think(box)

In essence what you need is beyond what effects do today, pro or not. You are looking for full motion video. Although not there in PTE effects today, this may be implemented in the future. Ask Igor. The best way this can be done currently using PTE features is to place separate photos as photo objects in visual object editor and then in successive duplicates of the current slide, nudge the photos forward in differing amounts in each new slide using the RIGHT keyboard arrow key in visual object editor. For the differing movement rates, nudge one photo two pixels, a second photo 5 pixels, and a third photo 8 pixels each time (for example). This will work best with the least change in pixels per slide, as in make photos fairly small in pixel dimensions. Per slide display has to be very short. Some "jumpiness" is unavoidable. Also, this method will require that the slideshow is viewed at the same screen resolution as when you created it. This is because the current PTE version does not scale images placed in the visual object editor. Igor has notes about next version possibly having scaling. In summary, this is very tedious and will not be perfectly smooth. Alternatively you can make a succession of totally different whole-screen images in an external photo editing application, and then in PTE simply display them rapidly. This option is not practical for large screen sizes and high resolutions due to performance demands. Also, there will be a very large showfile size due to many separate images, while the first method keeps using same images for next slide and does not have such large showfile size.

Happy to drop a name and link here - this beautiful, fullscreen slideshow was photographed and produced by Bill and Karen Hines of Beechbrook. Here are some other posts about it: Click for topic "England - The West Country, Bill's own show"

On Beechbrook.com I just purchased a very nice collection of hand-crafted note cards in four different sets offered by our friends Bill and Karen Hines, who are the proprietors of Beechbrook. Featured photography is a beautiful collection taken in the UK. To take a look at their fine offering, here is a link: Click for Beechbrook.com notecards introduction page Here is a quote from Beechbrook about the note card sets: Thanks! to Bill and Karen

There are two folders and C: and D: drives so far for the Windows fonts folder. You can take the guesswork out and easily know drive and folder by just asking Windows (read the registry). It's safe since you are only reading, and not writing. I emailed the two lines of source code and compiled (.EXE) script file to you that should find the correct drive and folder from any Windows version and put it on the clipboard. I also sent a .EXE compiled diagnostic script that shows what it just put on the clipboard. Anyone can test their Windows version to show fonts drive and folder with the diagnostic in case you want to do further testing first.

Welcome Spike. The error seems to indicate that you have an incomplete copy of the .EXE file on CD. You may be having trouble because you are trying to copy an application file (.EXE) and Windows treats these specially. Whatever is copying the file may have bugs (or features or functionality differences) in .EXE copying. If your CD-RW is a formatted files CD, that could explain different results between CD-R and CD-RW. Other than that I have no guesses for why CD-R and CD-RW work differently. This may not help, but may be worth a try: I don't know how you do your copies, in terms of mouse usage. But if you are doing a left mouse copy to the CD drive, you need to hold the Ctrl key down while copying slideshow .EXE files for it to work properly. When you hold down the Ctrl key you can left-mouse copy .EXE files successfully to other locations. You could also try using other CD recording software on your system, if you have any. Nero and Easy CD are known to work fine.

Granot, since you use MMB does it have the ability to read from the registry? If so you can identify the fonts drive and folder in the following registry key/subkey/name & value (example is showing a system that uses C:\Windows\Fonts): HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders "Fonts"="C:\WINDOWS\Fonts" If MMB can't read from registry, AutoIt free scripting can do it. You can just run a simple script to read the fonts location and put it on the clipboard. Then in MMB you can read the clipboard and proceed. AutoIt can also identify the windows operating system version in use if you need it for anything. I have a working script .EXE file that I'll email to you if you want (only 42KB), in case you don't want to learn AutoIt scripting. It places the fonts location on the clipboard for you. All that you have to do is run it from MMB. Here is what it just placed on clipboard from the registry on my system: C:\WINDOWS\Fonts

