the new way to experience the Web
User's Guide - Making a Show
the new way to experience the Web
User's Guide - Making a Show
The Envision main window
Figure 1 shows Envision's main window, and should be used as a reference for this chapter.
Figure 1. Envision main window
There are four ways to make a new show:
Make a new show from the Web
This is the most common way to use Envision. You point Envision at a Web site, and Envision looks for, downloads and displays images from that site.
To make a show this way,
and in the URL box enter the URL of a Web page of interest to you. Next,
Make a new show from a folder
Envision can also display images from a folder on a local drive. Point Envision to the folder, and Envision looks for and displays images in that folder (but not from subfolders within that folder).
To make a show this way,
and in the resulting dialog, specify the folder containing the images you wish to display. Next,
Note that by default, Envision will start playing the show automatically, unless you have changed the Start slide show automatically setting in the Show pane of the Preferences dialog.
Make a new show by searching the Web for images
You can have Envision search the Web for images on particular subject, and use the resulting images for a show. Currently, Envision uses the Google search engine for this operation. If you choose New Search... from Envision's File menu, you get the New Search dialog, shown below in Figure 2.
Figure 2. New Search dialog
Enter a search term of interest, such as "flowers", "Italy", Macintosh", etc, and click OK. Envision will send a search request to Google's Image search engine, and display the resulting images in a show. If you want more control over the images returned, click the Options button to pull down the options tray, shown below in Figure 3.
Figure 3. New Search options tray
The Size popup menu allows you to choose a range of image sizes that the search engine will return
New Search creates a show that overrides some of the default Preferences so as to correctly display the images returned (such as minimum image size).
With Filter Adult Content checked (the default), Google's SafeSearch filtering is used (moderate filtering). For details, see SafeSearch Filtering on Google's Web site.
Make a new show from a single image
Finally, you can have Envision display a single image file. Tell
Envision where the image is, and Envision displays only that one
image. To make a show this way, choose
Web Show of the Week
Open Door Networks now publishes a free Web show each week, for the enjoyment of Envision users. To download the latest Web show, or browse the archive of past shows, go to the Web Show of the Week Web site, or choose Show of the Week from the Envision menu.
Saving a show
Once you've made a show, you may want to save it as a file. To run a saved show, you need only open the file. To save a show
Specify a file name for the show, and a location, and then click Save. Note that the settings of the show are saved, but not the actual images. When you open a saved show, Envision goes to the main page URL and scans the site, looking for images to download and display.
Opening a saved show
To open a saved show
and then specify a Web show file, and click Open. You can also choose Open Recent from the File menu, and choose from a list of recently run Web shows.
Envision's Preferences dialog controls the default values used for certain settings in the Settings dialog. These defaults are used when a new show is created. If you find, for example, that you prefer 20 seconds for each picture instead of the default of 10 seconds, you can use the Preferences dialog to change the default for new shows to 20 seconds, rather than manually change the setting from 10 to 20 seconds every time you make a new show.
To access the Preferences dialog
The Preferences dialog is divided into panes, the first four of which resemble the corresponding panes in the Settings dialog:
The fifth pane, Application, does not correspond to any pane in the Settings dialog. It is show below in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Application pane of Preferences dialog
What's Next
Once you've made a show, you can
Forward to Customizing Content
Back to Watching a Show
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