jimlarkey

Sorry guys that the characters look like a fallen "house of cards" on my last post. You can go to: http://www.pbase.com/image/13407511.jpg to see a better layout of the flow in the slideshow. Cheers, Jim

Hello Francis, I have successfully used a technique different from what guru has suggested. I create several small exe's that are easily manageable. I assemble the small exe's into what I call subroutines, or what guru calls chaining by creating an opening and closeing slide that allows the viewer to choose which of the smaller exe's (subroutines) they want to view. My last project consisted 9 exe's, the largest of which was about 10 minutes. I think that this is a reasonable attention span for average subjects. They were logically assembled (chained) as shown on: http://www.pbase.com/image/13407511.jpg One minor problem involves the use of synching & objects on the last slide. Igor has indicated that he will improve on next PTE version. If your interested see: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...ct=ST&f=2&t=337 PTE is a great piece of software, that only gets better. Good luck to you on your first PTE presentation. I'm sure you and your viewers will enjoy your work. By the way, your English is good! Cheers, Jim

I too await Igor's addition of objects on the last slide on synched shows. Pete, I do use your method to launch some of the 9 exes that comprise the show. The problem comes in when I want to present a choices menu at the end of an exe, launched from the main menu. For eample, I give the user a choice to loop back to the main menu, exit the program, or launch a sub-menu that presents the user with resource information that relates to the show they just watched. I think Igor understands the power of modularizing and the aethetics of synching. Need to get the two to work together....next update? Cheers, Jim

Thank you for taking the time to confirm what I thought I was experiencing with PTE and for the advice. Nobeefstu has confirmed that when synch is enabled, objects are not permitted...even on the last slide. I can understand the logic why PTE does not permit interference of mouse during synch show, but I would find it useful if only on the *last* slide, objects would be permitted. Seems that this would be a logical point to permit looping. Looping to the main menu, to other show segments, or allowing the user to exit. Using objects on the first and last slide of a sub-show works great to enhance the flexibilty of the PTE program, with synch disabled. Since synching is a great PTE feature, it would be nice if synching could be extended to subroutines with objects on the first and *last* slide of a sub-show, or what I refer to as a subroutine. Thanks again for taking the time and offering assistance. Really appreciate the wisdom of the posters in this forum. Cheers, Jim

Just completed 133MB show that consists of 287 jpegs, using 9 exes. To minimize the boredom in that extensive of a show I utilize several sub-shows that the user can choose not to watch, or watch at a later date. I have tried to make use of a menu at the end of each sub-show that allows the user to exit or return to the main menu. Wonder why PTE does not allow objects in the last slide of a show when synchronization is enabled? When synch is enabled, the objects become graphical images on the slide without any intelligence behind them. For example, pressing a button does not exit the program. I got around this by disabling synch and go to "display each slide for..." but of course this will mess up the timing on various machines. Have other users encountered this, or am I missing something? Seems that it would be useful for PTE to allow objects on the last slide. Cheers, Jim

Thanks again guys, You were right, that when I ran my PTE form the ZIP Drive it was calling the subsequent exes from the HD. Changed subdirectory from "wem" to "Xwem" and calls were then redirected (by the OS or PTE?) to the Zip drive.....extremely different load times between ZIP & HD. I followed your advice and: (1) flattened heirarcal file structure (no subdirectories). (2) deleted reference to drive spec. Completed the burns, and all seems to be well. We'll see when the other machine try to run. Seems like PTE might offer an option to in effect "flatten and eliminate drive spec" in the "create as" to ease compatibility on different machines. Thanks again guys for being there. Cheers, Jim

Thanks Fellas for taking the time to share your experience and insights. I understand nobeefstu to be saying that I must delete drive letter designation, but maintain the heirarchical structure. I understand Jim to be saying that I can keep drive letter designation, but flatten heirarchical structure to single root directory. I understand Al to be saying that drive letter designation is optional. I thought I'd check Jim's advice to place only exe's created by PTE of files in their heirachical origin, in the root directory of my Iomega ZIP drive (E:). Jim was right ....it ran OK. What's puzzling to me is that the native pte file has the following object calls (note the drive letter): Object1_Action_dop=C:\wem\pte\Maps\Hwy.exe Object2_Action_dop=C:\wem\pte\Maps\aerials.exe I would expect that when PTE compiles this pte native file into the exe, it would preserve the "C:" drive designation, and the compiled exe would look for subroutine files Hwy.exe and aerials.exe not only on the C: drive but also in the heirarchical location (\wem\pet\Maps\). However when I ran the exe's as Jim suggested from the root directory (E:\) everything worked. I'm running WIN98-SE and am wondering if I flatten the file structure and don't delete the drive designation, will the slideshow play on other OSs? I would appreciate once again any thoughts from any PTE users who have actual experience with calling several exe's in their slideshows. Once again, thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge and experience....and thanks for being there. Cheers, Jim

I have a slideshow that runs on my harddisk perfectly and now want to burn the CDR without burning a bunch of "coasters". Can the PTE group share their experience with me regarding how the compiled exe's must be coded so that the slideshow will play on other machines with CDR players. My slide show consists of several exe's and jpegs that exist in different subdirectories (folders) in my harddisk ("D" drive). When I created the opening exe with buttons that open exe's in other subdirectories, I used PTE's browse function which designates the location of the exe's as (for example) D:\wem\pte\maps, D:\wem\pte\trip, D:\wem\pte\warmup, etc. So the opening exe which is located in the parent D:\wem\pte calls exe's in the child subdirectories. Question is, does the compiled exe have the drive letter designation (D:) coded in the exe?? If so, which I suspect, then when the slide show is played on another machine, the drive letter may be incorrect, or not even exist on that machine. So the show plays fine on mine, but may not work on others, depending upon their configuration. The heirarchical subdirectory structure and file placement on my harddisk is helpful in sorting the files, and creating the various exe's for the slideshow. I don't want to give it up. Do I need to delete reference to "D:" drive in the creation of the exe's to insure that the show will successfully play on other machines? Any tips or tricks that other users that have extensive number of exe's in a slideshow use to insure that the show will play on other machines. Thanks in advance for the wisdom of this forum. Cheers, Jim