Marianne, I would like to second Alan's suggestion to use Neat Image from A B Soft. It beats DCE AutoEnhance hands down. I have used both extensively. DCE AutoEnhance is well made, but it doesn't reduce image noise as effectively as Neat Image. The Neat Image free version and paid version both reduce noise as well. The paid version allows batch operation. What Neat Image does is to take a noise sample from your selection of a small area that has just uniform shading and color, with no subject or shadow edges. It then processes your photo to reduce noise with unbelievably good results. You do not sacrifice sharpness as you do with smoothing algorithms like despeckle, reduce graininess, etc. The batch operation is useful if you want to reduce noise in many images from a single source. E.g. the noise profile is always the same from the same digital camera or scanner and source. You sample noise once manually and process all in batch. There are exceptions when a digital camera is auto-adjusting the effective "film speed" or image pickup gain, as noise varies. Likewise, when you are scanning photos from many sources each photo needs individual attention. I have found that you should reduce noise in the original before processing, but that you can even do it again after a Photoshop unsharp mask usage with very good results. You don't give up sharpness. A photo with detailed subject and clear blue sky with clouds - and noise - simply loses the noise.

Welcome back Igor! The obvious benefit to improvement in music and fade performance is improvement in the most universal shows, made for the largest majority of systems in the world. The not so obvious benefit is that highly performance demanding slideshows can also work that much better, or can use more fancy effects, or can use traditional effects designs but on ever higher resolution original images before machine or graphics overload. You have once again pushed the state of the art in slideshow software performance for the benefit of all. Thanks Igor

Harold, that is tough to explain but one thing worth a look is to use a utility to find out if Win98 was running out of GDI resources. A good free one to suggest is Cacheman 5.50 by Outer Technologies (free, click here). If your friend had lots of windows open (3 to 10) Win98 can run out of GDI resources, while WinXP will not. Your friend can tune up the system and also have Cacheman stay "on top" while running the P2E slideshow to see free GDI resources percentage. If it hits nearly zero, then P2E and almost any other app will not start. I suggest this because closing the AIM session may have freed just enough resources for P2E to operate successfully. It is something to try anyway, that is useful for other purposes regarding system memory and cache parameter optimization. They have a good wizard to advise you as you go. OK, now here is my strange P2E failure to add to the list. For about one out of 5 to 10 starts of Windows, P2E shows of any type or vintage will not start (Win98SE). This is before I start any other applications at all. I get the small hourglass for a little while, and the task stays in the task list until I stop it. But there is no visual or audible evidence that the slideshow is running. A restart almost always fixes it. Has anyone else experienced a similar failure? Thanks!

Thanks Al. I just went back to read with each starting phrase: Quite a difference! Forum messaging has the unfortunate fault of most electronic messaging: no face to face interaction to observe reactions and clarify. Really though, I think it was not so much a matter of tone. Perhaps this will help explain the intensity of my position on this point: The Enlarge Image (fullscreen) PTE feature is as important to me and as common to many dozens of slideshows as the Custom Synchronization PTE feature is to you. Imagine how you would react if you had a few people saying in no uncertain terms that Custom Sync is dangerous, useless and should never be used --- while that has not been your experience or understanding and the feature is crucially important to you. I don't think you would let that advice propagate without a firm rebuttal describing your opinion and experience.

Good - that explains some unexpected operation. There is one thing I found that may help. An open "tag" is denoted by an asterisk on the button after first pressed. That Close all Tags command to the right of the COLOR menu will add the closing tag text to each open tag, in all cases at the end of all text entered so far. So at least you can press that when there is any asterisked button that you don't expect. The general rule is that the forward slash goes in the trailing tag. You can look for pairing to figure out why "Preview Post" shows unexpected results. I have a tip that you may find handy if you haven't already found it: If you have a letter, word, phrase, sentence or paragraph etc. that you decide to make bold, or underscore, or italicize or , or change FONT, or SIZE. or COLOR etc. just select all of that text by left mouse click-drag-let-go operation between start and end of text. Then click the B, I, U, , etc. button and instantly your text will be surrounded with the tags in correct syntax. This method avoids wiped out tag problems fairly well. Once text is highlighted just be sure to stay away from the Backspace key, since many have found that it deletes all selected text! But if you goof don't worry. Just right mouse click in the text window where you are entering text and select Undo. The text is restored where it was deleted.

