PicturesToExe v4.10 beta #7

[Igor]

PicturesToExe v4.10 beta #7 is released

http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr_beta.zip (1.3 Mb)

What's new in this beta:

* Fixed hangs up on closing of presentation on dual-processor PC under

Windows NT, 2000 or XP. It was a bug of the previous betas of v4.10

* Fixed old visual bug on the time-line (in the Customize synchronization window)

when sometimes it didn't show preview for selected transition point in the Pause/Stop mode

[alrobin]

Thanks, Igor!

The dual-processor capability is a welcome fix.

[think(box)]

Igor, I just emailed the object editor lockup example to you, and then noticed your beta #7 release. I installed it and found that my lockup demo will not even open in beta #7. It locks up on opening the .PTE file itself in beta #7. It does not have this problem under beta #6a and earlier. Who knows, maybe a Windows restart will change that, but you may have to use v4.10 beta #6a or earlier to debug the lockup problem example that I sent. It fails the same way in anything from v3.80 (earliest tried; although v3.80 lacks the transparency support used in demo, it still fails) through v4.10 beta #6a.

Thank you!

[think(box)]

Update to Igor: The demo did indeed open in beta #7 after restart, and then crashed Windows on a strange "Canvas drawing" error in PTE. Be sure to use beta #6a or earlier if you have any trouble.

EDIT TO THIS POST: Further testing reveals that you can get the same error in beta #7 as in all earlier versions. There are a few ways that this failure occurs.

[Igor]

Thanks, Bill!

There is a limitation in Windows for creating too much graphical objects (simultaneously at one moment). No problem with usual slides (even 100'000 of large pictures), because they are showing one after another.

It's quite another matter when you add many small pictures (as objects) into *one* slide. And they all will be displayed together. In your presentation, you've sent me, there are more than 500 small pictures per slide. Each picture (small or very large) requires 2 GDI resources of Windows. So 500 pictures will require 1000 GDI resources. There is no problem when it added 100-200 and maybe 400 sub-pictures in the Visual editor of objects. And greater number may cause the problem.

So I see two possible tricks how to solve this limitation.

1) Optimization (in the memory storage) for repeated picture-objects;

2) Or algorithm which will storages many small pictures into one large bitmap (as mosaic). As I said earlier Windows has an interesting mechanism and 100x100 or 1600x1200 picture requires equal number of GDI resources (2 GDI per bitmap).

But both variants require many changes and even not one week of work, unfortunately.

[think(box)]

Thanks Igor! So this is a Windows GDI (Graphics Device Interface) limitation. That explains why even Windows crashed, not just PTE. You would think Windows could be more graceful at handling limits, but of course the application developer can work around almost any Microsoft feature limitation.

I have posted a topic to keep for show developer reference regarding combined Windows and show software limits. Igor, we would appreciate it if you could reply to this new topic with more info, so that we don't lose this information in a beta version message thread. Here is a link to the new topic:

Windows graphical limitations, PTE/P2E advanced user reference info

This is oriented to advanced users. Anyone who adds a very large amount of material in the object editor is an advanced user