These images may come from any number of sources:
With the Liberal Slide Names option enabled,
Sync-O-Matic looks for files with either the .jpg or .gif extension in the lecture directory. When you select a directory, it scans the directory to see the images that it can find and then it sorts them alphabetically. So a good naming convention is quite useful.
This is an example of a naming convention which has worked for some users. Prefix each file
with a number 010 020 030 040 .... This way you can insert a few more images without
renumbering too badly. With the three digit numbers, you can let the rest of the file be descriptive.
You can optionally create a file called titles.txt to indicate the "title" for each image used in the on-line lecture index for jumping randomly around the lecture.
This file is not required and if present, it does not need to have a line for every image. It can have lines for images not used in this lecture.
The double quotes around the image file name and the title are required. lines with '#' in
the first column are comments as are blank lines.
Also optional is a file which contains the "notes" for the slide. This is similar to using the notes area in PowerPoint. The naming convention for the .not files is to use the identical name as the image file with the .not suffix.
The notes files are simple HTML, you can put in hrefs or other HTML stuff like
this.
To record the lecture with this directory and these images, open it using Open Lecture, selecting the directory. However, because Sync-O-Matic is looking for slides with the PowerPoint naming convention, no slides are found.
We must enable the liberal slide naming mode.
Enable the feature using
Options | Liberal Slide Names.
You are notified that any file with a GIF or JPG is now a slide.
Once the flag is turned on, the directory is re-scanned and the image files are found.
You can use the + or - to scan to see if Sync-O-Matic has found all the slides you think should be there.
It is important not to use this mode on directories which have been created from a PowerPoint-97 Save As HTML process. PowerPoint puts about 8 extraneous GIF images into the directory for various purposes including advertising Internet Explorer. If these directories are used with Liberal Slide Names turned on, these extraneous GIF images will be part of the lecture.
A lecture is recorded the same as any other lecture. Once you have set up the audio/video capture, you are presented with the slide viewer screen. You can resize this and move it around before or during the lecture.
When you have gathered your thoughts, press +.
Depending on the size of your image, you may have to resize or move the window.
Give your lecture, using + to advance through the slides.
The recording process has added two files images.txt and rawmedia.rm.
The images.txt file contains the timing information as to when the images are to be displayed. The rawmedia.rm file contains the encoded RealMedia.
The lecture is published in the normal way.
Looking at the lecture, your images are displayed and looking at the index, the titles
specified in titles.txt will be shown in the drop-down menus and other places in the lecture.
One of the advantages of Sync-O-Matic when compared to other web-lecture systems is that
nearly all of its operation can be examined and done manually. The whole design is set
up to give users both convenience and flexibility.