Duckware
 You are here: Duckware » Autorun Slideshow   Contact us  

AutoRun SlideShowTM 6.7a
View digital photos/videos in a standalone slide show
with background music and voice annotations


Create SlideShow CDs for friends and family
  SlideShow


 
  1. What is AutoRun SlideShow?
AutoRun SlideShow Manual Index
1. What is AutoRun SlideShow
2. Easy to use!
3. Authoring your slide show
4. Ad hoc slide shows
5. Video Support
6. How to register/order
7. Release history
8. License Agreement
The Problem: You just purchased a digital camera and now want to quickly share your photos and videos to your friends and family in a slideshow.

SlideShow is the solution: It is very small and there is no need to install it before running it. This allows you to create self-contained slide shows on USB drive, CD, etc. Quickly create ad hoc slideshows, or use the MakeSlideShow authoring tool to create professional shows.

Feature Summary:
  • Easy to use graphical authoring tool, MakeSlideShow, creates slide shows for you
  • Photos: JPEG, GIF, BMP (8/24 bit; uncompressed), and XBM photo/image support
  • Videos: MPEG, AVI, and WMV video support [3.2a]
  • Sound: MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, RMI, and AU
  • Transitions between photos [5.0a]
  • Voice overs (sound annotations) and text descriptions can be added to photos
  • Background music playlists easily added to entire slide shows or individual slide show folders
  • Allows slide shows within slide shows to support your entire photo collection
  • Ad hoc show capability to quickly view photos/videos in single folder

Program Requirements: Microsoft Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP/2003/2000/Me/98; Sun's Java Runtime Environment 1.5 (or later). For video playback, up-to-date video playback drivers installed (details).

Installing AutoRun SlideShow: Download the trial, placing it on your desktop or other temporary location. Then run the downloaded EXE (a self-installing EXE) to install SlideShow, allowing you to author new shows.
 
  2. Easy to use!
Incredibly easy to use: When SlideShow.exe is run, the user is presented with a Main Menu of possible slide shows to view (see below). A single click is all that is needed to start a slide show. For example, running SlideShow on my machine presents the Main Menu you see below -- and clicking on 'Vacation' starts the slide show that you see on the right:

Main Menu
Slide Show runs full screen
SlideShow Menu



 


 
Vacation

Menu Selection: Either use the mouse to select a menu item or use the keyboard. The arrows keys move up/down and 'Enter' selects an item.
  
  3. Authoring your slide show
MakeSlideShow: Most people should use the MakeSlideShow authoring tool included with AutoRun SlideShow to create slide shows. This graphical point and click tool makes creating slide shows incredibly easy. When you run MakeSlideShow, you will see a window that looks similar to the following:

MakeSlideShow

1. Preview: Quickly see what your final slideshow will look like by actually running it with SlideShow.exe.

Copy to CD 2. Copy to CD: When you are ready to burn your slideshow to CD, just press the 'Copy to CD' button. When the 'You have files waiting to be written to the CD' balloon appears, click on it to open the burner window. Next, click on the "Write these files to CD" link. When the CD is inserted into a computer, the slideshow is configured to automatically run. This feature requires that you are using Windows XP, 2003, Vista, etc.

3. Explore - Adding and Deleting Photos This opens a Windows explorer window to your slideshow. Find photos/videos on your computer and drag/drop onto show folders. TIP: When you left-click drag a photo, you are moving the photo. Instead, right-click drag to see copy and create a shortcut options.

4. Voice Annotation: You will see a little speaker next to photos that have a voice annotation recorded. See 9 below.

5. Menu Order: Click on the up and down arrows to change the display order of your shows.

6. Background Music: Background music playlists can be added to the entire slideshow, or to individual shows within a slideshow, or both. Most often, just select the slideshow folder itself ("[Sample]" above) and add music that then will play during the slideshow menu and all shows.

7. Photo/Video Preview - Make Menu Item: The photo/video preview window allows you to see the photo or video (frame by frame) that is currently selected. But more importantly, clicking and dragging an area within the photo/video will create a show menu image in a popup window -- allowing you to then select a show and assign a menu image.

8. Photo Description: Each photo and video can also have a text description added to it, which will be displayed at the bottom of the image during the slideshow presentation. First, click on a photo, then go into the description field and type a description and press the 'Enter' key on your keyboard when finished. TIP: Pressing 'Enter' automatically advances the photo selection to the next photo, allowing you to quickly edit descriptions.

Sound Recorder 9. Record Voice Annotation: Select a photo from the list of photos and press the 'Record' button to add or change the current voice annotation for a photo.

10. Photo Order: The order of the photos in the list is the order in which the slideshow viewer will display them. Use the up and down arrows to change the photo display order. Use the 'shift' and 'control' keys to hilight more than one photo at a time that you want moved.

TIP: You probably already have lots of digital photos on your computer already organized into a folder tree. Just use MakeSlideShow's File / Open menu option and select the root folder to all of your photos. Then create menu images for the folders and SlideShow will be able to display all of your photos through a very nice menu. Folders within folders are fully supported and the recommended way to organize and store lots of photos.

Playback Control: When SlideShow is running and displaying a show, the mouse cursor is hidden. Just move the mouse to see a playback control appear:
SlideShow Playback Control
 
  4. Ad hoc slide shows
Ad hoc slideshow support allows you to quickly view photos and videos in a slideshow without first authoring a slideshow.

