Two potential previewing options

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Two potential previewing options

Postby jonP » Tue Oct 19, 2010 2:27 pm

Under the category "creating and previewing new shows" there are two small features that I would find very beneficial. These are items for doing things on a temporary basis during the design phase, things that would be disabled for the final production. And in advance of the description - If there is some other way to do these that I haven't learned about yet, especially if I missed something blatantly obvious, please clue me in.

1. When deciding whether or not to use a given image, it would be useful to have an "ignore" flag that would allow the show to display without including the specific slide & transitions, but not actually having to remove the slide from the show. In other words a quick way to preview the show with and without the particular slide in question. It could be controlled by a similar check box much like the breakpoint check box on each slide in the lightbox.

2. Secondly, when displaying the ouput of an early version of a show it would be useful to have a way to temporarily display the slide number and top-layer image file name overlayed on the screen for each slide. I sometimes generate a preliminary DVD or Tivo show to watch the flow of my images displayed on a big-screen TV and there is no simple way to correlate each image back to the slide number and/or image name once it is in the rendered output. A show-settings switch that allows this to be turned on/off globally for the show would make this much easier.

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Re: Two potential previewing options

Postby Ron » Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:08 pm

Hi Jon
I would first like to welcome you to our little group here in the vastness of the great internet. :lol:
WRT your 2 suggestions: Personally suggestion #1 wouldn't interest me but I'm all aboard with suggestion # 2. I usually burn a DVD for a final preview like a final test. I look to see if there are any changes I would like to make & to preview any changes that I might have made. While watching I take notes and having each slide numbered would be a great help at least IMHO.
Ron
"Family over Friends" "Night over Day" "Nikon over Canon" "Gravy over Everything"

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Re: Two potential previewing options

Postby juicedownload » Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:51 pm

So for the idea of request number two, correct me if I'm wrong.

How about applying a macro caption to display the slide number and/or image name and then applying it globally?
\p in the caption text field is the syntax for the slide number and \f results in the filename.


Is that the idea you had in mind?


In reference to request #1 - the only way I know of is to have multiple shows open inside a project and then make show alterations with specific variations of styles that you want to experiment with. It's certainly more resource intensive, but it's something to consider.

Tim

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Re: Two potential previewing options

Postby jonP » Wed Oct 20, 2010 1:33 pm

Hi Tim,

well the macro caption idea would work but if I'm interpreting your solution correctly the problem would be the potential of affecting other captions already in the slide by mistake. Are you saying add an additional layer to each slide which contains the caption with macros? My goal was to have this be as trivial as clicking a button that could somehow turn this on & off automatically rather than me having to make manual changes to each slide, even though they could be applied with a global command. I would then have to go back and carefully remove each one for the final output which then risks making some undesired change accidentally.


As for my first item, I didn't mean to imply that all shows in the project had to be done all at once. It was more about being able to "comment out" a slide temporarily. As an example, and where this came from... I have a sequence of 8 slides of a large ocean wave approaching and crashing on some rocks. They were shot sequentially at high speed to capture multiple positions of the wave. I import all 8 into PSP and display them using a 1sec display and a 1-sec crossfade transition. It looks ok that way but it might flow better if I only used every other image instead of all 8. Without having to actually remove them from this show and risk losing any editing and/or positioning I already applied, I would like to be able to quickly see the difference between the 8-slide version and the 4-slide version. Is there some other way to accomplish this. The only other potential soultion I see is to set both the slide duration and subsequent transition duration to 0 but I don't know if that affects anything else.

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Re: Two potential previewing options

Postby osharr » Wed Oct 20, 2010 7:22 pm

jonP ,
You could copy and paste the 4 slides into a new show to just see what result you would get .
Ollie
If it ain't broke , don't fix it !

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Re: Two potential previewing options

Postby juicedownload » Wed Oct 20, 2010 7:51 pm

jonp,

For the captions you have the right idea. What I was saying is you apply a new caption to your first slide and put in the text "\p" for the caption. (\p will translate to the current slide #) Then there's a button that applies that caption to all slides, which you can turn off/on just with one click. So you have the slide number displayed on every slide in your show just by adding the single caption to your first slide.

I like the idea of using 0 time for unused slides, I've done this before.

Tim

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Re: Two potential previewing options

Postby Barbara_K » Thu Oct 21, 2010 6:25 am

If you apply a caption macro in SHOW options rather than SLIDE options other captions in the show will not be affected. Also any subsequent slides added to the show will also show the information you choose. This caption macro can be removed from all slides with one click by removing it from Show options.

Barbara

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Re: Two potential previewing options

Postby Ron » Thu Oct 21, 2010 7:37 am

Hi All
Well jonP it seems that request # 2 we had all along. I had no idea that this feature ever existed. I wonder how long its been available to us. It is a helpful tool. To go to show options, then under captions insert macro, then choose whichever (in this case slide number) its very easy, its global, and it does the trick by inserting the slide number in the middle of each slide when viewing & its simple to undo. Thank you all for bringing this helpful tip to my attention.
Ron :P
"Family over Friends" "Night over Day" "Nikon over Canon" "Gravy over Everything"

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Re: Two potential previewing options

Postby jonP » Thu Oct 21, 2010 9:39 am

It looks like both of my issues have workable solutions. Thanks to all for these helpful instructions, I'm glad to be associated with you and with PSP in general.

Tim, Barbara & Ron, From the clarifications it looks like this will definitely do what I'm looking for - I'll test it when I get home tonight. - Thanks for pointing this feature out, I hadn't noticed it at the show options level previously.

Ollie, I concur that is another way - copying them to another show is one of the workarounds I've been using. It does indeed do the job but is a little more cumbersome than desired but all-in-all it's certainly functional. I just thought the idea of an on/off switch on each slide a little more elegant solution, but maybe it's not worth changing the code over in the long run.

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