Marianne, I can offer some help about performance demands for various parameters that you can control vs. ones that you can not: First and foremost, simple fade transitions require the highest percentage of CPU time during P2E shows. If you use a fade effect that extends to less than 1/2 second before the next scheduled slide image then P2E will not have enough time to read and internally expand the JPG image to the bitmap that it displays on screen --- when playing on a slow computer. MP3 music requires about 30 to 40MHz of machine speed to process. Image fading is much more, in the hundreds of MHz for smoothest operation. P2E automatically adjusts the number of screen repaints when doing a fade in order to not demand greater than overall machine speed, and hence keep the slideshow playing as closely to perfection as can be. The bottom line is that your slideshow may be pushing beyond what P2E can accomodate in resource usage limitation as it displays your slideshow. This is likely to happen when there is too little processing time between image+fade and next image+fade. 1024x768 is significantly less demanding for CPU speed (about one half) than 1280x1024. If the slideshow will be displayed 1024x768 then by all means use that size for JPGs. Most slideshows will play on a slower machine, but fades will be twice as smooth if the JPG is 1024x768, when compared to 1280x1024 JPG image playback. That relative playback performance is true regardless of screen area settings used on the playback computer, however the best playback performance is always at lowest screen area setting for a very low speed computer. A carefully produced slideshow will function very well on computers down to 100 to 200MHz if screen isn't set any higher than 640x480 or 800x600. For 1024x768 screen area setting, a machine should preferably have a 300-600MHz processor. For 1280x1024 screen area setting, 500MHz to 1GHz minimum is best. You certainly do not control the screen area setting for someone else playing your slideshow, but you can advise that they try a lower setting if the slideshow doesn't play smoothly. I hope that you find all of this useful in your slideshow productions

Bold Italic Underlined Web link Support@Wnsoft.com Code test List test Item 1 Everything worked for me just now. I'm not sure what can cause those buttons to fail. Perhaps clearing the Internet cache is worth a try in case there is bad script or other info. Don't clear cookies though! I just noticed another forum entry that you made: I don't know how it happened, but the "/" character is in the first bracketed "I" when it is supposed to be in the second. That will cause italics or anything else to not function correctly.

Porting to Mac is not yet in any published plans. There has been dialog about this in the forum, and as I recall, it was found that emulation doesn't work. Read more if you are considering any testing.

Mitch, you are using one of the fastest servers out there! You maxed out my DSL speed for a six minute download time to capture the full 67MB. Many servers limit download speed to less (not yours!) and some do not support or allow multi-download accelerators. I sampled the show before this post, and the photography and audio are very impressive. I can't wait to see the rest of it - thank you! BTW, can't you use file splitters to break up and then recombine large files as an alternative to separated slideshow sections?

Guido, you may speak for yourself in that quote, but not for everyone. Fit to screen (Enlarge images to fit screen) is a very well done feature in PicturesToExe that is harmless if the screen setting and image size match. And when a small amount of enlargement is performed to fit the screen, this can be a very much welcomed function. Perhaps for you that PTE feature is useless because you always size your images for an exact screen size. Your way is not the only way. Further, "Fit to screen" is not "dangerous", and is certainly not "useless", as you describe it "in general". I know many people who are in their elder years, who appreciate very much when various precious family photos of all sizes and image file aspect ratios are enlarged FULLSCREEN on a large screen monitor so that with their less than perfect eyesight they can actually see peoples' faces and enjoy the sight. The slight smoothing loss in that case is totally invisible and irrelevant to their viewing experience. And for many people with perfect eyesight, that enlargement smoothing error is very slight and is not important. Often it is the right tradeoff between how much time is spent in image preparation and the quality of slideshow viewing experience. PicturesToExe does a very high quality job of enlarging images in real time as they are displayed. It isn't always practical to resample a collection and process for best sharpness and least imperfection, prior to presentation. There are times when people discussing a topic in this forum give the impression that their way is the only way, and there is no use for any other. I believe we should have full respect for others' creativity and slideshow style. There are many people who create P2E slideshows that do not match the mold "projected" in this forum. To those people, their slideshow may be far superior in their opinion, just as to you, your ideal slideshow is far superior in your opinion. There are far more ways to make slideshows than what you witness in this forum and in linked sites. The gentleman who made an excellent documentary show recently said in a forum reply that he generally stays out of the forum because everyone has a set way of making shows and his way doesn't match it. When I read that remark I celebrated that someone had the guts to say so. Given that I do not fit any one specific "style mold", you can expect that I will speak out sometimes when I sense a limiting, misleading or alienating tone. I hope that you can now understand why your generalization resulted in this response, regarding usage styles for this very fine software. EDITED - REMARKS ADDED IN RESPONSE TO THE POST IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING, BY AL: My response: Al, you are telling us that you do it your way, you don't want anyone having the ability to display a slideshow their own way, and it is your way or the highway. You are saying the same thing Guido said - don't use PTE's enlarge image to fit screen feature. This is a generalization based upon how you (and some others for sure) use PTE that excludes the valid ways that anyone else may choose to use the software. For the purpose and style of show you are discussing, your advice is relevant. Not for all. I will be very direct in regards to my point about the "Enlarge to fit screen" PTE/P2E feature. I use it. I use it for MANY shows (I use multiple slideshow styles, in both sync and non-sync). It works very well. Resampling and resizing can consume more space on a CD and takes time and care. It is a tradeoff that show developers can make, to choose to have all images fit screen regardless of settings or image size, whether smaller, same, or larger than current screen setting. And they don't have to spend time processing images. But if they let it be known in the forum they will have to deal with the style biases.... Al, this narrow-minded view of the "right way" is why some people choose to not share their work with the many who read the forum. I would like to see participation from everyone, and recognition of the talents and styles that anyone may choose.

