This program is being offered as Freeware and is unlimited and fully functionsl. This is a fairly simple slide show program with a few expanded features. If there is interest, I will expand the project. The following is the only documentation and help for the program although I do plan a few tutorials on it. I have been expanding and using this program for a multimedia lecture series . I have written a few utilities that can convert these slide shows to web pages and PowerPoint 2000 shows also. This program displays slides at 640x480 pixel resolution only, at present.
All risk and damages are assumed by the user and there are no guarantees as to the performance of the program on all machines and platforms. I have used it Windows 9X/2000/XP and it is mostly a 32 bit program. There is an accompanying 16 bit graphics program (Artgoff.exe) which adds some interesting features. The latter program is not limited or crippled in any way. If you have any trouble installing this demo program contact me.
Here are all the features and instructions:
This is the opening screen and the background will be black. Simply click File and you may create a New Show, Open an Existing Show or Exit. You can also create a New Show freehand by creating a file with extension ".shw" anywhere on your drive and then open it. The .shw files are ascii and can be edited with any text editor. Be careful to leave no blank lines if you do it freehand, or mistype the filenames. The shw file must always reside in the same directory as the slides.
You may download a lecture below or create your own.
This box appears in the upper left corner of many screens and allows minimization and maximization of the application.
Simply open Show.shw and you're off.
This screen appears next and you may go directly to the "Slide Show", "Preview", and "Slide Sort" Modes or "Exit". The only difference between Slide Show and Preview is that you can scroll through all the slides without any transitional special effects when Previewing. At present the special effects are not configurable by the user and are assigned randomly to each slide upon entering "Slide Show".
The "Slide Sort" screen follows.
You have a directory function and a viewer function on this screen. You may select any drive or directory and all the selectable graphic files are displayed in the File List box. The only common graphic file type not supported directly is GIF but you can convert GIF's to jpg, etc. using the Special Effects program (Artgoff.exe) or any graphic program. You can also Resize any slide to 640x480 (the default) with this Artgoff.exe program. If you highlight a file name, it will appear in the Yellow LARGER window. If you click any black area of the window the yellow window will maximize. Then click the graphic and it disappears again.
If you click a small graphic thumbnail it will appear in the larger window and then can be maximized. Double clicking on a small graphic allows you to delete it. When you single click a small graphic it's numer will appear in the black and red box (with 1 in it now). Following this and after selecting a file in the File List Box so that it appears in the larger window you may double click the larger window and the slide will be inserted prior to the smaller slide selected initially. If you simply want to append (add) a slide at the end of stack, select a filename and click Append Slide or just hit Enter. The horizontal scroll bar at the bottom allows you to quickly look at thumbnails views of all the slides which are numbered (eg. here it is 1 to 344). You can enter the Slide Show or Preview Modes at any time or Exit but you will be prompted to save the show. The slides have already been copied to the show directory. Any files not saved in the show will be moved to a subdirectory of the show directory called Back. You can do with them as you'd like. You can create and edit your slides using two programs. I particularly like Mspaint which is provided with Windows. Make sure you've installed it. My program uses a function called Sendkeys to load the selected slide into the program. Sometimes it is a bit buggy and you may need to load it manually. Please note that Mspaint will save these files as BMP exclusively. Be careful when you are editing other formats for they will be saved as BMP's and the program won't load them with the wrong extension. The selected slide loads directly into the Special Effects Program ArtGoff.exe. I won't go into great detail on this program now either but here are some of it's features:
Someday I may write a tutorial on how I use these programs together to make interesting slides
You can load most avi movie files into your show as well. When you highlight an avi file the following graphic appears:
If you click to enlarge, the movie will play. To stop simply click on the movie. I may extend this to mpg, mov and asf if there is an interest. This entire show can be transformed into a Microsoft Streaming ASF file by converting it to PowerPoint 2000 and then using the conversion feature in that product. The Credits button calls up the final screen which can be configured in the registered version. Finally by selecting the Audio check box you can associate wav audio files (4 of them) with each graphic. You can implant colored spots 1-4 (white, blue, red and yellow) corresponding to the saved audio.
When you start the show you are prompted if you want to start at the point you are at on the thumbnails timeline. This makes it easy to restart your presentation exactly where you left off. The next screen displays the numbered slide and the following toolbar:
It will overlie the graphic and has the following features. The left and right arrows go forward and backwards in the show. The tool bar disappears at this time but can be recalled and hidden again by clicking on the picture. You can go forward by hitting the space key and backwards by hitting the backspace key when the toolbar is hidden. The End button allows exit from the show and you can minimize and maximize using the + and -. This bar will remain on top of all applications but can be moved off the screen by clicking on the X and dragging it anywhere. The picture of the person calls up a randomly sorted list of pictures within a subdirectory Staff1. I have digital photographs of my audience here and I simply click the box and ask a question. The Green Marker calls up the MSPaint program. [Now the slide is copied to the clipboard into the program. To retain the correct filename and path a highlighted input box is provided to cut and past the path and filename when saving it. This program only saves BMP files so be careful when editing jpg or other file types.] The Blue Eye returns to the Slide Sort screen. The Musical Note calls up a screen of available Pulmonary Breath Sounds (not included). The 4 colored boxes refer to the 4 audio files that can be associated with each slide. The progress bar at the bottom shows the number of seconds per slide you are permitted based upon the entire slide count and defaults to a 60 minute lecture. The Hand is "Canned Applause" and the Clock shows the number of minutes left and the total number of slides left.
The main program (4.5MB)
PFT Lecture (3.5MB)
