I wanted to see if I could run PhotoProto demos under Linux. Now, you can't make the demos under Linux, because Photoshop CS doesn't run on Linux, even with the CodeWeavers CrossOver Office product. (It supports Photoshop 6 and 7, but not any of the CS versions that PhotoProto requires.)

But that's OK. What I really wanted to be able to do is to send PhotoProto demos to colleagues who run Linux. This can be done if they have Wine.

All you have to do is send them the "assets" folder. If they cd to the assets folder, and then type

wine photoproto.exe -file xxxxx.xml

where xxxxx is the name of the XML file in the assets folder, it seems to work like a champ.

So far, I have tried it with my contest entry, upir's mouse game, and the FireButton4 example, and all of them worked fine.

Wine issues the following error messages, but it doesn't seem to hurt anything:

fixme:midi:OSS_MidiInit Synthesizer supports MIDI in. Not yet supported.
fixme:font:WineEngRemoveFontResourceEx :stub
fixme:font:WineEngRemoveFontResourceEx :stub
fixme:font:WineEngRemoveFontResourceEx :stub[/list]

I tried one that used the playsound action, and it complained that the Wine wasn't properly set up to play the MP3 file. While it is possible (I believe) to set things up so it will work properly, the chances of all your colleagues having their Linux systems properly set up to do this are probably not good. And if audio has problems, video and webcams will probably be worse. Unless you have some control over how all the Linux machines you are sending to are configured, it is probably best to avoid demos that use the playsound action, and the VIDEO, LIVEVIDEO, and 3DMODEL elements.

Lynn

Thanks for the Wine/Linux/PhotoProto info, Lynn. I happy to hear it worked (mostly) for you. We had known that virtualization of PhotoProto on a Linux platform was possible using Wine, but had yet to make a clear write-up/test case as you have done. Thanks again for providing valuable user feedback/experience to the Altia community. Keep it up!

_________________
-Brian Stewart-
Senior HMI Developer
Altia, Inc.
Altia.com - GUI, HMI, and User Interface tools that accelerate design, development, and deployment.

Hi, Lynn.

There is another option that doesn't require you to use Wine. Those who have a full (not trial) version of PhotoProto can get a Linux version of the player. This program will load up the .xml files, but cannot play audio, video, web cam, or DirectX content (yet!).

To use the Linux version of the player:
1. Get the photoproto.out by emailing support @ altia.com.
2. Put photoproto.out in the "_assets" folder.
3. Run your interface by typing:

photoproto.out my_file.xml

Cool! This is even better!

Thanks,

Lynn