Articles Slide Show:
1) Library
of Congress 85
2) S.F. Examiner MacQuality 85
3) MACazine 85
5) MacGuide 87
With a second disk drive
you can Work with about fifty "slides" because the second disk does
not need to hold any applications. A second disk drive is highly desirable
for this program since the creation of a show would otherwise require a great
many disk swaps in order to transfer the MacPaint documents to the Slide Show
Magician disk.
PROJECTING THE SHOW
Once the show is complete; it is very easy to run. What is more it
can even be designed so that it can be run by anyone with a Macintosh even
those who do not have the slide show program. This is possible because there
are two applications for the program, one for creation of the show and a separate
one for the "projector:' Thankfully the latter is not copy protected
so that you can move it to any disk along with the pictures which make up
the program. Specific instructions for creating such "copies" are
available in the manual.
Caveat Emptor
While the Slide Show Magician can easily be credited as one of the
best new programs for the Macintosh (and a "best buy" at under sixty
dollars). a few modifications would still be nice to see in any upgrade.
1. While you can set the
buttons and, other parameters on one slide and then copy these parameters
onto the other slides, no command will do this for all the slides in a program.
That command would be particularly beneficial in longer shows.
2. The size of the text which
can be entered on the screen is limited to twelve point type, uncomfortably
small in a slide show. Nor can you change the fonts available for such on-screen
messages. (You can of course write in any MacPaint document with any available
font.)
3. When working on the details
of the program it would be helpful to have a "next" button., rather
than having it go to the picture menu and select the desired picture each
time.
4. The problem with the limitations
in the size of the show will only be remedied by the arrival of two-sided
drives or the use of a hard disk.
5. The relatively small size
of the current Mac screen limits the uses of a show but as large screen projection
becomes available for the Mac the value of a program like Slide Show Magician
can only increase.
Neale McGoldrick is the author of Applecatlons for MacPaint forth coming from
Addison Wesley.
Figure 7 POINTERS
Any of these pointers can be used to draw directly on tile screen during a
slide presentation. Simply drag the mouse. Such additions to a screen cannot
be saved but can be used to highlight aspects of a presentation much as you
might mark on a transparency for an overhead projector or use a pointer during
a conventional slide show.
Figure 4 TEXT
Text can be added to any slide in the show and placed anywhere on the screen.
Figure 5 BUTTONS
These buttons are placed anywhere on the screen and can be invisible. Be sure
to put a QUIT button in any show which is programmed to run as a loop!
Figure 6 PRINT OUT
This feature provides detailed information of the special effects buttons
and text for each of the slides in the program. By combining this data with
a "print catalogue" of the images you can do a good deal of "storyboarding"
on paper.
Slide Show Magician
Magnum Software $59.95
21115 Devonshire Street
Chatsworth. California 91311
(818) 700-05/0
To contact us send eMail. ScottMcTyre@MCFIII.COM
