[MWForum]transition from page to page

[Wendy Petti]

Hi Tony,

In answer to your question:

> I am getting this error message when I try your suggestion:
> Can you put me on the right track?

... I should have mentioned that you need to use this with a startup
procedure that gives a starting value to the variable "NO.  See below.

I've also developed a variation of the automatic slideshow that lets you
advance from slide to slide or backtrack using keys on the keyboard:  N (for
"New Slide") or B (for "Back") or S (for "Stop").  That allows you to linger
as long as you like on one slide before going on to the next, and then to
flip through a number of slides quickly by pressing N N N N N.  (But for 100
slides that is a lot of N's!  Still, I used it to make an easy slideshow of
photos in celebration of my folks' 50th anniversary and it was very easy to
create and use the slideshow.  I simply needed to place a number before each
slide name to set the order of the slides.  You can certainly renumber or
rename slides after saving them, of course.)  I usually set up a two-page
project so that the first page is for creating slides and the second page is
for viewing the slideshow.  That way the second page does not have the
MY.NAME textbox, and also that way a student can be drawing a slide, pause
to view the slideshow on the second page, and then return to his/her drawing
without having erased it while watching the show.  The optional DRAW
procedure returns the user from the second page to the first (drawing) page
and makes sure that the slideshow stops running.  (You can put a
SEE_SLIDESHOW button on the first page and write a SEE_SLIDESHOW procedure
which simply sends the user to the second page with the command:  PAGE2)

Here are the commands for that variation.  You'll need a MY.NAME textbox, an
invisible PICTURE.NAME textbox, and a SLIDESHOW button.  The RESET and DRAW
procedures are optional.

* * * * *

to startup
my.name, ct
make "no 0
end

to reset
cg
end

to save_design
picture.name, ct
insert  1 + count pictlist
insert "-
insert my.name
insert  ".gif
savepict  picture.name
announce [Your picture has been saved.]
end

to slideshow
make "key readchar
if :no > count pictlist [make :no 0]
if :key = "S [stopall]
if :key = "B
	[make "no :no - 1
	if :no < 1 [make "no count pictlist]
	show-next-slide]
if :key = "N
	[make "no :no + 1
	if :no > count pictlist [make "no 1]
	show-next-slide]
slideshow
end

to show-next-slide
clean
loadpict item :no pictlist
cc
show item :no pictlist
end

to draw
clean
page1
stopall
end

* * * * *

I am all in favor of doing whatever we can to lower the learning threshhold
for new users of MicroWorlds.  I do hope that one of these automatic
slideshow variations will work for you and your colleagues.  I can send the
actual projects if these procedures are not sufficient.  If you have 100
pictures you will definitely not want to create a 100-page project; simply
merging all of those pages into one project would be extremely tedious, even
if you wrote a procedure to simplify the navigation from page to page... and
the file size would be huge, if it would even be possible to make a project
that large.

Just be aware that the dimensions of the project page must be large enough
for viewing the external graphics files.  This is not a problem if you are
loading pictures saved with MW, but it might be a problem if you are loading
digital photos, etc... you might need to resize them.  (And yes, you can use
MW to resize them, too, but we won't get into that in this message.)

Wendy Petti
MicroWorlds in Action
http://mia.openworldlearning.org
Math Cats
http://www.mathcats.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: mwforum-admin@lists.mathcats.com
> [mailto:mwforum-admin@lists.mathcats.com]On Behalf Of Tony Wilson
> Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 11:35 PM
> To: mwforum@lists.mathcats.com
> Subject: RE: [MWForum]transition from page to page
>
>
> Thanks Wendy and Daniel,
> I will try out your suggestions, Wendy. I liked yours too Daniel,
> but there may be as many as 100 pictures and it could be a bit tedious.
> I am trying to push Microworlds amongst the staff and if it is
> too much of a bother they will want to use a media player or powerpoint.
> I am hoping the kids can see the value and power of programming.
> Thanks again,
> Tony.