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Hi Ray, It worked OK on my Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1 system under Firefox 15 driving my low-spec nVideo GeForce 210 graphics card. regards, Peter

In your situation, where you have a very long duration represented in the O&A timeline, you need to use the "Key frame time" box in the Animation tab to set your time intervals. For text and other visual effects you do not normally need an accuarcy better then, say, a quarter second. Whatever number you key in, I think you will find that PTE will adjust it to align it to a frame boundary in your video. So, if for example, you enter a time in that box of 3000 (three thousand milliseconds or 3 seconds along the timeline for this slide) that might actually appear as 2918 or 3046 or similar, which will be the nearest video frame boundary. Hope this helps bring your knowledge along a touch more. Peter

This is the time offset from the start of your sequence (in minutes, seconds and milliseconds) This is the offset from the start of this particular slide (in milliseconds). regards, Peter

Gary, I've just tried adding text to a video(both as a child of the video and as an independent object). I successfully set it to start at 0 opacity and then between 2 seconds and 3 seconds into the video fade up to 100% opacity. I had no problems at all. I was using v7.0.7. regards, Peter

Hi everyone, This topic has become too cluttered for me to try and find all the parts of the different posts that I might want to have quoted, so let me try and summarize my situation. Because of the way that I want to operate by "Project Workbench" application I need to run the PTE sequence in a proper window (Windowed mode). I have, therefore, accepted that the best result is to use 16:9 aspect ratio and a 1280x720 image size. The Workbench has been built to that design and used regulary over the weekend. I am extremely happy with how everything is working now. I totally understand why the 1920x1080 Windowed mode didn't work as I first thought it might. My understanding was flawed. I totally understand why it would be nice to have the equivalents of "Inside" and "Outside" settings when applying a border with PTE. I support Dave's suggestion for this change. I cannot claim that this topic is SOLVED because the problem, as I first witnessed it, was cause by hitting some design limitations. If I had thought about it a bit more, I might have realised that, and not opened the topic in the first place. So, in that sense, sorry for wasting everyone's time on what was, in essence, a user error. I will set the topic title to [RESOLVED]. regards, Peter

Eric/Dave, I owe you two an apology. Yesterday was one of those days when nothing at all goes right. Consequently my frustrations just built up steadily through the course of the day. I had to let off steam, but should never have done so here on the forum. I'm deeply sorry. I do try and live up to my signature phrase but occasionally my behaviour fails to match my expectation of myself. Yesterday was one of those days when I failed to live up to my expectations of myself. I'm sorry I let everybody down. kindest regards, Peter

I have added no borders whatsoever with PTE. So please stop rabbiting on about them in this topic. I am talking about the borders that form the extreme edges of the normal Microsoft Window - the window in which an application is presented to the user. In my case the application being presented to the user is my Workbench.exe built using PTE and using no borders of any kind on any image within that sequence - a sequence of just one background slide that has a selection of buttons on it. After considerable reflection I now believe that what I am up against is a combination of circumstances. On the one hand, in PTE, when using "Windowed mode" on the Project Options > Screen tab, the values provided for "Size of slide/window" on that same tab are "absolute values". The window in which the PTE sequence application runs is NOT re-sizable - only minimizable. Moreover, I believe they apply only to the image area within the Microsft Window. Thus, the title bar of the window and the entire surrounding window frame (I will avoid calling it a border or an edge, and please don't now assume I am talking about PTE Frame objects!) require pixels over and above those required for the image. There are also pixels taken up by the Windows Taskbar. Windows 7 shows a strong reluctance to have any window sized larger than the available screen size. Put all of these factors together, and you have the outcome that I have encountered. I can only conclude that PTE tries to set up a Microsoft Window big enough to accommodate a 1920x1080 pixel image, but that Windows then reduces the size of this in order to fit the window into the available height of the PC monitor (in my case: 1080 minus the Taskbar, Window Title bar and the top and bottom Window frames). Windows and PTE between them seem to try and preserve the aspect ratio of 16:9 for the image area within that Window by shrinking the width proportionally to the loss on the height, and therefore I see parts of the desktop at either side of the application Window. I cannot mark this topic as SOLVED because it isn't. It is merely UNDERSTOOD. What I got is the way it has to be - or so it seems. regards, Peter

The reason I didn't post this under the v7.5 Beta section is because I am not using v7.5 Beta for this project. Had I been using v7.5 Beta for this project I would posted the topic under the v7.5 Beta section. Peter

