PicturesToExe v4.10 beta #10

[Igor]

PicturesToExe v4.10 beta #10 is released

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

What's new in this beta:

* Fixed several very minor bugs.

+ Improved work of music player under Windows NT 4.0

+ Improved playback of music player in the "Customize Synchronization" window under Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 on slow PCs.

+ PicturesToExe displays real file name of a project in the caption of the main window.

+ Updated language files.

[alrobin]

Igor,

You have been busy!

Thanks very much!!!

[Guest Techman1]

Igor,

This program just keeps getting better and better. I know you are very busy, but is there any chance that you might consider putting in a "run program & exit and/or run program & stay active - both would be incredible" option under either the navigation bar or under the left/right click options? This could be extremely helpful in that a program like the volume control could be run at any given time, another menu PTE show could be popped up, any number of options could be designed into a PTE show if desired by the creator.

I just see this as another great enhancement to this already wonderful program. Thank you again for all that you are doing for us and the PTE program. Please advise if you believe this is something that you would consider adding.

Regards,

Fred

[hotmetal]

Igor,

An idea for you:

In Object editor, how about adding two navigatoin buttons, Next Slide, Previous Slide ?

Usful if you are going through a show adding text to all slides.

Also a question, when I right click a slide I get the option to "open picture". The picture opens in Internet Explorer, is it possible to choose which application the picture opens in i.e. photoshop? Or perhaps I've missed something.

Alan

[hotmetal]

Sorry Igor

I did miss something, Open Picture, the picture opens in what ever programme you set to open a jpg.

Silly me!!

Alan

[Michel]

Request from a French user:

"The problem that I indicated several times, persists, namely:

always with an assembly of 868 pictures and a sound = 74 min.

Still not of starting of the sound's band, hard starting of the images, always cahotic transitions...

But with sound = 25 min it's OK.

[potwnc]

Igor,

In answer to your request under the beta #9 thread... I am not at home this weekend, but I will test beta

#10 and get back to you here on Monday (USA time).

Ray

[Diver]

v.4.10 B#10 does not sort on date and time properly. I have 1300 images from a time lapse that have to be in order but the sort does not work. Things starting at 10:00 are before events that have happened at 08:00 or other 0700, etc . I have noted this in other versions too and it seems to have not been corrected.

Great program though .... keep it up! But the time sort is important if the slide show is to be cronological.

Regards,

Doug Elsey.

[think(box)]

I have found this too, but never posted about it. Thanks for reminding me Doug. I can add that for long filenames when the PTE sort is by filename, PTE seems to ignore beyond a certain number of filename characters in the sort. It is something like 16 characters, as I vaguely recall.

I had a show with many pictures that had an increasing number at end of a long, but legal, base filename. PTE's limited sorting string cost me some time regenerating my source file names (using Bulk Rename Utility) to make my P2E show. There were far too many slides to fix the sort limitation by moving them around in the PTE GUI "Slide List" window.

I hope this one can be fixed. This really looks more like a bug than a limitation. I expect that Doug can't as easily modify large numbers of file dates as I could modify file names with the freeware utilities I've found.

[Diver]

Bill,

Yes ... the problem I have regarding renaming the files so they line up right with a 3rd party software rename utility (in my case, ACDsee 5.0) is that the file name contains the date/time information - so renaming them is not an option. The date/time file name is needed to show in the slideshow output.

I agree, seems to be a bug and not a re-write type of thing as the files easily sort correctly by date/time in other programs - it is just that PTE is not doing it.

Nice if it could be fixed ..... a real problem for me if it can't . (So Im begging on me old knees!)

But again - great program that keeps getting better all the time.

Regards,

Doug.

[think(box)]

If I understand correctly, you are using a long filename with date string at the end of it, in the filename. If this is correct then you have exactly the same long filename PTE sort problem that I had.

So you should be sorting by filename, not date, in PTE. And this doesn't work correctly.

Igor, we need help!

