THE PHOTO IMAGE MANAGEMENT

-- A Powerful, Easy-to-Use Tool for Managing Your Pictures --

Play Image Slide Show

Play the image slide show is the fun part provided by the program to let you show your pictures to the people. You will play the show in the window or on the full screen. You will play the show with your own chosen music. Select the "Main" then click on the "Image Play" from the drop-down menu or click on the image play button of the toolbar, it will display the screen as following figure 05.

figure 05

To play the slide show, just click on the play button. The show will begin playing in the music. Also you may use the Folder Tree to specify the folder / category or perform the Query on the records to play selected pictures.

Know the control buttons

You need to know the control buttons for playing the show. The following figure 05a displays the control buttons with the number order. The functionalities of the buttons are described followed the number order.

figure 05a

Play backward

Stop play

Play forward

Step backward one frame

Pause

Step forward one frame

Play once

Play repeat

Play full screen / play window

Music on / off

Setup music

Setup the music

When the slide show is playing, it is playing in the music. You can choose your own music for your slide show. To setup the music, you select the "Music" then the "Setup Music" from the drop-down menu, or click on the setup music button on the toolbar or on the play show control bar. It will display the dialog form as following figure 05b.

figure 05b

You locate the location where your music files are stored by specifying the drive and directory. The files will be listed in the "Files to Select" file list box. The program takes the most popular music files such as .wav, .snd, .mp3, .au, .aif, .aiff, .aifc, .asf, and .asx. You can select a file by highlight it in the "Files to Select" file list box and add it to the "Files to Play" list one at time, or you select multiple files by holed down the control key then click on the file name in the "Files to Select" file list box, or holed down the shift key to select a block of files. Click on the "Add" button to place the selected files to the "Files to Play" box. You also can remove the files from the "Files to Play" box by selecting the files, then click on the "Rmv" button if you don't want to play that music files. Click on the "Close" button will close the dialog.

Select pictures / records using the Folder Tree

On the left side of the screen, there is the Folder Tree. Pictures / records are categorized under this folder tree. By default, the current highlighted open folder is the "Photos", the root folder, containing all the pictures / records, when the program first started. If your stored pictures are categorized with the folders, you can select the pictures / records of the folder by highlighting it as current folder. For example, if there is a folder named "John" is a subfolder of the "Family" folder. You only want to see John's pictures at this time. You click on the "+" that is left to the "Family" folder to list all the subfolders of the "Family" folder, then click on the "John" folder to highlight it. Or you can type "John" on the "Folder Search" box that is located on the left-up of the screen, then click on the "Go" button. For more information about folders is covered in the Folder Tree section.

Select pictures / records using Query dialog

The program also provides the query dialog to let you input restrictions to select pictures / records. To perform the query on the records, select "Record", then "Query Database" from the drop-down menu, or click on the query button of the toolbar. It will display the query dialog form on the screen as following figure 05c.

figure 05c

Type in the data on the field(s) you want to set the restriction, then click on the "OK" button. The only records that satisfying the restriction will be show up. Of course, you can cancel to close the query dialog if you don't want to query. The "Clear" button is to clear all the restriction data on the fields. If you click on the "Clear" button, then click on the "OK" button, that will reset the data to display all the records of the folder.

Use the slider

The slider bar is located just below the display window of the screen. It shows how much of the show already played. You can use the slider to quickly locate the position to begin to play the show, by moving the mouse cursor on the slider, holed down the left mouse button, move the mouse to place the slider to the position where the show begin, and release the mouse button.