PictureGo!

Version 5.3 - June 2008

And here we are, barely June and the 5.3 release is launched. Months earlier than announced in the release notes above! And as I wrote before, 5.3 indeed does contains some nice features.

Audio player

Even when you have been a PictureGo! user for quite some time, chances are big that you never started PictureGo! as a stand-alone audio player.

Let's jump back a couple of versions.

The stand alone audio player was introduced in version... Hmmm.. let's see... it has never been mentioned in previous Author's notes... Okay, simply starting previous versions I can tell you it first appeared in version 4.1. In that same version the sound playlist was a new feature altogether.

Earlier, you could attach one sound file per picture in a MyShow file, as of 4.1 you could attach a sound playlist to a MyShow file (without a maximum of sound files) as long as the MyShow file contained at least one picture. While developing the new feature, I thought i would be worthwhile to add an Audio player to be able to play a sound playlist without having to play a slide show.

Do not think of visually very attractive players as the current Windows Media Player or numerous other spiffy players that can be found on the internet nowadays. No, just a list that could be put together with a couple of buttons to start, pause, skip etc. No searching on MP3 tags or connecting to the internet...just very, very basic. As if this was not bad enough: once PictureGo! was started as an audio player, the program could not be started for slide show purposes and vice versa.

Audio Player full size

The good news is:

The audio player is still as basic as it used to be.

PictureGo! can be run twice at the same time, once as a slide show program and once as an audio player.

The best news is:

Once you created nice sound playlists, you can start playing those directly from your desktop where a new shortcut will take you to all available PictureGo! sound playlists. No need to start PictureGo! first. And I'll assure you: that works very, very fast.

Audio Player compact mode

Without a doubt, other media players offer fantastic features to create sound playlists. The format of one of those (Windows Media Player) is supported by PictureGo!. Hence, create a fantastic sound playlist with Windows Media Player and play it with PictureGo!. Because, once the playlist is created, what more do you need than a couple of buttons to start, pause, skip etc.

Slide show from a MyShow file

Also a feature for quite some time that you might be unaware of: a right click on Windows Explorer gives you the option of instantly play a slide show of the selected folder. This concept is now also available for MyShow slide show files. Similar to the solution on sound playlists, you can start playing MyShow files directly from your desktop where a new shortcut will take you to all available PictureGo! MyShow files. On the fly, you can attach a sound playlist and change some basic settings. I would say, the quickest way to a slide show.

Instant Slide Show

I said it before but once again: I wish you wonderful summer holidays.

Auke Nijholt, the Netherlands , June 2008