Lin Evans

Update: I've installed beta 10 on another of my systems and the separate/glue feature works normally on the second system. There is a problem with my video driver or sound card (i'm working with Igor on this) which is making some strange things happen on video animation only with Beta 10. It works fine if I disable my audio card. I'm going to disable the card and see it that corrects the problem on my development computer with Beta 10 and the separate/glue feature. After working with it for a few minutes I see that in any animation where any amount of zoom and pan are "both" included it's necessary to independently separate the keypoints for "each" feature (pan, zoom and rotate if there is any). This is powerful but not simple to do - actually it would be MUCH quicker for this particular animation to simply match the end keypoint on one slide to the beginning keypoint on the next slide with a checkbox. It would not be a "powerful," but it would be much easier and faster. It also would allow the slideshow producer to easily know which linear or non-linear feature they had used without actually clicking on "setup" and observing the wave histogram. This is necessary not only in one place, but for each of pan, zoom and rotate. I'm sure this particular feature (separate/glue) is going to be one which will cause lots of discussion in the future. I'm thinking that the default should be to have each keypoint immediately separated rather than glued as they are now when any non-linear function is selected. This way one could simply choose the desired non-linear feature and use the program exactly as they do with linear zoom "unless" they want to mix non-linear features on a single slide. It seems to me that the majority will simply choose something like "smooth" for most purposes and will rarely mix and match. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dom, The effect works just like mine, but the bottom line is I can't create it with a single slide and my copy of beta 10. I can only tell which non-linear effects you have placed on keypoints by analyzing the slope of the curve or not. The captions all say "custom" so if there were mixed smooth, decellerate, accelerate and pauses there would be no way to quickly tell which had been used at any keypoint without opening the settings on each keypoint and then only by analyzing the curve depicted at a given "bracketed" area. I suspect my copy of version 10 isn't working correctly on my development computer because no matter how I set the cut points, the program ignors all keypoints between one and end and just makes a single smooth animation which begins with the start keypoint status and ends with settings placed on the final end keypoint. This explains why I've not been able to understand what's going on with this setup portion of the program. For whatever reason, it's simply not working on my system. I have had some video driver issues which I've discussed with Igor. The video works perfectly on Beta 9 but with beta 10 has been very irregular so I guess I'll have to wait for beta 11 to see where to proceed. Thanks for the demo. I does show that it's working for most - just not on my system. I'll have to try it on another computer. Best regards, Lin

Hi David, Here's a sample of what I want to do. This one done with a slide copied on the slide list three time and each with "smooth" non-linear. I guess I'm dense today, but I can't seem to achieve this with a single slide using the cut/glue feature, Anyone who shows me how to do it will be greatly appreciated. I understand the basic principle of animation between keypoints, I just can't get a combination of snip and glue (or just snip in this case) to do the job. thanks, Lin http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/shark.zip

Hi Dom, I think I'm missing something about the way that's supposed to work. I'll have to play with it some more and see if I can duplicate the effect I'm looking for made with multiple slides. Thanks, Lin

Hi David, Thanks, hope the PVD doesn't last too long - mine is up and down but much better than before. You may be right about the break point - I'm still doping it out - it's not too intuitive for me to see exactly the relationships with break and glue and how this breaks down for an individual keypoint. Best regards, Lin

