Setting transitions for entire section

We Have three services on Sunday and one on Wednesday. The second service on Sunday morning we need to set the timing for about 40-50 slides. Doing each one individually is very, very time consuming. I'm thinking if switching back to V3.5 is this is not addressed soon. Please fix this.

Ours wasn't as big a deal as John's, since the only issue I was having was trying to slow down the fade a bit on a number of slides. When I found out I'd have to do each one individually, I just decided to live with the faster fade. Still, I'm wondering if one of the Media Shout folks could chime in on this. Thanks.

It is easy, but you have to set it up before you import your pictures.
1. Import a (any) picture and edit its cue properties how you want them to be. Click the Template menu and save it as a new template. I called it "Slow Slide Show."
2. Go back to the Files Deck, and at the bottom, choose the template you just made.
3. Select the images and drag them to the cue, they will have the template applied to them when added to the script.

Rev. Lovejoy hadn't thought of doing it that way! But it works! Thanks Sturart!

I don't know if it's another weird glitch in how MS4 works, but when I did step #2, I lost my mouse arrow and it wouldn't focus on anything on the screen. So instead of doing it that way, I went to open the graphics I wanted and there between "type" and "select", you can chooe the template to apply to the images. It worked fine. Thanks again for the great response, Stuart!

Stuart the fix you are saying is that I would need to make a template for every possible transtion set I would want to use? Am I understanding this correctly. This does seem like a pretty good work around for the time being. Thanks Stuart. I still think that they should work on a way to select them and choose your settings. I think that would make it a lot more flexible and easier to customize.

Every church does things differently, Paulie, but I'm thinking three transitions cover about 95% of what my church needs. A slow fade with a 15 sec. timer for our looped announcement slides before worship. A medium fade with manual advance for song lyrics or sermon bullet points. And a medium-quick fade with a 8 sec. timer when we're displaying a bunch of photos the kids took on their mission trip while they're reporting on their success (or similar 2-3 minute testimony / "mission moment" type things).

Brian I totally agree...thats why I'm hoping that the MS team is working on including this feature. So there is an easy user friendly way to cusmtomize your transitions and speed for several of the same types of cues at the same time. We use different combinations depending on the type of media.

You know what, Paulie? What you just mentioned made me think that the real solution to this would be to have some wizards that do the sorts of things that churches tend to do again and again. You and I are probably comfortable using what you called a "work around" solution, but when I hand this to somebody who is a non-'techie', it'd be great to have a wizard that would set this up for them.

Instead of cluttering up the interface, a wizard option from the top menu would walk somebody through step-by-step the process of adding these commonly used items (like looping announcement slides or mission moment photos). I'm liking this idea!

The best would be the ability to "shift-click" multiple cues already in the script and change their collective properties. The wizard is also a good idea.

Martin,
I see what you mean. I was using "shift-click" to select a range of images in the File Deck with my template already chosen and then dragging them into the script. It worked that way. When you select them one at a time, it reverts to your default.
WORKAROUND 2: Set the "Really Slow Slideshow" template as your default temporarily until you complete the presentation.

Paulie,
I find I tend to do 90% of things in one of three ways, not necessitating a lot of templates. And you could always delete a "one-off" template when done. Or keep saving over a template called "Temp." Other things I do are complete unique and not likely to be repeated.

MediaShout,
In the Insert->Bible... and Lyric... dialogs, you are allowed to select multiple items. Why not add this in the Insert-> Graphic... dialog?

2 More Cents.
For photo presentations, when time allows, Use Microsoft's free My Photo Story 3. In less than an hour (not counting rendering/saving) You can have a professional photo show with motion and dissolves, instead of static pictures.

The "workaround" from Stuart is not an option here (sorry). We are a large church and sometimes we have to change things on the "fly" as the spirit leads. I will bring in a dozen or more slides, and set it with one transtion setting, then bring in more and set a different transtion time. I like how V3.5 handles this. Right now I took V4 out of production and we are using Version 3.5 until I can find a satisfactory solution.

We also use Media Shout for our drama productions with music, sound effects, video, lighting, and pictures. We usually have over 100+ cues to fire. This is in addtion to what the sound and lighting guys do. There are two copies of Media Shout running many screens in our main sanctuary alone.

John,
We are a "large-ish" church, but we're not doing what you are talking about, everything is completely scripted in advance, very little on the fly.
I still wonder about how you did/are doing this in v3.5? Especially since in 3.5 the templates seemed harder to apply to images. In 4 the templates are right at the bottom of the Files Deck.

Also, are you often using the same images (or sets of images) with the same settings, or are they always different? If you often use the same images (or sets), they could each be saved in a script and dragged from the script deck instead of from the files deck.

Paulie, I didn't know you could do that (set timings on multiple selections) from the script. That will help us becuase we make one script that DOES loop, and one script that DOES NOT loop and use the same announcement cues. Previously (v3.5) we had to edit each cue and changed it from timed to manual. Thanks!

But it seems like adding the ability to select the transition and speed And the ability to apply a different template should be available for multiple items.

UPDATE: I couldn't edit my old post. In version 3.5, I did not know you could shift-click cues and change them together. I see now that you can, and in v3.5 you COULD set the transitions and speed AND timing AND select your template. In v4 it seems like an oversight to have left out the ability to change the transition, speed and template on multiple items.

Thanks Chris for looking this over!

Still have the same problem with the latest build b112.1. I think this should be reported as a problem instead of a question.

Same issue here. Looks like they're working on a fix. Can't wait to have that. I have had to do a lot of individual transition adjustment, and it was so much easier in v. 3.5.

Tried a couple of things mentioned in the above replies and may have a good temporary solution. I have 21 Text cues for the pastor's message this week. Did not like the transition speed on them. Too slow a dissolve for the words on the screen. Edited the first cue to get the speed I wanted and clicked apply. Next click on the template options icon (t) at the top of the edit block and saved the properties to the template I was using. Next I shift clicked the remaining 20 cues, right clicked, selected edit cue and then click on the Template window itself to reselect the same template and then clicked apply. Every one of the cues changed to the faster speed. Did the same thing to change the fx and remove the drop shadow. Had been created black type with black (75%) drop shadow. Hope this helps

You still can not set Transition Duration for multiple picture cues like you can with V3.5. So this is still an open issue.

Nope. It doesn't work. You can change manual to timed and change the duration but you can not set the transition type. This issue is not resolved.
I can choose a template, but that requires having a template made for something I might just do once in a while, or not always the same way.
Tried in 126.1

I am sorry how this sounds, but I keep getting the impression that some of the MediaComplete staff is only skimming these posts and then marking them solved.

Thanks MS for getting this fixed along with several other great fixes. I am now confident that we can convert the entire team to this version now.