What is the best way to distribute a slide show ...... :)

[Cranzy]

Hi

What is the best way to do a slide show program ..... the program goes from one picture to the next picture using transitions .... (fading ... mosiacing... etc) .... now it can create a slide show .. .but this needs to be distributed .. on a cd .. and then other ppl must be able to view it ... now I can't just do it in .NET because then the other person getting the cd needs to have the .NET framework installed to actually run the exe..

How else can i do it??? Maybe save to flash or something ? Is there a way to do flash recording of what's happening on the screen???

Thanks
Cranzy

[dglienna]

PowerPoint has a viewer that you can distribute.

[Cranzy]

I have my own transition effects ... will i still be able to use the powerpoint package thing ur talking about.?

[mendhak]

You can create it in Macromedia Director (which is very professional) or you can even make an MPG.

[Cranzy]

That sounds goooood

Macromedia Director ... Can i call it from VB.NET (in my program) - Is this Free??

mpg sounds good .. how do I do that?

btw ... The images are stored in SQL 2000 DB.

Thanks for that post
Cranzy

[mendhak]

You just said you wanted a solution that didn't involve the .NET framework, so why would you call Director from VB.NET? Just set is as autoplay for the CD, and let Windows take care of the rest.

[Cranzy]

I understand that part .. but actually then creating the slideshow ... Which must make the file to go onto the cd ....
How do I do that part then ...

1) Is that Macromedia Director Free ...
if not..
2) How do I output the slideshow to a mpg?

Thanks again for these ideas
Cranzy

[Cranzy]

* - B U M P - *

[mendhak]

No, Macromedia is not free. It's quite expensive, in fact.

Thing is, you will have to make a few assumptions as to what your users do have. You can create a PowerPoint presentation, and assume that your users have PowerPoint or PowerPoint viewer on their machines. The advantage being that you can have all your slide transition effects and music too.

You could make an MPG, but you'd need some movie making software for that, and that could cost you quite a bit. I am not aware of any free MPG makers for screenshots.

Or you could simply write a set of HTML pages which perform transitions using Javascript, and have those HTML pages startup with the CD autoplay.

You also mentioned that you have your images in a SQL 2000 DB. You have to store them on the CD too, because you cannot guarantee an internet connection at the time, on the machine.

[Cranzy]

There must be a way to output to flash files .....

I will go do some more research on this.. and post if i find something.

In the mean while ... if anybody has any ideas .. .. feel free...



*here is a program that can actually generate flash files..
http://www.demo-builder.com/

Check out that samples page

plz post what u think of the demo builder.


Ciao
Cranzy

[RobDog888]

Why go to all this trouble when you can create a stand-alone autorun cd of your PP 97-2003 slideshow by using PP by itself? If you have P 2003 then you can use the Package to CD feature in the File menu or if you have an earlier version of PP (97-2002) you can follow the steps in this MS KB Article.

How to use PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to create a Windows autorun CD slide show for earlier versions of PowerPoint

Moved from VB.NET

[Cranzy]

agred on that point :P

U see - the program i am developing ... takes images .. and stores them in the database ... now .. i want the user to be able to make there own slide show - through my program .... which will allow them to search through there photos, select photo & transition effect ... and it must build a slideshow..

Now ... my question is can i do this as you mentioned above .... .. ( if i do use powerpoint ) .. i must assume that they have it on there pc... right?

[RobDog888]

If they have PP on their systems then your program can do that. Its the distribution issue when they dont have it that I thought we were trying to get around.