The non-linear zoom is really fantastic with lots of great versatility, but one issue has come to mind which could be solved in future versions of PTE beyond 5.0. When using non-linear animation for PZR, only the first and last keypoints are meaningful without using the rather complex separate function. Consider the following scenario: The user wants to first zoom in on a portion of a subject, pause, then pan across the subject, then zoom back out and again pause. With linear zoom this is a piece of cake. Just set a keypoint, drag the bounding rectangle to the desired end of zoom point, clone the keypoint and drag to the end of pause, set another keypoint and again drag the image to the point of next pause, clone the keypoint and slide to desired location, set another keypoint and size the rectangle once again to get the zoom out. Can be all done quicker than the explanation. Modifying the below a bit from the original: But what if you want the exact scenario with "soft" non-linear landings? To do this without clicking multiple times to separate keypoints from their default groupings one must insert the same slide into the slide list three times. On the first slide set customize feature to "quick, no transition," then set ending keypoint for the zoom in and drag the rectangle to the desired zoom, next go to the next slide and insert the identical pan, zoom, rotate numbers found at the end of the zoom on the first slide, next set the custom feature for this second slide to "quick, no transition, then set the keypoint where you want the pan to end, then go to slide three and set custom again to "quick, no transition" and again match the identical PZR numbers for the start of slide three to the last keypoint of slide two, set the next keypoint to the time where zoom out ends and drag the image to the desired zoom. Not so easy but primarily because you have to copy and paste the pan, zoom, rotate numbers for the begining of slides two and three. So, the feature: Have a check box which simply automates the process of "match" previous or "match" next slide. When checked, this would automatically insert the PZR values from the previous ending keypoint into the present slide and thus save a tremendous amout of time allowing much easier use of the non-linear PZR effects when doing more than a single animation in a single slide. This is not to take away from the very powerful feature of separate and glue, but sometimes it's infinitely quicker to obtain the result one is looking for by copy paste slides and duplicating the relevant numbers from end of slide "A" to begin slide "B", etc. I find it obtuse to have to click on each of PZR and look at a waveform to determine which non-linear function was used between specific keypoints. All the caption tells me is "custom" and not which linear effect was used. I must look at each and remember which graph represents which non-linear effect which rather negates having a separate category for each non-linear function. Best regards, Lin

The non-linear zoom is really fantastic with lots of great versatility, but one issue has come to mind which could be solved in future versions of PTE beyond 5.0. When using non-linear animation for PZR, only the first and last keypoints are meaningful. Consider the following scenario: The user wants to first zoom in on a portion of a subject, pause, then pan across the subject, then zoom back out and again pause. With linear zoom this is a piece of cake. Just set a keypoint, drag the bounding rectangle to the desired end of zoom point, clone the keypoint and drag to the end of pause, set another keypoint and again drag the image to the point of next pause, clone the keypoint and slide to desired location, set another keypoint and size the rectangle once again to get the zoom out. Can be all done quicker than the explanation. But what if you want the exact scenario with "soft" non-linear landings? To do this one must insert the same slide into the slide list three times. On the first slide set customize feature to "quick, no transition," then set ending keypoint for the zoom in and drag the rectangle to the desired zoom, next go to the next slide and insert the identical pan, zoom, rotate numbers found at the end of the zoom on the first slide, next set the custom feature for this second slide to "quick, no transition, then set the keypoint where you want the pan to end, then go to slide three and set custom again to "quick, no transition" and again match the identical PZR numbers for the start of slide three to the last keypoint of slide two, set the next keypoint to the time where zoom out ends and drag the image to the desired zoom. Not so easy but primarily because you have to copy and paste the pan, zoom, rotate numbers for the begining of slides two and three. So, the feature: Have a check box which simply automates the process of "match" previous or "match" next slide. When checked, this would automatically insert the PZR values from the previous ending keypoint into the present slide and thus save a tremendous amout of time allowing much easier use of the non-linear PZR effects when doing more than a single animation in a single slide. Best regards, Lin

Right, that's what I'm referring to (objects). If you look at my Navigation Bar sample, I use an invisible "button" object on each slide to call the last slide via mouse click which has multiple "button" objects each dedicated to calling a particular slide. The last slide is a "menu" slide. The sample covers not only the Navigation Bar, but using the objects (buttons) to go to particular slides.To get the button or other object to jump to slide one, you need to enter the value zero, for slide 2 enter 1, etc. The button calls seem to work in beta 10 for me with the provision for jumping to a particular slide that you call slide minus one.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Al, The problem is that the program understands the starting point for slides as zero. So slilde 1 is actually slide zero, slide two is #1, slide 3 is #2, etc. If you look at the sample use of menu on my link and check the PTE file you will find that for slide 1 I call zero, slide 2 #1, etc. So the internal count for slides begins at zero rather than one. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, The Navigation bar is working fine now with beta 10. I have posted a demo to show one way it can be used as well as a way to create a "menu" to "jump" to any slide from any slide. There is both a zipped executable demo and a PTE with explanation on this link: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6512 Lin

