Frequently Asked Questions

4 Is it possible to play a slide show produced with ZAP on a TV/DVD player ?
The visual effects you use in a slide show are "computed on the fly" by the host computer, while the show is running. Because a TV is not a computer, it can play only video where all the intermediate stages of the animation are already recorded in the movie being played. In such a case you should produce an AVI movie and not a Slide Show.
Note: Only modern TV/DVD players are able to play directly AVI or DivX movie, usualy AVI must be first converted to MPEG video format before to be burned on CD or DVD media.

4 Is it possible to use a specific sound track just for some pictures, and not the full slide show ?
In ZAP, a sound track acts exactly like a radio FM playing in the background while you are working. It could not be linked to specific pictures. Only voice records could be linked to specific pictures when you  build a slide show. However if you have a full duplex audio card you can record any sound "from what your hear" instead of using the microphone.

4 What is the difference between "Play" and "Ambient music" ?
"Play" is meant to play any type of media, "Ambient music" is dedicated to audio playing only.
Using "Ambient music" is like using WinAmp or another audio player even while the ZAP Media Player itself is being used. If you use "Play" with any multimedia audio (music, movie) the "Ambient music" will stop until the audio part of the leading media has been processed by the ZAP Media Player. When  the ZAP Media Player and the ZAP Audio Player are used together they use the same screen coordinates and the Audio Player (Ambient music) is hidden behind the Media Player (Play).

4 When playing audio, I don't see the visual effects in the spectrum display.
In order to see the visual effects you must use a full duplex sound card, and you must set the Windows audio parameters in "What you hear" or "Sound" mode.

4 Is it possible to use the ZAP Media Player from Windows Explorer ?
Yes, you just have to drag any file(s) selection from the Windows Explorer onto the "Media Solution" icon located on the desktop, or onto the ZAP Media Player if it is already running.

4 Thumbnails are re-created each time I am moving back to a folder where I have been already. 
This is because ZAP does not create a hidden thumb.db like Windows Explorer or ACDSee. We choose to save disk space instead of wasting folders with unwanted hidden files, also ZAP is fast to create thumbnails on the fly even from large JPEG files.

4 What is a ZMF file ?
ZMF is short for Zap Meta File, it is a graphic format that allows mixing of vectorial objects over any existing image file using multiple transparent layers that won't alter the content of the graphic file shown in the background. Creation of ZMF file requires the image annotation module that is provided in ZAP picture Tool with the ZAP Media Solution+ version. 
There is an example of ZMF file in C:\ZAPLITE\PICTURE\ZMETAFILE.JPG, try to look at it with ZAP and another graphic viewer and see the difference.

4 Sometimes there is a thumbnail missing in the folder listview, why ?
Because the browser could be very busy creating thumbnails at the time it gets the refresh display request from Windows. If this occures, just click the left mouse button on the missing thumbnail, and it will be shown.