The Main Window is where all the gdvdslides action takes place. It consists of four areas: the Menu and Toolbar area, the Slide List area, the Image Preview area and the Effects area. The Menu and Toolbar area has a static vertical size, but all the other areas can be increased or reduced in size by using the sliders attached to them.
Menu and Toolbar Area
The Menu and Toolbar area contains general controls for gdvdslides.
The New Slideshow button and menu item will clear all the gdvdslide controls and will set you up for a new slideshow. If you are already editing a slideshow when you click on the button, you will be asked if you wish to clear the slide list.
The Open Slideshow button and menu item will display an open file dialog. You can then navigate to and select a slideshow script. The suggested file extension for these is .script, although you can use any file extension you wish.
The Open Recent menu item contains a submenu which consists of a list of slideshow files you have already worked on. You can reload one of these by clicking on its menu entry.
The Save Slideshow button and menu item saves your current work to a script file. If the work is new and has not yet been saved, a save dialog will pop up and the script can be saved as a script file. If the script already has a name, the changes will be saved to that file. A backup of the old file is made before the changes are saved.
The Save Slideshow As menu item will cause a save dialog to pop up, asking where you want to save the script. If you select an existing file to write to, you will be asked if you are sure you want to overwrite it.
The Exit button and menu item will allow you to exit from gdvdslides. If you have not yet saved your work, you will be prompted to do so before the program quits.
The Cut slide menu item allows you to cut the selected slide from the slide list and copy to the clipboard.
The Copy slide menu item allows you to copy the selected slide to the clipboard.
The Paste slide menu item allows you to paste the clipboard slide into the slide list.
The Create Video button and menu item will open a terminal window and will run dvd-slideshow using the current script.
The Slideshow Duration button and menu item will give you an idea of the duration of the slideshow. This value is approximate only, as it only includes all the images and does not include other slide items that take display time, such as titles, titlebars, musictitles and any embedded videos.
The Default Settings button and menu item will display the default slideshow settings dialog.
The Help menu item causes this help file to be displayed.
The About button and menu item will cause the About gdvdslides dialog to be displayed.
Slide List Area
The Slide List area is where all the lines for the slideshow are listed. This includes all the images, as well as things like transitions, titles, background images, audio clips, video clips, etc. This area also contains controls that are specific each slide.
The size of the slide list area can be changed by grabbing the slider attached to the right of the area and dragging it to the left or right.
If you right-click or double click an item in the slide list, an edit box will pop up that will allow you to make small changes to the item. Note that you must take care when using this edit capability, as you can easily alter the format of the line so that dvd-slideshow cannot understand the line.
The Duration editing box allows you to adjust the amount of time (in seconds) that the selected slide image is displayed. Note: The duration value will be saved to the image item only if you click the Apply button.
The Subtitle editing box allows you to provide a subtitle for the selected slide. Subtitles are never displayed - they just help document the slide. Note: The subtitle value will be saved to the image item only if you click the Apply button.
The Audio Clip editing box allows you to provide an audio clip for the selected slide only. The duration value for the selected slide will be ignored and the image will be displayed for the entire length of the audio clip. Note: The audio clip value will be saved to the image item only if you click the Apply button.
The Apply button saves the fields above it to the currently selected image in the slide list.
The slide list buttons are duplicated in the program menu. You can access them in the slide list area or the main menu.
The Add images button causes an open picture dialog to pop up. You can select one or more JPEG images from the dialog. The chosen images will be added to the end of the slide list.
The Remove all slides button causes all the slides to be removed from the slide list. gdvdslides will ask you if you really want to do this before it is actually done.
The Delete slide line button deletes the selected slide line. The program does not ask if you really want to do this - it just does it.
The Add transition button causes the Transition/Other dialog to be displayed. You may select from one of seven kinds of slides, which will be added either before or after (based on radio buttons in the Transition/Other dialog) the currently selected slide line.
The Paste last transition button will add the last selected transition either before or after (based on radio buttons in the Transition/Other dialog) the currently selected slide line. This button only applies to transitions, not other items from the Transition/Other dialog.
The Move line up button will cause the selected slide line to move up one position.
The Move line down button will cause the selected slide line to move down one position.
The Toggle preview button will turn the image preview on or off.
Image Preview Area
The image preview displays the selected image from the slide list. You can toggle this display on or off as you wish. Having it turned on causes slide line selection to slow way down as it takes time to get the image from your hard disk and time to display the image. Preview must be turned, however, on if you wish to draw effects rectangles on the image.
Effects Area
The Effects area allows you to apply a special effect to the selected slide image. Only one effect is allowed per slide. For more information about Effects, go to the Effects page.