Hi Glenys, I thought about your use model, then created another demo with a menu which can be easily called from any slide to allow you to reach any slide you wish. It's a rather simple solution but may be one which would fit your own purpose. Here's a link to the PTE and to the zipped executable. It will look exactly as the one you downloaded, but if you click anywhere in the upper one third of any image a menu will appear allowing you to choose the slide to "jump" to. http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/navbardemo.zip http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/navbar2.zip Lin

Go here and download my demo and PTE file to see how to do this. You don't need the navigation bar even though I have included it for others to see. http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6512 Lin

The question has come up and some discussion about how to not only use the Navigation Bar, but how to create or use a Menu to allow jumping to any particular slide. I have prepared a very simply slideshow with five basic slides, four pictures and a menu. I have use the Navigation bar and made it "invisible" on startup. If you move the mouse just a tiny bit the Navigation bar will appear. You can press forward, backward, home, pause, print or exit to perform normal functions of moving about through your slideshow. I set the time to 20 seconds for each of the main image slides. In addition, I prepared a "menu" slide consisting of four buttons.The buttons are named slide 1 through slide 4. Please note that when you create your own, when you assign a slide number for the button to represent, the "actual" number will be one less than the slide. Internally, the program sees slide one as slide zero, slide 2 as #1, etc. So to "jump" to slide 1 you assign the number zero to that button. To jump to slide 400 you would assign the number 399, etc. The slide menu is brought up by simply clicking the left mouse button anywhere in the upper 1/3 of the image on the screen. This was accomplished by creating very large buttons and making them "invisible" by simply using zero as the opacity. Each slide has an invisible large button which calls the slide men named, appropriately "menu". So when you click in the upper 1/3 of the image you are actually actuating a button calling "men". When the menu appears you can click any of the four buttons to immediately "jump" to that slide. Two links below. The first to the zipped PTE so you can see how this is done and the second to the zipped executable in case you just want to try it out without loading the PTE file. This was not intended as an aesthetic slideshow, simply a demo of how to achieve this result so the music wasn't designed to fade out with the last slide, etc. Lin http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/navbar2.zip http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/navbardemo.zip

Hi Glenys, I just did it as a quick sample. You could set the individual slide times to any value, even to a length of 10 minutes or so then simply advance as you wish. You could, if you wanted do your animations within the first few seconds then just leave the remainder of the time on a suitable still version of each slide. This would make the show essentially as a totally manual slideshow. Of course this wouldn't be very aesthetically pleasing for any type of music synchronization, but would work well for a demonstration or educational type show. This would, however mean that you would automatically advance the slides with the forward control. It is also possible to include a menu consisting of "buttons" with the ability to jump to any particular slide by assigning that slide to an individual button. That could be accomplished by creating one slide called "menu" then having that slide called by a single button which could be visable or invisible depending on how you set the opacity. When this "menu" slide appears, it would consist of one button for each slide with simple numbers on the buttons. Want slide 22? just press button 22 and the show would "jump" to slide 22, etc. Obviously this approach would work better for slide shows which didn't have huge numbers of slides. Best regards, Lin

Hi Glenys, Please download my PTE file from the following link. This demonstrates a couple of the features of the navigation bar. The Navigation Bar will initially be invisible but if you move the mouse you will see it appear at the bottom of the screen. Press the forward arrow to move forward a slide, the back arrow to move backward, the pause to pause and the home to go to the first slide. The print button will allow you to print and the X button will exit the slideshow. Test this on the "Preview" function of PTE beta 10. I'm not seeing any problems with this. http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/navbar.zip Best regards, Lni

Hi Ron, Look under "common tab" Actions on Mouse Click. Choose from the drop list while button is highlighted in the objects list and that action will be associated with the button. Best regards, Lin

