Hello, I have been using old Microsoft office 97 and I managed to get it to do something rather unusual (and cool). Because of its visual basic underpinnings, I was able to add a 3rd party timer control (search for TimerObj.zip), and this allowed me to execute code continually which enabled me to animate the objects on the slide - I can now make my motor and my planetary gearbox rotate (consists of star shapes) or cause the colours of shapes to change over time, etc. The original reason I got it was I thought perhaps I can dual-cpu my CPU intensive macros (haven’t tried yet).
Note that there are a few issues that I have not resolved yet:
:!:Each time a change is made the presentation window has to redraw so there is some flashing of the presentation (flashing is worse with transparency and fill effects; If I make the change on the next slide and then switch to it I should be able to avoid flashing; I have not checked to see if screen recording software can see the flashing. The slide editing window flashes in a different way).
:!:There is an undo-queue issue (modifications on a slide are all remembered as one step - and the animation grinds to a halt (literally). But if I go to the next slide, it starts a new undo step, which will eventually cause it to clear the first ones as fresh steps are added).
Is there a way to do something similar in OpenOffice? I forsee at least two basic changes:
Please enable the ability to modify the slide while the presentation is running (with no flashing please. It is still acceptable even if it is one change behind). Openoffice does not give a larger work area so it will be difficult to allow large groups of objects to move off/onto the slide (power point 97 has a huge workspace, I can place objects (all except freehand-lines) far from the slide - which is convenient for many other reasons too.). Edit: it is possible to move things outside of this little work area but snap to grid does not work (Click and hold before dragging. I do not like this function because I like my stuff on a grid (and it comes on accidentally), but it proves that the larger workspace is usable). The source code is given with TimerOBJ, perhaps you can port it.If you want to test it:
You first need to add the new OCX control to VB via the VB editor menu. A clock appears on the VB toolbox. Allow the controls toolbox to be seen in the power point window, and in the slide area, place the timer control beside the slide, and place command buttons on the slide and add code to start and stop the timer (the slide is used instead of a userform and VB allows code to be attached to the slide and the slide's objects). I recommend you have the timer increment the adjustment of an arrow arc (on slide 1), and the shape will auto reset itself once it reaches 360 degrees, This allows you to reference everything to a cycle. You shouldn't reference the animation to the slide show time because sometimes that count stops (going through the slides in reverse and for some other reason). Then you do a select case to determine which slide the presenter is on, and modify the shapes on that particular slide.
As for interaction with your animation, you can add checkboxes, command buttons (to set a string), and you can check to see if the user has moved the mouse to make the mouse cursor visable (ie, to trigger reverse, or to make the animation do a different task with the same shapes). The slide show presenter does not give any strings to tell us if the regular animations have been triggered or not (only tells us the current slide that is being shown), so animation of objects yet to appear with a "normal" animation will still cause the flash despite not being shown.
enjoy!