Option One - Copy SlideShow.exe to a Photos folder: When the SlideShow program is run, it looks in the current directory (the folder in which it is run) looking for sub-folders with menu images (a SlideShow structure) to display in menu. If none are found, any images in the current folder will be displayed (with no menu) in a quick slide show. This is a great way to view ad hoc slide shows. Just copy your images and SlideShow.exe into a folder and run SlideShow for an instant SlideShow. For example, copy SlideShow.exe into the Ashley folder, then double click on SlideShow.exe to view the photos/videos in the folder:
Option Two - Run SlideShow.exe with a command line: SlideShow.exe takes one optional command line argument, which is the name of a folder containing images/photos. This allows you to issue a command like "SlideShow c:\temp\party" to view the photos/videos in the named folder. For example, going to "Start / Run" and typing the command "SlideShow c:\temp\party" into the dialog, as in:
If the folder name contains spaces, just include the entire folder name in double quotes. For example: SlideShow "c:\temp\pool party"
 
  5. Windows Video Playback Support
Video playback support is built into Windows.

Because of this, AutoRun SlideShow simply uses Windows for video playback. However, if you take a modern video format, like Microsoft's WMV, don't expect it to play on an older Windows computer (like Windows 98) without first updating video playback support drivers on the older computer.

If you experience any video playback problems on a Windows computer, the easiest way to fix the playback problems is to install the latest DirectX and the latest Windows Media Player for your version of Windows.

In fact, with the latest Windows software installed, even Windows 98 can play back MP3 sound tracks and WMV videos.
 
  6. How to register and pay for AutoRun SlideShow?
AutoRun SlideShow is shareware. Please try it for free. If you like it enough to keep using it, you must pay for this program. "Unregistered Version" will be displayed over pictures until you purchase a license:
AutoRun Slideshow is no longer available for purchase
Please refer to the license usage information page for details. SlideShows produced in accordance with the license can be distributed royalty free.
 
  7. Release History
Version/Date    Changes made in release
6.7a - 08/10/2016  · increase max memory to allow for larger photos
6.6a - 08/29/2013  · Java 7u21 compatibility work
6.5a - 04/04/2012  · uses new packager
6.4a - 02/25/2009  · explorer.exe not waiting bug fix
· menu order bug fix
6.2a - 09/25/2008  · more mouse movement needed to bring up slideshow control panel
6.1a - 10/21/2007  · uses new JexePack packager
6.0c - 10/10/2007  · Work around video playback bug found in Windows 98 OS
6.0b - 10/09/2007  · uses new installer
6.0a - 10/05/2007  · Complete rewrite of both SlideShow and MakeSlideShow improves GUI
· True full screen mode with cursor/controls hidden until mouse moves
· New Video support allows preview within MakeSlideShow.exe
· Integrated sound recorder / voice annotation
· Photos are now displayed in the order seen in MakeSlideShow.exe
· Supports shortcuts to photos/videos
· Microsoft Windows Vista aware
5.4a - 09/11/2007  · updated readme.html and new packager
5.3b - 12/27/2006  · updated readme.html file
5.3a - 09/02/2006  · use new packager
5.2a - 02/17/2006  · exe signed by 'Duckware'
5.1b - 09/26/2005  · slideshow.exe will now automatically install java if java is not found
5.0c - 07/24/2003  · New transitions
5.0b - 07/12/2003  · Removed some initial screen flicker
5.0a - 05/20/2003  · Support for photo transitions
4.2b - 04/28/2003  · Sun Java VM bug fixes
4.2a - 04/16/2003  · Allow any (Sun/Microsoft) Java VM to be used
4.1a - 07/07/2002  · Custom image scaler improves image quality
· fixed MakeSlideShow.exe hang while running SlideShow.exe
4.0a - 06/25/2002  · small background music files are copied to the HD to prevent skipping
· attempt to use native Windows sound/video drivers over 3rd party drivers
3.3b - 11/27/2001  · misc bug fixes
3.3a - 07/28/2001  · new installer and misc fixes
3.2c - 01/04/2001  · added 'Maximum Scaling' for images/video to options dialog
3.2b - 10/27/2000  · improved MakeSlideShow help messages
3.2a - 09/01/2000  · MPEG, AVI video support
· keyboard menu navigation (arrow/enter key navigation)
3.1c - 08/19/2000  · added music 'play list' support
3.1b - 08/14/2000  · install/uninstall support
3.1a - 08/09/2000  · Enhanced MakeSlideShow
· Allow shows within shows
3.0b - 07/26/2000  · EXE's are repackaged and smaller
3.0a - 07/21/2000  · Added MakeSlideShow authoring program
2.3a - 07/11/2000  · handle images with errors better
2.2a - 04/21/2000  · changed how images are loaded to avoid a display repaint bug
2.1d - 03/02/2000  · fixed a problem stopping background music under Windows NT
2.1c - 02/29/2000  · support for sound filenames containing spaces
2.1b - 02/24/2000  · added 'background' and 'loop' INI settings
· ESC key exits shows/menu
2.1a - 01/06/2000  · better support for more audio formats
2.0d - 12/29/1999  · added sound annotations
2.0x - 08/25/1999  · added slideshow ini support
1.0x - 06/10/1999  · first offered for sale to the public
 
  8. No Nonsense License Agreement
AutoRun SlideShow is shareware. That means that you may try it for free to see if it works for you. If you like the software enough to keep using it, please support the program by paying for it. If you find anything wrong with the software, let me know and I will try to fix the problem immediately. My entire liability for your use of this software shall not exceed the amount you paid for the software. You may not reverse engineer or decompile the software. You may not modify the software in any way. The software may not be used on adult sites nor to display adult material. License violations will result in license termination, forfeiture of license fees, and possible prosecution.
Copyright © 2000-2024 Duckware