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Still about stopping sound when another exe is launched. Since PTE stops animation when the PTE window loses focus (i tried with a windowed presentation), why not stopping also sound? Maybe as an option. It shouldn't be hard to implement, I suppose. Bye! Umberto

Mmmmh... this is another way to look at the problem. Quite interesting. I'll give it a try! Thanks Lin.

Thanks for answering Peter. mmmh... I fear i'll make chaos during the show... better keep it simple and not use sound. Anyway the anchorman will surely be able to distract people

Hello. Finally I got it! A main menu and a number of sub slideshows launched as external exes. I think that PTE made the miracle... I never tought I were able to reach my timeline! Only a question about sound. The main menu is a single slide with a duration of 120 seconds. During the slide a background map slowly scrolls under the menu choices. I wish now to put a subtle background music on the menu but I got this trouble: when I click on a menu choice the external exe is lauched but the menu music isn't stopped. So it happens that I get a music overlap with the newly launched exe. Is there a way to fix this? If not i'll keep the menu without sound, but it's a pity. Thanks all! Umberto

Sorry, i correct myself. The trouble is only if I want to drag the image, not zooming nor rotating. Sorry again.

Hi Peter... You're right, when a tool defines the rules then the challenge is obtaining what we want respecting those rules. But given that rules, there's nothing bad in giving to the user a more speedy way to work. Say, I click on the object browser the specific object I want to drag, zoom or rotate on the screen. Simply clicking the mouse on the screen while pressing ALT key lets me to start dragging without worry of selecting something else. This speeds my work without changing the rules An alternative method is being able to click on object handles even if they're covered by other objects. In fact, even if an object is covered the handles are visible, but not clickable because when I try to click them the covering object is selected. Making handles reactive also if covered may permit to zoom. Adding some kind of "tolerance gap" near the handles or edges would permit also to drag and rotate. The trouble with "Transparent to selection" checkbox is that if i have 20 stacked pictures i need to check 19 times the flag to reach the lower picture. This is not funny Bye! Umberto

Hello all! New slide, new "trouble" (it isn't really a trouble but it's annoying) I have several compound slides (multiple shots of the same still subject with different light conditions). Since I wish to perform a zoom-in Ken Burns effect while the light conditions on the subject vary, my choice was to build a single slide with a main picture and many subpictures (with size and position that match the root one). In this way I can pan and zoom everything just working on the main picture, and work with the opacity of the subpictures on their separated timelines. Here is the problem. Since every image is stacked one on top of the other, if I want to pan the root picture I select it on the object browser and I try to move it with the mouse. This obviously leads to the selection of one of the subpictures since they're transparent but over the root image. Yes, there is the flag "transparent to selection", and I use it. But it's so boring... Why not define a key combination (say ALT key o any other combination) so clicking on the screen with this key pressed the selection made in the object browser (or on the screen) will not change? This would speed up the work a lot. Maybe this key combination already exists? What do you think? Umberto.

Yes Lin, some sort of. My need is to zoom a mountain landscape up to a single hill where the cave entrance is situated. I have 3 shots and will try the technique you suggested, placing my pictures on single slides. Hope to get a good result since working with landscapes the depth of field problem should be minimized. Bye! Umberto

This sounds reasonable. Thank you for the clarification Igor!

Yes, I can try this way. I would prefer the "single slide" solution only because it's easier to manage a single entity with zooming and panning. I'll try your solution in case of performance troubles. Thank you! Umberto.

Hello... little question about opacity and performance. I wish to perform a huge zoom effect in a O&A sequence. I have 4 pictures of the same subject taken at different zoom levels. I wish to put the image 1 in "fill screen" mode, and to insert as children images the other pictures, scaling and positioning them so they appear merged in the root image (maybe fading them on the borders with alpha channel to obtain a better merge) I hope this way to obtain, zooming at the smaller (but in high resolution) image a huge zoom effect that keeps always in high res the focused area of the image. My question is about the outer images. Zooming a lot on the smaller image leads the graphic engine to draw a really big outer image. If I put to zero the opacity of a picture when I know it is completely covered by the subsequent inner picture, can I obtain a performance gain? Thanks... Umberto

Barry, I suppose DaveG misunderstood our use of mp3 files. We don't repeatedly save/load/modify/save... the same mp3. This would lead to a progressive loss of quality at each step. We simply import into Audacity the source musics as mp3 files. Personally, I simply shift the entire mp3 source to adjust timing (no resampling) and do some volume envelope. All these operations does not affect the original mp3 quality. So executing repeatedly adjust/export/adjust/export etc... does not lead to a progressive loss of quality. When you save the project it is saved in original quality, and this is always the starting point of each adjustment. Once the priject has been exported in mp3 format, the exported file will be read only by PTE, not again by Audacity. Yes, the export quality in mp3 format is a bit lower than the original mp3 source, but this step is always performed once. I found that working with 192Kbps mp3s leads to good results (to my ears, and I suppose to most people ears).

