Need to Prevent Scrolling with Mouse - PPT 2003 Viewer

[JessiRight77]

Hello. I hope someone can help me. I have spent a LOT of time
creating an interactive resume that includes several animated "tours"
of my various projects.

Because there are so many navigational "branches" in my resume, I
needed to force the user to use my navigation buttons... so I chose the
"Browsed at a Kiosk" feature to disable the mouse, spacebar, and
scroll-wheel.

I am using PowerPoint 2002, so in order to get my resume onto a CD, I
used Pack and Go to move all necessary files to a folder. Then I copied
the new PPT 2003 Viewer files to the same folder, and created
autorun.inf, playlist.txt, and play.bat files to make the CD begin
automatically. I then burned everything in the folder to a read-only
CD-R.

MY PROBLEM: I have now discovered that the version burned to the CD
allows the user to completely ignore my navigation buttons by using the
mouse wheel to scroll straight through the resume...the user will get
totally lost this way. The version on my hard drive, however, disables
the mouse wheel. Is it because I included the Viewer on the CD? If
so, is there any way to fix this? If the version using the Viewer
can't be fixed, is there any way to still make the CD run
automatically, but use the user's own version of PowerPoint instead
of the Viewer?

I would appreciate anyone's suggestions... I have a deadline to
submit the resume.

Thanks!

Jessi

 

[Sonia]

The best suggestion that I can offer is to include brief instructions explaining
that navigation thru the presentation is provided via buttons that should be
clicked and cautioning that the mouse wheel should not be used to navigate the
presentation.

You cannot use PowerPoint from the CD for a couple of reasons, the biggest one
being that you don't know where PowerPoint is installed on the end user's
system.
--

Sonia Coleman
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
Autorun Software, Templates and Tutorials
http://www.soniacoleman.com

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

MY PROBLEM: I have now discovered that the version burned to the CD

allows the user to completely ignore my navigation buttons by using the
mouse wheel to scroll straight through the resume...the user will get
totally lost this way. The version on my hard drive, however, disables
the mouse wheel. Is it because I included the Viewer on the CD?

It's a viewer bug so it'll occur when the user's viewing the presentation in
the viewer.

If you want the autorun to work smoothly, you're pretty much stuck with this,
since you can't be sure if a given user has PPT installed on their computer (or
if they have it, which version).

It might work to include a link to the viewer for those who don't have PPT
installed; you'd then need to supply instructions and hope people follow them
(and remember that pessimists have their dreams come true more often than
optimists where this is concerned <g>)

 

[JessiRight77]

Thanks, Sonia and Steve. I was afraid you were going to say that.

If I knew the user *did* have PowerPoint, however, is there a way to
still open and run the presentation automatically from the CD? Or are
we limited to the Viewer? I tried modifying the autorun.inf file to
Start=Powerpnt.exe /L "playlist.txt"; it did open the resume it edit
mode, but it did NOT run it - the user would still need to select "View
Slideshow" from the menu.

Thanks!
Jessi

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Thanks, Sonia and Steve. I was afraid you were going to say that.

If I knew the user *did* have PowerPoint, however, is there a way to
still open and run the presentation automatically from the CD? Or are
we limited to the Viewer? I tried modifying the autorun.inf file to
Start=Powerpnt.exe /L "playlist.txt"; it did open the resume it edit
mode, but it did NOT run it - the user would still need to select "View
Slideshow" from the menu.

There's a little utility called Launch.exe, available from Sonia's site (also
from Shyam and Chirag's sites - they wrote it) that'll do exactly what you need
(but if Sonia says no, ignore me; she knows this stuff cold).

You'd use it to Launch the PPT or PPS. That will fire off the presentation in
either PPT or the viewer, whichever the user has installed on their system.

But of course it won't work if they have neither.

 

[Echo S]

It's a viewer bug so it'll occur when the user's viewing the presentation in
the viewer.

Really? I didn't know that.

Wonder if there's a list of these things anywhere. Sonia has a pretty good
list here:
http://www.soniacoleman.com/Tutorials/PowerPoint/powerpoint_2003_viewer.htm

Would setting up the show as Kiosk resolve this problem?

 

[Sonia]

No, that's when it shows up and that's how JessiRight has it set. The wheel's
the only external input stimuli besides the Escape key that works, but if the
user has a wheel and uses it, it spoils the Kiosk control.

 

[Sonia]

Launch will work as long as there is a file association set up for .PPS.
Otherwise the contents of the CD will fail to run.

The file should be renamed to give it an extension of .PPS and the playlist
should be eliminated. Launch.exe
(http://www.soniacoleman.com/Tutorials/PowerPoint/autorun_launch.htm) should be
placed in the root directory along with the presentation and any linked files.
The Viewer files can be ommitted, because they will not be used.

The autorun.inf file should be modified to:

[autorun]
open=launch.exe open yourfile.PPS

(Note that the first verb in the autorun.inf file is **open**, not **start**.
Maybe you just made a typo.)

 

[JessiRight77]

Thanks so much, y'all.

I will definitely check out the Launch.exe... it sounds like this is
what I need.

Thanks again,

Jessi

 

[Echo S]

Ah, gotcha. I didn't know that.
Thanks for clarifying for me!