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P3I -- PowerPoint Picture Insert
================================
Copyright (C) 2005-2017 Clark Morgan (spammers.are.scum@gmail.com)
P3I invokes P3ICLI to insert multiple picture and/or graphics files into
Microsoft PowerPoint template slides.
Known Compatible Hosts and Versions of MS PPT
=============================================
Win7: Office 2007, Office 2010
Win8: Office 2010, Office 2013
Win10: Office 2016
Known Incompatible Hosts/PPT Dialects
=====================================
NT3.51
Office 95
PowerPoint 97
Unsupported Hosts/PPT Dialects [*]
==================================
Windows 2K, XP
Office 2000 (support w/drawn as of P3I v1.10)
Office XP (may still work, not tested since about P3I v1.20)
Office 2003 (support w/drawn as of P3I v1.5)
[*] These hosts and/or dialects may still work, but no testing is
performed for same.
Credits
=======
+ P3I is a wrapper around P3ICLI, which was in turn created from
Georgia Morgan's specification.
+ P3I's install/uninstall/setup facilities are provided courtesy
of Jordan Russell's nifty Inno Setup installer, available here:
http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
License
=======
P3I is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
any later version. In essence, the GPL states that this software may
not be sold for other than media reproduction costs and if sold, source
code must be supplied when requested by end user(s).
P3I is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
Change Log
==========
v1.60, released 7/29/2017
+ Main form shows scroll bars if resizing hides controls (e.g., the
file selection control). Also useful on compact laptops where
the main form may not fit on the display.
+ Bug fix: Main form file "Selections" control is no longer clipped
on its bottom edge when P3I runs on a host with large desktop
display fonts enabled.
+ Fixed minor user interface issues in the Obscure Options dialog
box.
+ P3I supports the P3ICLI "encoding {ansi | utf8}" command
(available in P3ICLI v2.9 and later). The default encoding is
ANSI text. However, UTF-8 text (for caption and title strings)
may be enabled from the P3I configuration dialog box.
+ Option added to Configuration dialog box that enables/disables
the aforementioned "encoding" command.
+ P3I now uses .Net Framework v4.5 .
v1.50, released 1/20/2017
+ Support for Office 2003 dropped due to lack of testing resources.
Even though P3ICLI may still work with Office 2003, no support
is offered for any problems that may be noted.
+ Support for Windows XP dropped due to lack of testing resources.
+ Source code distribution now includes P3I build documentation.
+ P3I verified to work on Windows 10.
+ Added an Obscure Options dialog box that provides access to these
P3ICLI features:
- third party fix
- custom properties
This dialog box can be launched from P3I's "Edit" menu.
+ P3I (p3i.exe) and its installation package are now signed with
a code signing certificate. The signing certificate format
(SHA256 digest) is recognized on Windows 7 and later hosts.
Note: The p3i.exe signing certificate is flagged as invalid
on Windows XP, but P3I should still be functional.
v1.40, released 4/24/2015
+ P3I ported to VB.Net, using the Windows Forms UI technology
+ P3I supports the P3ICLI "slide size {default | 4:3}" command
(available in P3ICLI v2.2 and later).
+ Support for Windows XP is dropped. The last version known to
support XP is P3I v1.30 .
+ P3I no longer requires a companion DLL (p3ilib.dll).
+ Within P3I's primary user interface, the only resizable screen
element is the Selections Control. This change is by design.
+ When filenames are pasted from the clipboard into P3I's Selection
control, folders and nonexistent files are discarded. See next
bullet for a related change.
+ The P3I Paste menu commands (accessible from the Edit menu or
Right Mouse Button context menu) are now enabled only when
clipboard data contains at least one _existing_ file. I.E., it's
no longer possible to paste raw text into the Selections control.
+ Semi-bug fix: When P3I connects to Office 2010 PPT (or later) for
the purpose of reading a template's layout (i.e., P3I's
"Read Layout" button is pressed), a momentary full screen "flash"
of a running instance of PPT occurs. In this P3I release, the
"flash" has been mitigated as much as possible. Note that PPT is
not a particularly well-behaved Automation app and there is no
apparent way to fully suppress this annoyance.
+ Within the configuration dialog box, the font of the file types
text box is now mono-spaced, which facilitates easier reading of
punctuation characters.
+ Within P3I's configuration dialog box, only the three textboxes
may be resized (when stretching/shrinking the form). This change
is by design.
+ Configuration dialog box includes a new option that, when checked,
causes P3I to start with the same screen location and window size
in effect when the program last exited.
+ Configuration dialog box layout changed to support 2 new options.
v1.30, released 2/18/2015 (p3ilib v1.03)
+ P3I once again operates correctly with Office 2003.
+ Bug fix: As a side effect of viewing a p3icli script, do not
increment the numeric caption or title suffixes.
+ Bug fix: When the number of pic/cap shapes is > 9, assign
picture/graphic files in the correct order (e.g., pic1, pic2,
... pic9, pic10, ...). This fix supports p3icli's recent change
to allow up to 20 pics/caps.
