14 Features/Fixes

Now that I am done with my first Creator show, I have a some requests for features and/or fixes, that I ran into throughout my first show.  In addition to the ones that I have already sent in (including the most important one, that has not been fixed yet is: to be able to play the slide you are working on, by hitting the play button.  Currently, if you hit the play button, the show starts from a totally different place).   Almost all of the following requests are things that we had in Proshow, but do not have in Photopia.  I know there are many fixes listed, but Photopia needs alot of work to get it to the place that it should be.  I am not writing this list to throw Photopia "under the bus", but rather to help it be the software that it should be.  Thanks!

• Favorites list:  I use “Favorites” list for Slide Styles ALOT, so one of the first things I did, before creating my first show was to “star” all of my favorite side styles in Manage Effects tab, so that when I start my first show, I would have my list of favorites.  However, after going through the long process of “favoriting” all of my slide styles, when I started my first show, not one slide style was marked as a favorite (the list was empty). So… I went through the entire list AGAIN (within the show, not on the Manage Effects tab) to star all of my favorites. And that worked, for a while.  After about one week, I opened Creator to do some work on the same show, and ALL of my favorites were gone (again!).  Luckily, I was done with working on slide styles, so I did not need to have the list to finish the show.  Please fix the Favorites – users should be able to mark the favorite slide styles ONCE and have them show in a Favorites list at all times.
• Audio Trim Window:  In the last update, you added the ability to click anywhere the in Audio Trim window and a vertical line would be placed where you click.  Which is great because now you can click the button to begin or end the song at that line.  What you did not add to that feature is this:  you should be able to begin playing/listening to the song at the location of the vertical line.  So, for example, if you want to listen to how the song fade out, you have to listen to the ENTIRE song to get to the part where the song fades out.  In Proshow, you could click the pause (2 vertical parallel lines to the right of the play (triangle) button) to start playing the song in the location where you placed the vertical line. This is a big (negative) difference from what we had in Proshow.  Please change this to allow the user to place the mouse at any point in the song and then hit play, so we can hear that part of the song. Not having this option makes audio trimming a much longer process.
• Transition for a layer (not slide) – 2 requests: 

• • In Producer, when we changed the layer transition time, a popup tiny square would show that the exact amount of time of the transition . (ex: 1.3 seconds), just like if you hover over the transition, a tiny popup square tells you the name of the transition.  So if you always wanted exactly 1.3 second, you could achieve it.  Now, I can only use the time ruler to try to get exact time measurements, which is hard to do.
  • When I add a transition to a layer, it automatically adds the transition with the time (approx) 4 seconds, which is extremely long as the default for a layer transition.  Can I change the default to 1 second?  Or can you put in an option that allows the user to create the default amount of time (in settings)?

• Template of Favorites in Wizard: In Proshow, as a part of the Wizard, you were able to choose “Favorites” as a template, so that your photos would only be placed in the slideshow using the slide styles ONLY from your Favorites.  Can you add this to Creator?  It would save a lot of time (and we are used to having this feature).
• Transitions didn’t work correctly: Many of my transitions that were imported from Proshow do not work correctly (or at all!)
• “No Style” Slide Style:  Can you add the ability to "Star" (for Favorites) to the "No Style" for Slide Styles, so that I can include it in my Favorites list?  I had this feature in Producer and I miss it.
• Browser fix:  If I add a new photo to a file in my computer and then try to add it to my show, it takes a long time for the new photo to show up in the Browser list of files (even though the new photo shows up immediately in the Windows Explorer on my pc).  Is there any way to have the Browser button mirror the File Explorer?  It seems very, very slow.
• Select Source fix:  When I want to change the photo in the layer list (but keep all of the Animations), I right click the layer, and hit Select Source and locate the replacement photo.  Sometimes, it works fine, but alot of times, it says there is a missing file, when I choose a file from the list.  Please fix.
• Scrubbing Through Timeline:  Can you add a tiny arrow on the right end & left end of the scrubbing area at the bottom of the Slides Timeline, to allow you to move forward one slide or backward one slide, instead of locating the scrubbing bar and moving it through the slides.  We had the feature in Producer and I miss it here. (see where it is indicated on the photo)
• Filter for looking through Slide Styles:  it would be much easier for the user if the most popular number of layers (1 layer, 2 layers, 3 layers) were each a button to click on, instead of clicking Filter, clicking the number of layers pull down menu, then clicking OK. (seesee where it is indicated on the photo).
• Publishing: When publishing the show, the counter should say how long it is expected to take (like it showed in Proshow), and show a countdown to finishing the publishing process.
• Exit & Enter Creator:  When I exit Creator & then open Creator, I would like my screen to look the same way I left it, meaning, for example, when I am in Creator, I increase the size of the timeline.  Every time I close & reopen Creator, it goes back to a smaller size and then I have to adjust again.
• Compact IU:  In the Compact IU, the Groups, Mask, Effect & Adjustment icons are missing in the Layers tab.  They show up when I change to Advanced IU, but there is plenty of room to include them when in Compact Mode, I think it was just an oversight.  Can that be fixed?
• DVD menu file:  We should be able to save our DVD Menu file to our pc, so that we can use it again, not have to recreate it each time.