Hi Steve, This takes a little explanation, so bear with me. First, remember than zoom doesn't happen in a vacuum - in other words zoom and pan are nearly always related so when you set smooth on zoom, also set pan and probably rotate (if there is any rotation involved) also to smooth or there will be unintended consequences. A little more on the relationship between zoom and pan. If you zoom then watch the numbers in Pan, especially if you do it with the mouse by dragging the rectangle you will nearly always also change pan so remember that if you set one, set the others to the same and things will generally work out better. Now let's think about what is actually happening when we change from "linear" to smooth, accellerate, decellerate or custom. We are changing the actual "time" when things are happening. The only constant is the start and ending keypoints. Everything in the middle changes so that what you were "expecting" at a particular "keypoint" in terms of the degree of zoom or position of pan is happening at some other time or some other place. If what you are looking for is the "softer" take-off and "landing" then you "may" not actually need to use "smooth" to get it. It looks to me as if Igor has corrected the rather abrupt start and stop without having to change the linearity of the zoom or pan, but experiment just to be sure. This new linearity will take some getting used to. It's not a simple thing to wrap one's head around, but by setting both pan and zoom to the same linearity you will have much better luck approximating what you are trying to achieve. Try it with straight linear first and see what happens... The bottom line is that to get the effects you want with non-linear zoom (as if you were using linear zoom but with the non-linear start/stop), you will have to use the same slide multiple times in the slide list. You notice that on other than "linear" only the first and last keypoint allow changing the figures. In other words everything is "greyed" out on other than the first and last keypoints. So as it is now, only the first and last keypoints mean anything in any of the "non-linear" segments. So to get the effect you are looking for do the first zoom on slide one, then change the effect (zoom, pan, etc.) on slide 2 the third on slide 3, etc. Use "quick" no transition for each and you will get the effect you are looking for. What would be nice is if Igor could set a "match next slide" feature so that slide two automatically inherits the "numbers" for the end keypoint of slide one, slide three the ending numbers of the last keypoint for slide two, etc. This way you wouldn't have to manually match the numbers to keep a true "non-transition" from slide to slide and still be able to make it "look" like it was all done on one slide. Lin Best regards, Lin

I thought you said you didn't want to see a navigation bar and now you're asking about your own "menu"? You can make your own menus with PTE 5 just as you could with PTE 4.48. Why do you have to "time" hittng the spacebar? You can hit the spacebar any time you please. If you feel you have to "wait" until an animation is finished the don't use an animation. I'm really confused about exactly what it is that you want. I have "Pinnacle Ultimate". Now I'm even more confused. Pinnacle is much less "money"???? Where can I buy Pinnacle for $24? I paid $129 for mine. You're right, Version 5 is not ready. This is Beta 10. But I fail to see what it is that you want in a presentation slideshow program. If you own an ealier version of PTE you can have 5.0 free. Can you buy Pinnacle for nothing? LOL. You still have 4.48 - what is it that you want to do that you can't do with 4.48. You don't like "movies" then why not just use 4.48? You do like movies, then use Pinnacle or something else. PTE doesn't create "movies" it creates animated stills. You can pan, zoom, rotate, scroll, change opacity on any layers on any objects simultaneously, rotate off center, adjust XY axis an through paren/child/grandchild relationships you can manipulate the Z axis. You can synchronize music, do voice over, use some fantastic built-in transitions or create your own transitions via the huge complement of flexible features. You can create your own menus, run executable code from within a show and return seamlessly to your slideshow. You have unlimited keyframes, unlimited layers, the ability to author DVD's and burn to disk. You can create your own buttons, animate them, hide them, make them invisible, go forward, backward, jump to slides, etc., etc, etc. In short you have phenomenal powers to unleash your creativity at making professional presentations. Frankly I get the feeling that you have spent little time with the betas and are trying to "digest" too much in too short a period. This program is extremely powerful. It can do things that no other current presentation slideshow software can do, even in the Beta form. I have and use nearly every leading presentation software available including Vegas Video (complete) which cost me over $1200.00. Nothing else in my experience comes remotely close to what this program can do. Bottom line, we will just have to agree to disagree. You have everything you had in 4.48 because you still have 4.48. You have everything added in 5.0 to this point with beta 10 and for no additional cost. Give it a little time and learn to use it - Rome wasn't built in a day and you won't understand PTE 5.0 unless you spend some time with it. Best regards, Lin

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. data2@lpbroadband.net Lin