Davegee, I did some more testing about the lock of the file. I work on Windows Vista Home Premium. Tested the following cases: 1. Trying to overwrite the music file with PTE just opened on the project and waveform not visible. 2. Trying to overwrite the music file with PTE just opened on the project and waveform visible. 3. Trying to overwrite the music file with PTE just opened on the project and waveform visible and then put to not visible. In each case the overwriting of the file by Audacity was blocked by a file locked error message. Just for you to know, maybe it's fixable in next release. Thanks! Umberto.

Thanks for your reply. I suspected that this was done to obtain flexibility (also if the same effect is supposed to be obtained with the use of inherited opacity and nested frames, at a price of complicating the tree structure). When this switch will be available it'll be welcome Bye!

Hello... I have a compound image built with a master picture and more subPictures. I built the image this way because it's easier for me to pan the entire compound image. master image -- subPicture 1 -- subPicture 2 -- subPicture 3 My need is to fade in and out the master image in a objects and animations section. I discovered that setting the opacity of the master image does not affect the opacity of the subPictures. I mean... the master picture fades in and out but the subPictures are always visible. This leads me to specify the same opacity keyframes for master and all subPictures. It's a bit difficult to manage the animation this way (I managed to reach my target but it's annoying) Is there a way to control the opacity of a compound object with a single keyframe track? Thanks in advance.... Umberto

When I work at the background sountrack I create an Audacity project and import all the piece of music I need. After that I time shift all the pieces to suit my needs. When something needs to be adjusted I shift and envelope always the original pieces. It's obvious that I don't reload and modify the exported mp3. This will drastically lower the quality at each iteration (and makes more difficult to work since I cannot adjust the single pieces of music). So, to make it clear: I don't reload the exported mp3 (locked by PTE). I only need to overwrite it with another export. And the project is always saved so I can make more adjustents to the original sounds and then re-export. Bye!

In my case I had different keyframes for both pan, rotation and zoom. Considering pan, and rotation as a two axis reference system (like a plotter) and using a frame for first axis and a nested frame for the second axis this gives you the chance to work separately on them. Putting the image into the second nested frame and using the zoom axis on it made my day Frame 1 - Pan axis --Frame 2 - Rotation axis ----Frame 3 - Zoom axis Using a different order leads to differente behaviours. It's a nice tip. Bye!

Thanks for your reply Peter. Mmmmh... since I don't need a versioning of the soundtrack the way you work looks to me a bit complicated (and disk hungry). For me it's easier to ALT-F4 PTE and Win+SPACE - enter (I use Launchy, great app indeed!) to restore it. Since PTE reloads the last project this procedure it's faster. But avoiding also these simple steps may be nicer. I don't mean I'll hate PTE for that... I simply mean that it could be nicer Obviously, I don't know if closing the sountrack file leads to PTE misfunctioning... maybe it's necessary for waveform displaying? Bye!

Hello. I'm happily working with PTE 5.5 and Audacity 1.2.x. Everything is ok but I noticed that PTE locks the background music file while the project is onscreen, even if it's not playing. This leads to the following: I must close the project before exporting Audacity modifications of my background music. If I don't close PTE, Audacity gives me a "file is locked" error message. Do you think it's possible to avoid locking the file while editing the project? Obviously while playing it's not possible... Avoiding the file locking will boost my productivity because I'll only need to switch between the two applications without "glitches" Bye!

Thanks for your reply Peter! This is really a great tip! With only one frame I managed to achieve the smootheness I wish! I used the outer frame for panning corrections with smooth acceleration and deceleration, and the image into the frame with a single smoother rotation and zooming. Great result. Since it was relatively simple to achieve this result I suppose that my "spline" suggestion is weaker now... mayke think about it, eheh! Now I like PTE more and more. I hope that my presentation goes flawless... I have few than 2 weeks to assemble it and a tehatre full of people that will watch at it... say me gook luck... Thank you again! Umberto

Hello! I'm new in this forum. Just purchased PTE after trying many and many other applications that in a way or the other fail. I found myself being able to build a long slideshow in no time (respect other apps) and with a really good final quality. The best thing is that PTE is able to keep synchronization with music without losing a beat! Maybe it would be great in future to have the possibility to mix background music with a multitrack interface but also using Audacity is ok for me now. And now my question: I need to perform a "complex" movement on a photo, moving it from portrait zoomed to landscape unzoomed. During the rotation the outer borders of the image come into the screen, so I must correct the defect trough panning. But once I introduce several panning points, the movement is no more fluid. It is true that I can set fade in and out of speed, but it's not my need. I need to keep a constant "linear" speed of panning but with an interpolation of the movement. So with few points I can get a curve and no more jerky panning. I think this should be easy to implement, adding a slider that permits to set an "interpolation weight" on each node for zooming, panning and rotation. So... 0 keeps linearity of the panning, zooming ecc... and 100%causes to interpolate on a full smooth curve through spline algoritm or similar. Do you think this can be introduced in new version? This would save my picture Thanks all for the attention... Umberto