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Ron, In Germany it's 70 years, regarding the composer. In addition to that, the record company and the perfomer have their rights. Mozart has died a long time ago, but EMI will not allow you to use their Mozart records (perhaps 20 years after the last publication). Best regards, Xaver

Jean-Pierre, Peter, I think that the Auto-save function is better than having nothing, but I myself do not use it. I do not like PTE to overwrite my files automatically. It would be better to have a recovery function which is a bit more sophisticated. As an example: PTE could auto-save the current project any 5 or 10 minutes, and keep the last (say) 12 versions in a system folder. These versions could be shown (to be opened after program restart) in a particular recovery menu. Best regards, Xaver

Jose, Version 5.6 will provide this feature. Let your text run inside a mask container and construct an appropriate mask (b/w-image) with your image processing program (Photoshop etc.). Best regards, Xaver Munich

Abdol, I'm talking about a completely different product (PC INSPECTOR File Recovery). You should perhaps install the recovery software on some other PC and then mount the corrupted hard disk. Regards, Xaver

Abdol, You may try to download "File Recovery, Version 4.0" from "www.pcinspector.de". Regards, Xaver

Jean, The problems concerning SP3 and AMD CPUs mentioned by Anthony are described here. Regards, Xaver

Hi Lin, Regarding Abdol's good wish, it seems to be rather a question humor that a question of time!? Happy New Year, Xaver

Colin, Please look at the FAQs prepared by Peter (fh1805), see here! Regards, Xaver Munich

Dave, I have some doubts that this feature will be that helpful, as many pieces of music are not played in a strict tempo. There isn't a real alternative to listening to the music. Regards, Xaver

ronjack5, Nomen est omen. The name of the product "PicturesTo Exe" already indicates that you can create an exe-file from your show. Please use the create-as-slideshow-function (Create button, F9-key, or menu entry (location is depending on the version, 5.5 or 5.6)). The created file should run on each PC which is not too old. Regards, Xaver Munich

If it were possible to integrate videos seamlessly into PTE slideshows, I would consider this as a great advantage. It would raise the acceptance of the product. Regards, Xaver Munich

Lin, In general, I am not very fond of animations of still images which try to imitate movements, such as your hummingbirds or butterflies, which (in my eyes) have an archaic appearance. Some day, PTE will allow to insert videos, and for showing movement, in most cases videos will be the better choice. What I actually like are some of the waterfall simulations. Recently, a friend of mine used your technique to animate an image of the Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen, which looks very good. The snow fall simulation looks very realistic, thanks to the use of several layers with snowflakes of different size, speed, and direction. I like the effect, but I would prefer to see it once or twice for a moment, but not during the whole show. Just a remark on the everlasting discussion on user friendliness. I think that this discussion is useless. The protagonists typically are same in all cases. Everyone sticks to his point of view, and his way of expressing arguments (clinically, or polemically - chacun à son goût). Regards, Xaver

What about user friendliness? Maybe that the poor cowboy isn't that lonesome Regards, Xaver

Ctrl+B and Ctrl+U actually work. Sorry for the mix-up! Regards, Xaver

Igor, I would like to see the feature described by Peter in post #6, as well (Sometimes I use a workaround by inserting all keyframes via a single dummy object (transparent frame) which helps to see all keyframe positions simultaneously). Several keyboard shortcuts in the timeline view of the main window do not seem to work: Shift+Del, Ctrl+W, Ctrl+B, Ctrl+U. Regards, Xaver

That is, what I normally do. Let me point out that it is always a risk to start an exe-file of somebody else, it is a matter of trust, and most users will be aware of it. The discussion on cmd.exe may have led to the misleading impression that running a downloaded project file is less dangerous; in fact it isn't. The users should know about it, as well. Security through obscurity is not a good strategy. Regards, Xaver

ale53, Additional information: Lin Evans is the expert for technical stuff of this kind, look here, at his tutorials. Regards, Xaver Munich

ale53, Just a rough outline: - Let your object be a child of a transparent frame. - Move the child in order to separate the centers. - Create two or more identical keyframes for parent and child. - Let the parent rotate, while the child makes the corresponding negative rotation in order to keep the object in an upright position. - For both rotations, chose identical speed options. You may combine this motion with pans for parent and child. Regards, Xaver Munich

Peter, Tom, In the meantime, PTE has a list of files which normally will not be executed. But there still seems to be a problem. PTE executes or opens files in the field "Run application or open file ..." which have been entered via relative paths. So I entered .\a.exe /k "ipconfig" into this field, copied cmd.exe, renamed it to a.exe, and put it into the folder of the corresponding pte-file. A click on the image during preview, and I could read my IP configuration. So, let's be careful with downloaded zipped projects. Regards, Xaver

Regarding the discussion of yesterday on starting cmd.exe on mouse-click, I would like to propose the following option: Deactivation of running any external applications or opening of files during preview. With the present versions of PTE it is easy to distribute a zipped project containing html-files to be opened (typically with Internet explorer and all its vulnerabilities) or renamed copies of cmd.exe to be run with arbitrary parameters when clicking into the images during preview. Regards, Xaver

AbdolReza, Would you really like to click on a button of a PTE show and execute a command like cmd /k "del c:\windows\..."? Regards, Xaver

Abdol, I think that your observation (cmd.exe does start) indicates a security measure rather that a bug. Regards, Xaver Munich

Peter, If you right-click on a slide in the slide list, you will find the entry "Edit sound comment". It can be used in order to edit the locally added sound with the editor entered in the advanced options. Regards, Xaver

Andreas, Igor, The German translation looks much better than about a year ago, when I made some remarks on it. But there are still several translations which are wrong or misleading. Examples: "Transparenz" means exactly the opposite of opacity, so it should be replaced by "Deckkraft". "Übergabepunkt im Objekt (zeitabhängig)" is totally unclear, and should perhaps read "Skalieren der Übergabepunkte (bei Zeitänderung)". Regards, Xaver Munich

I was just about to describe the second effect when version Beta15 arrived. There is no need to do it any more, as all flashing effects now seem to have disappeared. Thank you for your effort. Regards, Xaver