[Diver]

Bill,

Yes - that is correct. I do have a long file name (in which the date and time is embedded into its name), so I cannot change the naming of the files as I need it to show up in the description or filename of the time lapse.

So... I need to sort on the actual time and date of the image - NOT the filename. (I know I could simply use another program (batch rename or something) so rename the files after sorting them correctly by the file date and time, but then the file name (which has the date and file in the file name) would not be correct and I could not display it right.

That means I have to have PTE sort the files by the actual date/time that the time lapse was taken in order to get it right. Another example is that I sometimes shoot events where all the digital cameras on the project are syncronized with the date and time . When all the photos are downloaded into one big file folder (no matter what the camera), the pictures can then be sorted by time/date so that they all tell the story (as in a "day in the life of" type of event. So, it is important that PTE be able to do this (like most programs do) so that the slides are in order - no matter what the file name is called.

I THINK that this should be a "simple" tweak to get PTE to do this right.

Doug.

[alrobin]

Doug,

In the meantime you may be able to use "Adjustor" to load in the image filenames and then do a simple "data / sort" on the image filename column. Then if you "transfer", "save", "rename", and re-submit the new file to PTE, the images should be in the correct order. You would then have to adjust the timing, etc., to suit the new order.

I haven't tried this on name/date combinations, so if you think it would help, you can send me your PTE file (without images or music) and I can test it out for you to see if it works for the filenames you are using.

If you do use it, make sure you sort only column B (filenames), starting with cell B2.

[think(box)]

I have gone full circle back to understanding that you really have "date" sorting needs. Depending upon your time-lapse interval some photos may have same "modified" time, to the second. Sorting can be a problem if not by finer time increments.

Regardless of that, the malfunction stands. And Al may be able to help with testing sort correctness on his Excel Adjustor so that you can crank out the show. You may want to take advantage of Al's offer.

I did an edit operation once that would work for your situation. I made a text file list with file names in desired order using a tool that could do it correctly, and then ran a "remember how I do this" macro repeat that went down the list of file names, inserting their names in .PTE file by the thousands (in just seconds).

Best of luck!

[Igor]

I apologize for this old bug with sorting by date in the file panel!

But I never known about this problem during last 3,5 years

It happened because we had sorting by date of creation (which Windows shows incorrectly). And now I've added sorting by date of last Modification (as in all other programs).

Thank you!

[Guest guru]

I don't agree, Igor...

In my opinion the right sorting order is NOT by date of last modification, but by date of creation, if we want a real chronological order!

[potwnc]

Igor,

I tested beta #10 with my old pte files and it appears the problem with pause/reverse in the custom

sync. play window has been fixed.

Ray

[JRR]

I suspect I am missing something here, but don't we want the images sorted by file name ??

I guess it depends on how one creates the list for inclusion in PTE.

But as I say, I may have missed something....

Not the first time and won't be the last

[Igor]

Dear Ray,

Thanks for good news! I'm glad that all is OK now.

Dear Guido,

Currently all versions of Windows incorrectly writes and operates with creation date of files. It's strange problem. And all programs, including even Windows Explorer shows *only* date of modification. You can see this - "Name, Size, Type and Modified" (in "Arrange by" menu). I've mistakenely choosed sort by creation time and it doesn't work, because Windows returns incorrect dates of creation. I agree with you that it is not right, but we are not able to fix it.

p.s. currently PTE and showed Modified date, but used Creation date for sorting. In the next beta #11 it will has correct sorting by Modified date.

And no problem with it, e.g. I opened one my folder with old photographies and they were arranged exactly starting 2002 down to 1993.

[alrobin]

I, too, was led into thinking it was a filename sorting problem - however after reading Bill's earlier posting, I realize now that Adjustor won't help here as it would only sort on the overall filename. (Unless everything except the date and time could be stripped off, and then sorted.) I'm sure a macro could be written to do this, but it would take some thinking. Better for Igor to fix the date and time sorting in PTE.