Welcome Fred! I thought that Tiscali sounded familiar for ISP problems. Another member (iceberg) had trouble with Tiscali and hasn't yet said that the problem was solved. You may find it helpful to send iceberg email through the forum email button. Good luck! Here is a link and some quotes from member iceberg. Click here to get to iceberg's email access button

Anton (swan_atn), Al, Stu, Maureen, Guido and Ken, there is another alternative. Igor can define an additional visual object action. I have proposed this in Wish list for PTE - after 4.10 release, Feature ideas. Here is the proposal posted in that topic. If we refine the proposal after additional dialog in this topic thread, I will edit it in the other posting to keep it brief and to the point for Igor.

To address the "multiple-click" issue that has been raised elsewhere in the forum, I propose the following new PTE feature: "Run application one time" (new visual object action): A button, clickable image or hyperlink works only ONE time while a slide is displayed, and is re-enabled for a subsequent ONE-time operation by viewing another slide and then returning to the slide with the clickable object. This can unquestionably eliminate the "multiple-click" problem. How rapidly someone can "multi-click" becomes irrelevant. The number of times they click an object becomes irrelevant. BTW, we do not need a one-time version of "Run application and exit" since this feature should already function only once when clicked multiple times. The "Run application or open file..." action is general purpose and should respond every time it is clicked, as it does today. It differs from links in a web page because a browser generally understands the hyperlink action and can thus disable further clicks for actions like "open new web page" or "open new browser". PicturesToExe slideshows run applications without internal knowledge of what that application will do. It may just run a utility that has no window and that will increase the sound volume level a notch. Or it may run a new P2E slideshow. If someone clicks a P2E slideshow "Volume up" button three times to increase the sound volume level a lot, then the button should function all three times, even if clicked rapidly. In summary, making a new visual object click action is the only way to fix the "multiple click" problem provided that it is not agreeable to just solve that problem with utility software. My vote is for the new PTE object action.

Congratulations Granot! You have been a great help to many, solving everything from mainstream to specialty needs in a flash. You are one of the kind hearted people who makes this world a better place. Thank you

P2E shows made from v4.12 start quickly enough that click-happy people do not need a helper utility to know when to stop clicking. This is a fading problem of the past. And if any show developer wants to tell a show viewer to go easy on clicking, why do they need a utility? PTE has ample support for a startup screen message and button screen text messages to instruct on clicking. Quoting what I said: Key points: 1. It is the exception, not the rule, to have click-happy user problems. 2. You do not have to use a utility to address this if you don't care about the issue. 3. Many utilities have limited interest, but when it solves a critical need for someone it is important to them. 4. For the problem you solve by adding arbitrary delays to P2E click actions, you create a new one for someone who wants a second click to actually cause a second "Run app" activation. P2E isn't broken for click actions, so let's not "fix" it.

