User Guide

Louis, I'd like to work with you on a User Guide! Let me know . . .

Robert Homes

rohomes@gmail.com

Sorry I seem to have dropped this. I had to put such things on hold due to the need to have a workup on some medical issues. Nothing serious - at least in terms of terminal - but I will need to be making some radical changes in my daily health regimen. Until I see how such changes affect my ability to focus on a project such as this, I have to put such things on the back burner for the time being. Sorry.

Louis

Hello, I just joined Photopia from ProShow. You have a wonderful, commendable idea. ProShow had a wonderful tech support,  and a huge downloadable manual. I couldn't believe that Photopia had no such thing. The videos are okay, but no comparison to written guide. I am still struggling with protozoa; I can't get the hang of it even though the similarities to ProShow are uncanny. What in many cases Photopia considers are an improvement over ProShow, I personally consider a step backwards. I wouldn't be negative at all with Photopia if they would have had a manual, and I'll bet there are a bunch of other people like me. Anyway, to the point. I don't know where you are now with the manual because your posts were a long time ago. I would be happy to help with this project,  but I'd only be a liability without the manual. But I'd love to hear of your progress, but if you discontinued it in frustration I'd certainly understand. I have decent writing skills. The problem with most manuals that come with products is that they assign their developers and techies to write them, and while they have total knowledge of the product they have such poor writing skills that the manual is crap. if YOU were to write even a simple manual, it would be awesome, most helpful, most appreciated by us users. I would think that Photopia would bend over backward to help, support, encourage you. But it doesn't look like that is happening. But, anyway, I hope that you do take on this noble venture! 

@bobllove

It has been 6 months and not a hint of a manual so I don't think they are concerned about the lack of one. 

Besides eating a lot of crow over the past six months, I've been dealing with some health issues. Bit off more than I could chew when I started out wanting to put a manual together.  Physically, as well as mentally, not able to focus for a long enough time to come up with a usable rough draft. Should have spoken up earlier, but keep telling myself I'll get it together. It's not happening, so I need to admit it and move on.

Once I started to get beyond the basics of converting old Proshow files to Photopia, I realized what others where trying to tell me many months ago. They were right, I was wrong. Trying to be too positive led me to overlook the weaknesses of the program. Still subscribe. Still working with it. But now feel the lack of a manual, from those who created the program, is one of the biggest weaknesses.

Sorry again for not being able to follow thru with my desire to come up with a user guide.

Louis

Such a pity. They just don't get it. On the one hand most of their videos are fairly decent. But they don't realize how pitifully sparse they are. ProShow had a huge online manual; any time I ran across any subject, there would be an explanation for it. Now my Photopia just sits on the computer neglected because I went back to ProShow. I don't think the glitz of Photopia is worth it because so much of the advanced stuff is just not apparent. They think that Photopia is so superior to ProShow; without instructions they are sadly delusional.

@bobllove

We definitely understand that Photopia Creator / Director need a solid manual.  There are a lot of great features in both programs, even some things that couldn't be done in ProShow, and we need to get documentation released to cover the product for people at all skill levels.  It's just that simple.  We've seen some unfortunate setbacks with this project but it's something we continue to work on and hope to see released... at least before we get to version two.  8)

I, too, am longing for a guide book/manual like Photodex had. What a wonderful program that was! I miss Producer terribly and every time I try to open it a dialog box shows up saying the program is not responding and it automatically closes. I can't even use it anymore even knowing there will be no support. Zippo! Nothing! Is this true for everyone that it's unusable or is it my computer?

IMHO, all development work at Photopia should stop until good User Manuals are available for Creator and Director.  With a few people working on this it should not take more than a couple of months.  They can start with the ProShow User Manuals, for structuring the chapters.  Since there are so many similarities, it should be a trivial exercise to produce manuals for Creator and Director.  My wife was a technical writer and would prepare technical manuals such as the ProShow manuals in a few months of effort.  And that was 30 years ago, without today's "screen capture" and other tech writing capabilities.  The video tutorials are good, but too few, and grossly incomplete.  I manage the photo essay program at a camera club.  Over the last 15 years, hundreds of our members were able to learn ProShow quickly by following the manual.  The first few chapters enables a new user to prepare a good essay and learn the basic features.  The subsequent chapters can be read and/or used for reference for advanced features.  The lack of Photopia User Manuals will inhibit many ProShow users from converting/upgrading to Photopia in the near future.  They will continue to use their old ProShow software as long as it continues to work properly.  Photopia is making a poor business decision by not assigning priority to User Manuals !!

I want to know how to add the appearance of movement to my images in my show or please direct me to a tutorial that will teach me

@les-wallack

Hello, Les

Are you wanting the whole image itself to move, or what is in the image to move?

@les-wallack

You might want to start here. Make sure you check out all of Jennifer’s tutorials. 

https://choiceslides.com/blogs/photopia-tutorials/what-is-a-keyframe  

Bob

@hope-creighton

I'm right in the boat with you.  I could use my Producer software until last week (one year after they closed down) when it suddenly started crashing -- BIG TIME -- then finally blew up.  I am our family historian and have made hundreds of slideshows using Proshow Producer.  So - I've downloaded Photopia and was SO frustrated with it at first!  But, now I've calmed down and realized (after hours of trying to reinstall Producer from a backup that doesn't seem to want to work either) that I don't have much choice here.  The hopeful side of this is that I started to ask really "hard" questions, like, "Why can't I move my text around?" -- which obviously should be a no-brainer -- and did get a speedy reply that fixed the issue.  I'm working on another big family project now and at least have mastered "moving text"  (LOL!) and am now concerned with the "jerky playback".   Hang in there and since I notice your post was a year ago, I hope you've got the Photopia software down pat.  I'm praying I get there soon!  

@anne-tempera  I can relate to your comments as I have run into a similar experience over the loss of ProShow but I must say that Photopia does work  and I am getting used to it - It just takes time. My advice is to Stay the Course and Weather the Storm. They do offer great support via E-mail even though it is not as good as being able to pick up the phone and getting instant answers like with ProShow Producer - it is pretty fast and you get very precise answers.

Les Wallack