DVD Lab Pro menu buttons...

[bobban]

Hello

I am in the process of converting my tv series vid files to DVD. I have quite a few to do so at the moment I am just experimenting with the process in terms of quality and conversion process speed. Any ways, I want to author in DVD Lab pro, "Normal" mode (VTS menu and movies). First time for me making a menu but its going fairly well...I have a general idea of most of the features....My desired layout is a button for each episode consisting of a thumbnail, a frame, text episode number and text episode title.

Now my button is complete and tested well...I made two. So, now the name of the game is repitition...I want to be able to clone that entire button.....then just change the thumbnail, text content and position....I figure out how to clone individual objects and copy attributes etc.....but havn't figured out how I can clone the whole thing.....your help and siggestions are deeply appreciated )

[guns1inger]

You can either hold down the shift key while you click on each itme in the group, or do a click-and-drag around the whole lot. Once they are all highlighted you can copy them en-masse

[bobban]

Once I do a multi select....the right click context menu changes to offering me allignment choices for the group.....I can no longer select copy from the Edit menu.

[guns1inger]

You are right - you can't do it. Never noticed that before. I create most of my menus in photoshop, so this has never been a problem for me.

A possible work around, although it's a pain, is to create the original menu item, then go Menu->Add->Add Duplicate. This will add a duplicate menu with your button on it. Highlight all the parts of your duplicate, and go Menu->Create->Combo Button. This will combine all the parts into a single item that you can then copy and paste. Alter your original and follow the process again to create your second button. Repeat until you have them all, then just copy and paste to a single menu page, and delete the duplicates.

Or use photoshop or paintshop pro to create them.

[bobban]

Wow, you certainly know your stuff Gunslinger....I tried the workaround...it works...but as you said, its a pain...

Maybe the photoshop route is a good idea for me...not sure though because I do like the ease of grabbing a thumbnail in dvd lab pro....what do you think?

[guns1inger]

Agreed - it is easier to grab the frames here. You could do everything else in photoshop, then come back into DLP just to add the images. I did a chapter menu once that had 32 images taken from the movie, each with a different icon as the selection highlight. Took about an hour to get them all aligned in position and size, and get the icons in place and linked.

If it was me, I would do the frame and text in photoshop, then come back into DLP to add the images. Do a two layer PSD file - background on one layer, frames and text on the second. That way you can drop the images behind the frames if you want to.

[bobban]

Hey I got good news....I found out how to do what I wanted to do through DLP......it's basically an extension of the combo button idea you gave me for the workaround Gunslinger....here it is:

1) construct button as I wanted it....only change is I leave out the thumbnail for now so my button is a frame and 2 pieces of text. Note that I initially make a thumbanil and resize just so I can set the frame size but for speed I leave this thumbnail away from the button but still on the menu - just so I can copy its properties when I make other thumbanils later.

2) group everything(frame and 2 pieces of text for me)...then from the top menus: Menu->Create->Export Button. Then save it. It is now in your combo buttons collection..

3) Just clone as many times as you want by drag&drop....rename text (make sure your text objects are 'centred' so that renaming them doesn't throw them out). Position all your buttons.

4) Now make you thumbails....copy the properties from the one you left aside earlier....drag them to the appropriate button....group select the frame and the thumbanil, right click and select align centre (note: make sure you leave out text here or it will get moved too). Now your thumbnail is in place an alligned...last thing to do is 'send it to back' so that the frame is on top of it....

It's still messy but if you took the thumbnail out of the equation then the process is a lot faster....I'm sure there a lots of little speed up tweaks yet...anyways thats it so far...