Feature Request: PPT Support

[garethnunns]

It would be absolutely amazing if you could see the current run time on a video playing in PowerPoint. It's not always possible to extract the videos out of the slides in time or due to layouts in the slide, removing it into playback doesn't make sense.

I did a quick google and couldn't see a clean way to implement this. Perhaps a standalone separate solution is to make an add-in that exposes the run time to an API - this could be extended to allow extracting notes plus remotely progressing slides. There is also potential for this to be implemented in VBA.

[DrewLX]

Sadly you get very little runtime information via the new API and the older one doesn't pass video information either so I think as much as this would be nice, it's currently not possible.

[phuvf]

I've just come across the various Alteka projects and they're very all very interesting - some are similar to ideas that have been suggested to me in the past but I never got round to developing. Now someone else has done a great job on them, I don't have to make excuses any more!

Anyway, this issue is something I could help with, so thought I'd chip in:

I've not tried, but I think this might be possible using VBA - either using a PPT add-in, or via PowerShell.

The property I'd be trying first would be something like SlideShowWindows(1).View.Player(1).CurrentPosition
See also: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/powerpoint.player.currentposition

If I get a chance (And you're interested in pursuing this) I might try and knock up a proof of concept - I've already written a notes-extraction add-in which we use as part to OctoCue.

[DrewLX]

Oh hi Nick! I'm well aware of OctoCue. I'd be keen to explore this for sure but I almost see it as going a step further...

If it was a PPT add-in it could, for example, take the remaining time and update the notes for that particular slide so that the operator (or presenter) can see the remaining time on a VT. So it could be used without VTKounter but then pass that information to VTKounter should you wish to use as part of a larger system design. What means of communication do you get from the add-in to other apps? Or could it just be a module in VTKounter that then also updates the notes field?