Run Slide Shows from Scripts

Scripts are useful for creating slide shows.

Scripts are useful for creating slide shows. Ordinarily, the speed with which you can display slides is limited by the number of times AutoCAD must access the disk to read the slide file. You can, however, preload the next slide from disk into memory while your audience is viewing the current slide and then quickly display the new slide from memory.

To preload a slide, place an asterisk before the file name in VSLIDE. The next VSLIDE command detects that a slide has been preloaded and displays it without asking for a file name.

The disk-access time to load the next slide overlaps with the viewing time for the current slide. You can specify additional delays with the DELAY command. Each delay unit is equal to one millisecond.

To stop a repeating script press ESC. You can resume the script with RESUME.

If the script will run for a long time, it is recommended that you use UNDO Control None to turn off the Undo log file.

Procedure

To run slide shows from scripts

To create a script that preloads slides

In this example of a script that displays three slides (files slide1.sld, slide2.sld, and slide3.sld), the time it takes to access the disk drive and load the next slide into memory overlaps with the viewing time for the current slide.

On the first line of the script, enter vslide slide1.
The first line begins the slide show and loads slide1.
On the second line, enter vslide *slide2.
The asterisk (*) preceding the slide name on the second line preloads slide2.
On the third line, enter delay 2000.
The third line specifies a delay of 2000 milliseconds to allow the audience to view slide1.
On the fourth line, enter vslide. On the fifth line, enter vslide *slide3. On the sixth line, enter delay 2000.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth lines display slide2, preload slide3, and specify a delay for viewing slide2.
On the seventh line, enter vslide. On the eighth line, enter delay 3000.
The seventh and eighth lines display slide3 and specify a delay for viewing slide3.
On the last line, enter rscript to repeat the script.
To stop a repeating script press ESC. To continue the script, enter resume.
The script may contain comments, as follows:

; Begin slide show, load SLIDE1

VSLIDE SLIDE1

; Preload SLIDE2

VSLIDE *SLIDE2

; Let audience view SLIDE1

DELAY 2000

; Display SLIDE2

VSLIDE

; Preload SLIDE3

VSLIDE *SLIDE3

; Let audience view SLIDE2

DELAY 2000

; Display SLIDE3

VSLIDE

; Let audience view SLIDE3

DELAY 3000

; Cycle

RSCRIPT

Quick Reference

Commands