AV News 189 - August 2012
First look at PicturesToExe Deluxe v7.5
Peter Appleton
This new version, which is due for release in the autumn, is primarily a re-work of
the user interface. There is very little new function that will be actually apparent
in a finished sequence.
So what will it be like? Well, these two screenshots give you a flavour.
The
new
style
adopted
by
PicturesToExe, as seen in the
Preferences window, (left) gives a
much 'cleaner, crisper' feel to the
product. It no longer looks like a
product whose roots lie in Windows 95.
One interesting point based on the
content of Preferences: at some future
time, the program will support
automatic updates. It is possible that
this option will be 'greyed-out' in the
initial release of v7.5, pending the
setting up of the required server
infrastructure.
The other example shown is of the
Customize Slide | Effects window.
Note here that, having chosen your
transition and set its values, you get a
'mini preview' within the tab.
Also new in this release will be
'Custom Effects'. You can now
create your own custom effects using
two given slides. You build your
effect using the function of the
Objects and Animation editor
window. The effect can be saved for
future use in other sequences. When
applied to a slide in your sequence,
the two given slides are replaced by
your two slides. This undoubtedly
adds a whole new set of creativity
options for us to come to terms with (and I haven't caught up with video yet!).
The major change will be in the Timeline view. It is being enhanced to show
multiple tracks of sound, and to allow the items in these tracks to be trimmed and
enveloped via a visual interface. This feature was not part of the code provided
for review.
Protection from loss of work, such as when the power fails or the PC crashes,
is being introduced via an 'Auto Recovery' feature. This will take regular copies
of the .pte project file into a temporary folder. On restart after a failure, the most
recent file copy will be presented to the user.
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