything works now as smoothly as before. Igor is running more tests now and will have more information later. Lin

I suspect this is related to some changes which have been made since version 8v. I have multiple systems and my development system is the most powerful having an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AGP card. It has been glass smooth with all versions until beta 9 but has severe issues with jerky pan in version 9a. Also I've discovered that shows created with 9a give me a "picture not found" error when I try to open in earlier versions such as 8v. With my other systems I'm not getting this jerky movement but it's there and very plain to see with 9a. Best regards, Lin

Between 8u and 9 I've noticed a "pulsing" of horizontal movement. Take a single image and set the size to about 25 percent of original so there is plenty of black surrounding the image. Set the custom time to about 10 seconds. Start with the image completele off the screen to the left and set a single keypoint at about the 10 second point and drag the image off the screen on the right. Run the preview and see if the horizontal movement "pulses" or jerks at about 1 second intervals. It doesn't do this in 8u for me, the movement is very smooth, but it does do this in 9 and 9a. Note: I've discovered that this problem seems to be limited to my development system which uses an ATI 9800 Radeon Pro AGP graphics card. Something between 8v and 9a has changed because this card has been glass smooth with all movement until now. Problem is now solved. Igor had me disable my SoundBlaster Audigy sound card to test and with the card disabled through the control panel, system, hardware, device manager, sound-video and game controller, the problem went away. I was fully expecting it to return when I re-enabled the sound card but it did not return and everything works perfectly now with butter smooth pans, zooms and so on - fantastic. Igor is doing further tests now with log files from my system... Lin

Hi Andrew, If I understand you correctly, I don't believe there is. You can copy and paste complete segments from one show to another, as Hawk explained long ago, but you can't copy only the properties and insert a corresponding keypoint with actions without the associated image. So as far as I know this can't presently be done. Lin

Hi Jean, You may want to wait for beta 10 which will be out shortly. Lin

Actually, it's not a linitation of the program at all, it's a limitation of the font features of the computer. Each computer is shipped with so many default fonts. When yu go from operating system to operating system or when you add software containing fonts this number or quantiy and type of fonts changes. Because of this it's not possible to be certain that the font you choose will be available on another computer. When you suspect this may become an issue, the best way is to convert the font to a graphic file via the rasterize to PNG function. By doing this then choosing the PNG file you assure that the font you have chosen will appear exactly as you intend even if no such font exists on the computer it's being played on. Fonts have always been a problem for not only slideshows but for other programs using text. Computers are designed so that when a particular font isn't found, the operating system will substitute a different font. Fortunately, PTE has a nice way around that limitation via the rasterize to PNG feature. If you want to avoid this, it's best to stay with very "common" fonts such as Times Roman, Arial, etc. Lin

Thanks!! Incredible! On schedule and progressing very, very well! Again, congratulations and all are looking forward to upgrading. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mayy, The quickest way I know to get rid of any animation is simply delete the keypoints. Since everything in the way of animation happens between keypoints, deleting kepoints on the timeline for the individual object leaves you with the starting condition of the object. Lin

Hi Granot, Click "Tools" then "Device" then . Uncheck the Microphone and check Wave/MP3. Also check whether Advanced properties are turned on by clicking on "Options". There you will also find another checklist. It works very well from sound card capture. I don't think you need anything else. Best regards, Lin

Hi Granot, Just like there are video capture tools, there are audio capture tools which capture sound from the sound card (rather than record directly from speaker output). Here's one I use which works well and is inexpensive: http://www.mp3-recorder.biz/ Best regards, Lin