+ P3I installation installs mscomctl.ocx when that file is missing
from the Windows system directory (required change for at least
one Windows 8 host).
+ P3I verified to work on Windows 8.
v1.20, released 9/28/2009 (p3ilib v1.03)
+ This release repairs all of the broken template slide comments
features (which only worked with PPT 2000). Namely:
- The Remove Slide Comments feature now works, if used in
conjunction with P3ICLI v1.7 (or later).
- The First Comment text box now displays the first comment found
on a template slide.
- The Comments text box now displays the total number of comments
found on a template slide.
+ Remove Slide Comments startup value may be set via the
Configuration dialog box.
+ Bugfix: pressing Enter (aka CR) in the Ordinal Slide text box
now forces P3I to advance to the selected slide (used to beep).
+ Warning: using Powerpoint 2000 with this release will almost
certainly cause P3I to abort.
+ P3I is a mature product, now entering maintenance stage. Send
enhancement requests and/or bug reports to Clark Morgan, here:
spammers.are.scum@gmail.com
v1.10, released 9/12/2009 (p3ilib v1.03)
+ About dialog box displays installed P3ICLI version.
+ A "Last Log" command was added to the View menu. This command
displays the P3ICLI log file generated by the most recent click
of the "Files -> PPT" button. The log file contents can be useful
for diagnosing problems such as attempts to load nonexistent or
inaccessible graphics/picture filenames, as well as documenting
P3I/P3ICLI bugs :-) . The log file format is simple:
Line 1: program exit code (i.e., number of errors detected)
Line 2: error/warning/informational message #1 (if any)
Line 3: error/warning/informational message #2 (if any)
etc.
+ A "Copy Source Formatting" checkbox was added to the P3I user
interface. Checking this option specifies that P3ICLI copies
background slide formatting information (e.g., design, color
scheme, gradients, etc.) from the "source" template slide during
the execution of a P3ICLI script. This option is desirable when
the source template slide includes background graphics that are
required to appear on the presentation that P3I generates.
Examples of such background information include (but are not
limited to):
- a company logo
- a footer that includes slide numbering information
- a standard company color scheme
Note 1: user-defined textures cannot be copied from the source
template for any version of PPT released prior to Office 2007,
since no programmatic support exists for this formatting feature.
Note 2: this feature is only supported by P3ICLI version 1.6 or
greater
Note 3: this option's initial value can be set via the P3I config
user interface.
+ Browse Template button now supports selection of PPT 2007 file
extensions (*.pptx and *.potx).
v1.00, released 2/3/2008 (p3ilib v1.03)
+ Caption, Title, and Sort options added to configuration menu.
v0.40, released 1/23/2008 (p3ilib v1.03)
+ Now possible to add a title string to a template slide's title
shape. The GUI allows the user to optionally specify a filename
as part of the generated title string and when so selected, the
first file added to a slide is used in that generated string.
+ Now possible to add caption strings to a template slide's caption
shapes, provided that captions and rectangular picture shapes are
paired. This implies that a CAP1 caption string will be created
if and only if PIC1 exists, that a CAP2 caption will be created
if and only if PIC2 exists, etc.
+ Corrected display problems in the About dialog box for various
screen resolutions.
v0.30, released 1/6/2008 (p3ilib v1.02)
+ Edit menu added, which includes the usual actions:
- Copy P3I file selections to clipboard
- Cut P3I file selections to clipboard
- Delete P3I file selections
- Paste text (presumably filenames) from clipboard to P3I
- Select all P3I file selections.
Additionally, this menu provides access to a Configuration dialog
box.
+ New configuration dialog box allows specification of the default:
- Initial file types used by the Browse Pictures common open
dialog box.
- Browse Pictures folder.
- Browse Template folder.
+ Right mouse click enabled over file selection area and much of
the P3I GUI. Right mouse pops up edit menu.
+ P3I accepts filenames via drag and drop from Windows Explorer.
+ P3I is released under the GPLv3 license.
v0.20, released 1/20/2007 (p3ilib v1.01)
+ File and View menus added.
+ P3I now remembers the last 20 folders from which pictures were
selected. Any of these folders may be quickly revisited via the
File menu's "Recent Folders" submenu.
+ "Purge Recent Folders" submenu added to File menu
+ The View menu's "P3ICLI Script" submenu may be used to view the
P3ICLI script that P3I generates based on current input
parameters. This submenu is enabled if, and only if, P3I's
"Files -> PPT" button is enabled. Use this feature to learn
P3ICLI syntax or to save script(s) for later replay by P3ICLI.
+ Bug fix: P3I could hang for up to 60 seconds when sending images
to PowerPoint on a host with Office XP and Norton AntiVirus
installed (the latter installs an Office plugin that executes a
virus scan when a new document is opened).
v0.10, released 12/18/2005 (p3ilib v1.00)