Hi Al, "WaitMessage.exe" is the app actually started by a P2E show in the above example. Showxyz.exe and an optional longer "click-happy checking time" are the one or two parameters being passed to "WaitMessage.exe" from the P2E show, as created. (I updated the previous message for the "click-happy user" checking time optional extension.)

There are too many problems with exceptions if you try to check status. P2E should just launch the specified application on the click and not worry about it. Believe it or not, some people want every click to function without conditions. If the .exe being launched is an older P2E production or other app that starts slowly and without confirmation, then it should be up to the person using it, not Igor, to make provisions to help the viewer. You can use scripts to be absolutely sure of what is happening, if that is important. We could make a very simple universal utility script for everyone to use, that just immediately tells the person clicking to "please wait..." and starts the slow loading app. But only if Igor will add one very important feature that is on the present PTE wish list: Support passing parameters in all "Run application" boxes. The last time I checked there is no valid syntax to pass a parameter. If we had P2E support for passing parameters then a Run app box entry for slow-loading app's might look like this: WaitMessage.exe Showxyz.exe "WaitMessage.exe" is a 40KB universal utility that more than one of us could volunteer to make, that is being used to start slow-to-load Showxyz.exe, while displaying a message box briefly to give the viewer immediate feedback saying "Showxyz is loading - Please wait". The utility does the following: 1. Displays the "Please wait" message 2. Runs Showxyz.exe (this is the parameter from the above P2E "Run app" box entry) 3. Sleeps for 2 seconds to continue message box display 4. Exits We could enhance the function of this utility by making it check for another instance of itself still running and simply exit. Then for at least two seconds (the message display time if we choose that value) it will be impossible to start Showxyz.exe a second time. Perhaps the utility can have a default of 2 seconds to keep checking for click-happy people, but take in a second, optional parameter - the delay time for continued checking, for when longer click-happy delays are needed. During the entire "checking" time, further clicks are "disabled". The message itself is displayed only two seconds. This way we can get specific exceptional circumstance function we need without complicating Igor's and P2E's job.

Brydette, the bottom line is that PTE does not yet have AVI support, but this is a heavily requested feature relating to creating DVDs and VCDs. Doing a capture with VCR record, then play, reduces quality. If you can, capture the system's video output directly to AVI with your video capture hardware, rather than first recording to, and then playing/capturing VHS tape. As you may have found, using the PC's TV output can require some experimentation and adjustment for best results. Direct conversion to AVI is on the future version wishlist. If you want to read more, here is some help. First, here is a quote from Igor indicating that WnSoft is working on this new feature, from topic PTE exe to avi (click here to see full topic): To search the most recent PTE future version wishlist and later the general forum, first go to "your control panel" page (click here) and set both "Number of posts to show for each topic page" and "Number of topics to show for each forum page" to 40. You can leave it there afterward if you prefer, but more information will be transferred every time you use the forum, possibly slowing down access. Then click "Change my Account Options" to make the change effective. Next, return to this topic reply and click this topic link: Wish list for PTE - after 4.10 release, Feature ideas Finally, in your browser Edit menu select "Find (on This Page)", type in the letters avi and keep clicking "Find next". You will see the many similar requests related to making AVI, MPEG, DVDs and VCDs. You can also do a general forum search for DVD, VCD, AVI, TV etc., but not directly, since search strings have to be at least 4 characters in length. Try the string letters conver to locate posts with words convert and conversion in them. And/or try other creative searches. Set to further back than just last 30 days if you do (use last 365 days), and in "all open forums". There may be other helpful bits of information for you in that search, but it will take a while to go through the postings. In the search results look for topic headings that are related to DVD, VCD, AVI, EXE to VHS, etc.

Jim, have you ever been approached by people from the Discovery channel to make motion pictures for them? You and Linda did a superb presentation of John's apiary. Your beekeeping show is the the best nature documentary slideshow I've ever seen. It was truly a pleasure to watch. And Igor's and WnSoft's work to make all of this possible on a PC was totally transparent, functioning flawlessly with the highest visual and audible quality. Thank you for sharing it with us