Registration screen appears at startup

• Be sure to type the keycode EXACTLY as shown on your confirmation email and/or CD envelope.  All letters are capitalized.

• Software has not been yet been registered, registered software will skip the Registration screen.

• The Windows System Registry has been altered or corrupted, re-enter the Key Code to re- register.

Image won’t display

• Web site is unavailable, connection is down or web address is wrong.
  Slide file is in incorrect format. Try opening directly from web browser.

• The web browser is incompatible.  Try another browser.

Browser starts but won’t work with SlideShow

The browser has a correct application path specified but the automation between slide show and the browser is not active.  Try a different setting under the Options>Browser menu on the main screen. Some older browsers (like Internet Explorer version 2) have limited functionality. For best results the latest version of the browser should be installed.

My browser won’t start with SlideShow

Not all browsers have the necessary automation hooks that SlideShow needs to control a show.  If your browser won’t start when SlideShow starts, try selecting the DDE compliant setting under the Options>Browser menu and find the program path using the Browse button.

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Certain features in SlideShow aren’t available to me

SlideShow uses program-to-program automation to control the slides in a show. There are two ways of automating that control, DDE and OLE.  OLE is the latest means of automation and has the richest feature set that allows for full screen mode, multiple show windows and slide load progress monitoring.  DDE is an older technology and does not have the full feature set available that OLE automation offers.  To check what kind of automation you are using check the automation window in the Browser Type screen under the Option>Browser menu.

Internet Explorer won’t stay minimized when show is running

In the DDE automation mode, each time a slide is displayed the browser screen is displayed, even when the browser was minimized and in the taskbar.  This is a characteristic of the DDE automation implementation in Internet Explorer.

Program focus regularly shifts to browser when show is running

In the show mode, every time a slide is displayed the browser screen briefly gets program focus (the browser banner changes to the active color) during each slide loading. This is a characteristic of automation processes.  To pause the action to allow access to other programs use SlideShow’s Pause or Stop control buttons.

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There is no sound, though sound file is assigned

• Speech file is missing or path is incorrect.

• Speech file is in an incompatible format.  Try playing the file by double clicking it and playing it with the default Windows player.

• Speech card inoperable. Verify sounds in Windows control panel.

Web Based Shows Fail to Run

Most problems with web shows involve references to slides which include full path names (i.e. C:\images\myslide.jpg). Invariably, the directory path on your web server is different from your Windows file system so avoid using paths in specifying slides.   Here are some points to consider

• Before creating a web show, check that all the slides in the Show Editor have no path.

• If you must use a path, use a relative path (i.e. \images\myslide.jpg).

• Generally, it’s easier to create Web Shows when all the slides have no path (i.e. myslide.jpg) and are located in the same directory on the web server.

• Make sure that the directory you are using on the web server is accessible publicly from the web. To verify this you should be able to view a slide by entering its URL in your browser.

• Sound and music files are typically very large and are often impractical for web shows since the time needed to download the sound file would be excessive. If you do use sound in web shows, keep it short!

SlideShow Diagnostic Routine

If you are having problems running SlideShow, you can run SlideShow in the diagnostic mode that provides a trace log to pinpoint problems. The following steps will run SlideShow with the diagnostic trace turned on and allow you to view the trace file. (DebugFile.txt)

1. Exit SlideShow if currently running.

2. Restart SlideShow in diagnostic mode by adding the ’debug’ argument to the command line, typically:
     C:\Program Files\Beagle Software\SlideShow\SlideShow.exe debug

3. Choose the DemoShow or another show.

4. Run the show by pressing the Show button.

5. Run the application till an error is encountered. Exit the application.

6. View the diagnostic trace by opening it  in Notepad. The debug file can be found in the root SlideShow directory, usually:
   C:\Program Files\Beagle Software\SlideShow\DebugFile.txt

7. Check for “ERRORS” or connection problems in the trace. You can the DebugFile.txt file to Beagle Software for assistance.  Please include some background information on the situation.

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