Dave, Not that kind of Border! Re-read my post. This is a problem with "Windowed Mode" as opposed to Fullscreen mode. The border to which I refer is the Microsoft Windows window border not the PTE image border. regards Peter

If I set up a project to have: Project Options > Screen > Mode > Windowed mode, and then set Size of slide/window to be 1280x720, the resultant exe file runs in a 1280x720 window, as I would have expected. If, however, I set Size of slide/window to be 1920x1080, the resultant exe file does not run in a 1920x1080 window. The window is less than 1920 across (there are parts of the desktop visible behind the window at either side) and the window is greater than 1080 high (neither the top or bottom borders are visible). My PC monitor is running at 1920x1080. regards, Peter

OK folks, I've sorted it - but I'm still confused. The icon file (Crystal.ico), that I was using, had been created in my usual way but had not been stored in the usual folder for an icon. It had been stored in the same folder as the image files I used in the Workbench.pte file from which the Workbench.exe file was then created. Having realized that this morning, I have now copied Crystal.ico to my normal folder for icons, have assigned that copy as the customized icon for the project (which is now called Workbench2.pte) and have published a new exe (called Workbench2.exe). I have then created a shortcut within the Workbench folder and dragged this shortcut out to the desktop. The customized icon was preserved throughout this process. The point of confusion that remains is this: Why does use of this icon work when it is stored in J:/My Data/My Playpen/Icons and Avatars/ but not when it is stored in J:/My Data/My Projects/Project - Yorkshire Alum/Project Workbench/Images/ ? Anyone any bright ideas? regards, Peter

Good morning, Stu, It didn't! I renamed the file to Z-IconCache.db and did a Shutdown/Power-up/Boot-up. I now have a new IconCache.db file - and I still have the problem. regards, Peter

Dave, What you did was what I did except for this last part. When I drag the icon to the desktop the icon changes back to the blue-silver-play-button. Note that within the Explorer window the shortcut does carry the customized icon (See PTE-Icon-4.JPG below). Now to the situation this morning after a power-up boot-up. The "faulty" icon has not changed. I wondered whether I might be looking at a general problem affecting those icons that I had prepared myself. I therefore copied into the workbench folder an icon from my desktop which I use to go straight to the BBC website using Firefox. As you can see in PTE-Icon-4.JPG, this has its own icon rather than the standard Firefox icon. I then dragged the Workbench.exe file, the Workbench.exe shortcut and the W-BBC shortcut to the desktop with the result shown in PTE-Icon-5.JPG below. Whilst doing the drags I noted that the icon associated with "Workbench.exe-Shortcut" changed as soon as the drag began. The icons of "Workbench.exe" and "W-BBC" were both preserved throughout the drag operation. I feel that this is a significant clue to the root cause of this problem. regards, Peter

Thanks Stu, Another one to try tomorrow, if needed after the overnight reboot. regards, Peter

That's because it isn't a shortcut. It is a copy of the EXE file that has been placed on the desktop. It shows that the association of the customized icon within PTE has worked. Yes! No! I used Explorer to do a Copy, and then right-clicked on the desktop and did a Paste. The icon to the left of the customized icon is the shortcut. You may have noticed that it has got the "curved arrow" which denotes that it is a shortcut. Peter

Dave/Igor, Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions. I'll wait and see what happens tomorrow, after the system has been shutdown over night. If I still have a problem I will then work through your various suggestions and report back. regards, Peter

Eric, It isn't that I cannot make the icon. Nor is it that I cannot get the icon correctly assigned to the EXE file for the sequence. I have achieved that much successfully (See PTE-Icon-1.JPG attached to my original post). Where it breaks down is when I try and establish a shortcut on the Windows desktop to that EXE. The shortcut doesn't use my customized icon. It uses the default PTE icon (the blue and silver "Play" symbol - see PTE-Icon-1.JPG attached to my original post). I would prefer the shortcut to use my customized icon. That's the bit that I cannot get to happen. (See my original post and my reply to Dave above). regards, Peter

Dave, I know that's how to go about changing the icon for an item on the Windows desktop. But it ain't working for me on Windows 7! regards, Peter