Edit: However, apparently this is not possible - see Igor's reply.

Doug, send me your pte file, anyway, and I'll play around with it in Adjustor.

[Guest guru]

You're right, Igor (obviously... ). I too noticed this strange issue in ALL Windows versions, but didn't remember. Actually to consider Modified date is the only way to sort files by time.

[think(box)]

Hey Al, I thought Igor's post said he *did* fix it to the modified date in beta #11 and it works great on his pictures back to 1993. The modified date is really the creation date as dates are assigned to files!

Did you post so close to Igor's that you were describing the second admin1 reply back in time?

And Doug said he has a date and timestamp string in filename that he wants to appear as a comment in slide so the viewer knows the time of photograph, yet it looks like he didn't use year-month-date-hours-minutes-seconds format, which would sort correctly. I'm sure Doug prefers the file naming he has, or at least it is too much trouble to restructure names(?) Regardless of that, a correct date sort makes his time lapse photos display in correct order. He has *not* modified his pictures such that the file modified date (creation date in fact) would be out of order.

Doug - it looks like you are all set as soon as beta #11 is released!

[think(box)]

Another sorting problem: This one is probably a choice by Igor in writing PTE.

I have encountered incorrect file name sorts in PTE when I have long, descriptive photo names followed by a series number incremented in Photoshop batch output naming. Only the last 1 to 3 characters in the long file name are different (a 1 to 3 digit number). I just tested to see what the PTE limit is and here is the finding:

PTE is sorting to ISO-9660 file system names. They have lengths of 32 characters max. If the first 32 characters in name are all the same, then name sorting fails to work in PTE.

Windows uses Joliet, Microsoft's more user friendly file system with name lengths of 64 characters.

Igor, can you switch to Joliet sort lengths in the file name field and match Windows without any all-Windows compatibility issue?

I do not know whether every version of Windows from 95 though 2000 supports Joliet, but I suspect they all do by now. It may not matter what a given OS supports since PTE sorts the names it gets.

And for those at any time in the past confused by Romeo and Joliet file systems. (I never could figure out when that emoticon would fit, until now). I looked it up. Romeo is obsolete, but Joliet is timeless. Sounds sexist to me. Here is Roxio's modern version of Romeo and Joliet:

Romeo

A file naming option in Easy-CD 95 and Easy-CD Pro 95 (both obsolete and replaced by Easy CD Creator) that allowed you to write files to CD with names up to 128 characters long, including spaces. This was a stopgap solution to the problem that Windows NT 3.5a did not support Joliet. Romeo did not support the Unicode character set nor associated DOS (short) file names. Romeo file names can be read on Windows 95 and NT 3.51 systems. Romeo CDs can be read on Macintosh systems if the file names are shorter than 31 characters.

Joliet

Joliet is an extension of the ISO 9660 standard, developed by Microsoft to allow CDs to be recorded using long file names, and using the Unicode international character set. Joliet allows you to use file names up to 64 characters in length, including spaces.

[Danabw]

Igor:

Date sort order in beta 10 works fine for me. I took a picture, cropped and saved it under the same name, and it maintained its position (in Date sort order) rather than falling to the end of the list (as it would have if the Date sort was looking at date modified information). So (for me) that's perfect - the effect of the date sort is to allow me to sort by the picture creation date.

The only strange thing (to me) remaining on date sort is that it defaults to newest file first. Since majority so slideshows using images from a camera are going to follow (at least roughly) from oldest (first day of trip, for example) to newest (last day of trip). So I would default to that order, and reverse would put the newest file at the top. But that's just me. :-)

Dana

[think(box)]

That's an interesting creation date scenario Dana. I see why it does what you want. When you modify a photo the creation date holds still while the modified date advances to time of modification. The only way Igor could accomodate is to provide both types of date sort. Post a new topic if you want to be sure he reads it. It's too easy to miss a note in long reply threads.

But maybe not. If there is any reply thread that Igor should be reading in full, it is this current beta thread.