Action Button questions

[Phil Wood]

Hi,

I am trying to put together a kiosk application for a small museum. We have
several PPS files that I want the user to be able to select from a simple
menu system.

The control system is keyboard only (so no mouse-over function) - 3 keys in
fact - ESC, TAB & ENTER.
ESC is disabled in the top menu to prevent users crashing out of the show,

So I have a text menu (just text in a text box).
Alongside I have put some autoshapes to which I have added action settings
to open the relevant PPS.
TAB moves between the buttons and ENTER jumps to the hyperlink (the relevent
PPS).
And it works - but there are two niggles:

1 When the top menu show comes up none of the action buttons/shapes are
highlighted. Hitting TAB highlights the first one - question 1 - how do I
get this button to be highlighted/active when the show starts.

2. The highlighting is pretty pathetic (a dashed line around the shape),
I am sure than some users will not notice it - question 2 - how do I get the
active button to change colour or flash or somesuch.

Any ideas?

Phil

 

[Austin Myers]

Phil,

Have you considered a touch screen?



Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Provider of PFCMedia http://www.pfcmedia.com

 

[Phil Wood]

A touch screen would be nice - but has drawbacks. One problem is price -
they are a lot more expensive than the LCD monitors we already have hanging
around. As I said we are a small museum - the budget is also small. However,
the major problem is that we want one of our displays (a 32" lcd TV) to be
mounted out of reach of the punters - no chance of touch screen there. If we
could afford it we would use more of these TVs - which cost about as much as
a 17" touchscreen but allow more people to enjoy the show..

I have also considered trackballs - but many people find them awkward to use
(can't say as I like them much myself).

The three button solution works well - it is only the Powerpoint menu that
isn't right. I don't want to ditch Powerpoint as it is easy for anyone to
maintain. I am the only one involved who has any programming experience so
I was trying to avoid a more complicated system - but I may have to go for a
VB front end.

Phil

 

[John Wilson]

Phil

I confess i've never even seen let alone used this add in but it sounds like
it may help!
http://officeone.mvps.org/ppsctmgr/ppsctmgr.html
--

Did that answer the question / help?
_____________________________
John Wilson
Microsoft Certified Office Specialist
http://www.technologytrish.co.uk/ppttipshome.html

 

[Phil Wood]

Thanks John,

I will see what I can do with a macro - I confess I have never used one to
modify a presentation as it is running.

So I tried - recorded a macro that will highlight a selection (ie changes
the background of the action button).

Then I created another action button that would run this macro - to see how
macros work when running a presentation. I ran the presentation - clicked
the new action button - nothing happened. Presumably the macro only works in
edit mode.

Early days - but I suspect I am going to have to work out how to use VB with
PowerPoint (how do I refer to a drawing object without knowing what it is
called or its handle?)

Alternatively I can write the menu bit in VB and call the various PPS
files - it just seems so messy and I know that I will have to spend a lot
more time than I had hoped on this.

Phil

PS Whoever wrote the add-in seems not to know that ESC is not the only
active key when running a presentation.