Problem with Powerpoint in Zionworx

[brainier]

By flickering do you mean a physical flicker on the display or the powerpoint show redrawing itself?

To test open Task Manager and drag to the second screen. This should be on top (it might not be - check Options > Always on Top). Does this program flicker too?

If so check your cabling to the second monitor.

I find that editing presentations whilst the presentation is being displayed is always a risky proposition! To many grounds for things going wong!

[apwood]

I think I may be able to pin down exactly what is happening here.

When you run a powerpoint presentation, if you advance slides using space bar (or the buttons on the PPT tab) after you get to the last slide, PPT displays a black slide with the words 'end of slide show, click to exit' at the top. If you press space to advance one mor after this (or click next slide button) it seems to advnce to a further black slide, but indicates to ZW that the presentation has finished (thus only shows the start presentation button in the PPT Tab). The problem is that the PPT presentation window is still in the foreground (black) so the song lyrics are displayed, but hidden behind the black PPT display window!

To avoid getting into this state ...

To try to prevent this causing a problem for inexperienced users, tell them to click the 'loop continuously' check box before running the presentation, and you won't ever have this problem. Trouble is you need to do this for every presentation, and it is easily forgotten!

I have a pretty much the same problem, EXCEPT that since I'm using powerpoint to display a vidoe, I have it automatically advance to the last slide - and then get the "click to exit" slide. The idea is that the video plays and ends automatically - but it doesn't without pressing the Stop button in the powerpoint tab.

Ideally Zionworx should handle powerpoints in the same way as other items (ie songs) in the playlist. I find that the operators who are not especially good with computers get confused with having to press the Stop button - they'd expect everything in the play list to be operated in the same basic way - ie Space to advance slide / song, F4 to end the powerpoint / song and move to the next item in the play list. Surely this must be possible?

In the case of powerpoints that automatically advance (such as my videos), pressing F4 during playback or after they have ended should end the powerpoint and move onto the next item in the playlist. (Ideally after the powerpoint has automatically ended it would be good for the next playlist item to display automatically).

I have tried to solve this by using the option in powerpoint 2003 to not display a black slide at the end of the presentation (the one that says "click to exit"). Strangely, this always works when playing powerpoints outside of Zionworx, but within Zionworx, its sometimes works, but sommetimes I still end up with a black screen. Can't remember if the Stop button is still enabled or disabled at that point, I'll post back after I've checked.

Clicking the loop option is a good idea to at least allow the Stop button to always work. I still don't like operators having to press the Stop button as they find it confusing - and it often disrupts the flow of the worship service.

[brainier]

We get three flickers when the first slide is shown. I have posted about that issue elsewhere on this forum (I think - it's been a while that we have had that issue).

[apwood]

I've been doing some investigation - and found something that is a bug either in Zionwrox or Powerpoint 2003.

I created a very basic slideshow with just a title on slide one and few words on slide two with white background.

I set the option to not display a black screen when the slideshow ends (the one that says "click to exit").

I saved this in various powerpoint format / versions.

Every one of them works fine in powerpoint, ie only the white slides I made show, the black screen at the end doesn't show.

In Zionworx however, in all cases it shows the black screen. If that didn't happen, it would solve a number of problems with the integration of Powerpoint with Zionworx as on various threads I have posted to today

[apwood]

I find that the operators who are not especially good with computers get confused with having to press the Stop button - they'd expect everything in the play list to be operated in the same basic way - ie Space to advance slide / song, F4 to end the powerpoint / song and move to the next item in the play list. Surely this must be possible?

In the case of powerpoints that automatically advance (such as my videos), pressing F4 during playback or after they have ended should end the powerpoint and move onto the next item in the playlist. (Ideally after the powerpoint has automatically ended it would be good for the next playlist item to display automatically).

I have beeen doing some experimenting. I have managed to work around these problems by making the last slide blank with black background, and setting this not to advance automatically.
Then when the presentation ends and they get the blank black slide, I have found that the operator can then just press F4 to end the slideshow and move to the next item in the play list. This works equally well if the powerpoint is playing a movie or some music.

I have tried to solve this by using the option in powerpoint 2003 to not display a black slide at the end of the presentation (the one that says "click to exit"). Strangely, this always works when playing powerpoints outside of Zionworx, but within Zionworx, its sometimes works, but sommetimes I still end up with a black screen. Can't remember if the Stop button is still enabled or disabled at that point, I'll post back after I've checked.

Following the approach I've outlined above, the black "click to exit" slide no longer appears. However, i have found that if F4 is pressed when this slide appears, it sill ends the slideshow and moves onto the next playlist item. Note that the Stop button is enabled when this slide appears.

I have raised in another thread the bug, either in powerpoint of zionworx, that the black "click to exit" slide appears in Zionworx even when the powerpoint option to end with a black slide is unticked. However, the workarounds above prevent this becoming an issue.

[Tomw]

I had problems today with powerpoint closing down and freezing up at different times. When i stopped the powerpoint display and went to the songs I couldn't return to the powerpoint presentation.I had to close down and restart Zionworx .
I am using Vista and the latest Zionworx. Could my problem be with powerpoint?

[apwood]

I get the impression that ZIonworx opens a black screen to display powerpoint. If powerpoint then freezes, closing powerpoint will not close the black screen that Zionworx has opened. In that case, a bug in powerpoint causing it to freeze could mean that you are stuck with not being able to see the next item in the playlist in Zionworx.

Unless it caused Zionworx to freeze, its possible the problem could have been resolved by one of the following:

Double click a normal zionworx song in the playlist or press F4 or F3 to move onto that normal song.

Press the Stop button on the powerpoint tab in Zionworx.

However, its also quite possible the only way to resolve the issue would have been to do what you did, close and restart ZIonworx.