Using timing to advance slides fails when addin creates a dialog

[Jerry]

I've got an ActiveX control which works within PowerPoint. Associated with
that is a VBA addin which knows about my activex control. When my addin is
active, and the presentation reaches a slide containing one of my activex
controls, the addin creates a small control dialog which allows the user
access to the functionality of the control. All this works fine.

The problem is that if the presentation is using timing to advance slides,
as soon as it hits a slide containing my control (and the addin creates the
little control dialog) the presentation gets stuck on that slide and won't
auto-advance. I've found that by simply clicking the slide, timing
continues normally. I'm guessing that the creation of the little dialog is
shifting the focus away from the presentation, pausing the timing, and that
clicking the slides restores the focus and restarts the timing.

Is there any way to programmatically shift the focus back to the slide after
my dialog has been created, so that timed advance proceeds normally on those
slides? I'm tapped into the SlideShowNextSlide event. I've tried using
..Activate with no success.

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated ..

Jerry

 

[Chirag]

Can your VBA addin check if timed slide advance is being used and not popup
any dialog box in such a case?

- Chirag

OfficeOne Animations - Add over 50 animation effects to PowerPoint
http://officeone.mvps.org/anims/anims.html

 

[Jerry]

I had the same idea, and it worked fine .. unfortunately, the sales dept
would like to be able to run a presentation as a kiosk-type display, but be
able to interrupt it at will to manually demonstrate both the control and
the addin. This just may not be possible, so your idea is my fallback
position. Thanks for your reply.

I wish there were a way to get at the window handle of the slide show (so I
could try windows' SetFocus), or a way to send a mouse click to the
slideshow just after my form appears.. Oh well.

 

[Chirag]

The following line of code will get you the slide show window handle:
Handle = FindWindow("screenClass", vbNullString)

This should help you with your SetFocus() idea.

- Chirag

PowerShow - View multiple PowerPoint slide shows simultaneously
http://officeone.mvps.org/powershow/powershow.html

 

[Jerry]

I'll give it a try .. thanks very much.

The following line of code will get you the slide show window handle:
Handle = FindWindow("screenClass", vbNullString)

This should help you with your SetFocus() idea.

- Chirag

PowerShow - View multiple PowerPoint slide shows simultaneously
http://officeone.mvps.org/powershow/powershow.html

 

[Jerry]

Well .. SetFocus didn't do it either. Back to the drawing board. Given
that neither the control nor the addin can be used effectively in a timed
presentation, the sales dept may just have to live with not seeing the
addin's interface when a timed show is running. So be it. Still bugs me
though. Since simply clicking the slide causes timing to resume, there must
be some internal mechanism at work that could be manipulated. Another of
life's great mysteries. Thanks for your interest.