I have encountered a problem using a PTE sequence with a customized icon. First some background: the sequence provides me with a "Project Workbench" environment for a reserach project I am doing into the alum industry of north-east Yorkshire (in the UK). It uses buttons to perform "Run Application or Open file" operations. I have set up a "Project Workbench" folder in which I have placed the Workbench.exe file and a series of shortcuts which are the items that are the targets of each button. I have placed a shortcut to the Workbench.exe file on my desktop. The sequence works exactly as I intended it to when launched from this desktop shortcut. My design allows me to change the Workbench.exe contents and they are immediately available via the existing desktop shortcut. Any changes made through the Workbench, to existing file content within the project folder, are also immediately available through the workbench. I can now get into any part of my alum project with just two clicks of the mouse: one on the Workbench icon in the Windows Taskbar and one on the relevant button within the workbench. All the clicking to navigate up and down the folder tree structure has been eliminated. Over the course of this project I am going to save hundreds, if not thousands, of mouse clicks. Now to the problem... I initially built the sequence without a customized icon for the EXE file. I have now added a customized icon via Project Options. (See PTE-Icon-2.JPG below). If I copy the Workbench.exe file to the desktop, the icon shows correctly on the desktop. If, however, I paste a shortcut instead of a copy of the file, the original PTE icon is used. (See PTE-Icon-1 below). Is this a bug in PTE, in that it is offering the wrong icon information to Windows, or is it a limitation within Windows? I have tried right-clicking the "PTE icon" shortcut for the Workbench and have followed the usual route via Properties to Change Icon. It will not change away from the PTE standard icon for this shortcut. My operating system is Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit. To preserve the correct function of the Workbench it must run from a shortcut on the desktop. I would much prefer to have the customized icon associated with that shortcut. Any ideas for a solution, please? regards, Peter

You get your images into PTE in the usual way. All I was suggessting was using a Photoshop layer stack to help work out which images to use and in which order. regards, Peter

Steven, What was the time interval between each shot? Was it one long motor drive sequence or were they taken individually over several minutes (or even hours)? As you would appear to have a knowledge of Photoshop already, I would take all 24 into photoshop and build them into a layer stack. Then use the Hide/Unhide control (the "eye") to decide which pairs switch from one to the other very well. Shuffle the stack order until you have a run of slides that works well. Discard any that just don't seem to fit in. You can change slides in PTE at least as quick as every 50ms (yes, milliseconds) if you set for no transitions (i.e. a simple "Quick" or "Cut" transition). regards, Peter

Andrew, If you are using v7.0.6, you shouldn't be posting your problems in the v7.5 Beta section of the forum. I don't think so. It's more likely to be a case of severe RDS? (Reality Denial Syndrome) regards, Peter

I have come into contact with members of many UK AV Groups through attending events organised by the Royal Photographic Society's Audio-Visual Group. Without exception, they are all aware of the "desktop flashback" problem and have put in place one or other of the known options for circumventing the problem: - use an XP-based PC on which to run the sequences - use PTE v4 to build the menu sequence - use "Run Slideshow with Return" and Publish all the sequences using the same version of PTE. Speaking purely personally, I would much rather the WnSoft team concentrated their efforts into providing new function that will be of value to the vast majority of users, rather than putting effort into resolving a problem that affects only a sub-set of the user population. Again, speaking purely personally, I find it takes me no more than 15-20 minutes to build a menu to drive up to nine sequences, and that includes the time taken to run Publish on each of the target sequences. regards, Peter

Eric, Do both your PCs run the same operating system? As I recall, there was no problem at all with any version of PTE running on XP. Under Vista it was almost impossible to get a launch off a menu that was "flashback" free unless you used "Run Slideshow..." or built the menu with PTE v4.49. Under Windows 7, I've heard of some folks who get launches via "Run Application..." that are free of any flashback and others for whom the only solution is to use "Run Slideshow...". The situation seems to be more complicated than just the difference between PTE v7.0.7 and PTE v7.0.6. I gave up using "Run Application..." to launch PTE AV sequences from a PTE Menu sequence a long time ago. I always use "Run Slideshow with Return". As a consequence, I have to accept the need to re-Publish each of the target sequences to ensure that all files have been created using the same PTE version. It has become part of my standard workflow and is almost second nature to me now. regards, Peter

Then that's your problem! You cannot "guarantee" to have no desktop flashback using "Run Application...". If you want a guaranteed "no flashback", you need to use "Run Slideshow with Return". The downside of that is that you then must do the "Publish" of each show and of the menu show, all using the exact, same version of PTE (all using v7.0.7 or all using v7.5.0 beta 6 or whatever). It's a bit of a pain, but not insurmountable. I've been doing things this way ever since I got my first Vista system and encountered this problem for the first time. The reason Igor introduced the "Run Slideshow..." options was to get around the flashback problem. The only other "guaranteed no flashback" technique that I am aware of is to use PTE v4.49 to build the menu - and I'm not sure whether that is 100% effective in all circumstances. Peter