GUI for DVDAuthor Questions

[burnman99]

Hi! I've got a couple of questions about DVDAuthor. I am able to use it to make motion menus with Avisynth, but is there any way I can make the animation start somewhere else besides the beginning of the clip? I've tried editing the avs file but it just goes back overwrites it to the beginning of the clip. Also can this program make switched menus ( the ones where the picture changes when you hit the up/down/left/right keys.

Thanks in advance

Rog

[borax]

but is there any way I can make the animation start somewhere else besides the beginning of the clip

No, not this way. But you can use the built in ChapterEditor, save a clip at any start point (Ok, it must start with a GOP ) and use this clip as animation (right click on the animation picture and replace the file).

Switched menus are not possible currently. Dvdauthor supports it, but there is no facility to use this feature in my GUI yet. Maybe I will add support for switched menus in a future version.

[rdwalt]

Hi Borax,
I was hoping I'd find the person who wrote GUI for DVDauthor. Burnman, I hope you don't mine me hijacking your thread for a moment. I tried installing yesterday and ran into a problem. AVIsynth installed fine. When I tried to run Setup.exe in directory 'GUI_DVDauthor_Setup' I received a window saying "Setup - Please insert disk" and when I clicked 'OK' got a message saying "Cannot find file <path>\GUI_DVDauthor.CAB - Please insert Disk". There is a window behind this one saying "Install - Copying Files, please stand by" but never installed. I don't know why it's asking to insert disk and that it can't find the .CAB file - it's right there in the same directory. I'm using GUI_DVDauthor_XP_Install.zip and followed the instructions in the readme file. My computer is running windows xp pro. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[borax]

I've never heard about such a problem...

but it seems to be common:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/239069/EN-US/

If that is not the problem (or the given solution doesn't work either), you can still install GFD 'by hand':

Download the 'EXE only' package: https://www.videohelp.com/~gfd/edcounter.php?file=download/GUIforDvdauthor.zip

Download the new dvdauthor version from liquid:
https://www.videohelp.com/~liquid217/dvdauthor-0.6.11_win32.zip

Extract all the files into one(!) folder of your choice like c:\Program files\GFD
(keep the subdirectories like 'ChapEditGFD_Pic' for the help files as they are!)

Run GFD (create a link to it on your desktop or wherever you like)

[rdwalt]

Borax,
Thanks so much for the super quick reply. Unfortunately I am not at home to test this. It does sound like the problem I'm having but I don't quite understand the resolution.

Modify the project such that no long filenames are used by any of the project's files, and then re-deploy.

Copy the entire contents of the setup from the CD (or network drive) to a folder on the local hard drive. Rename all files in this directory that currently have short filenames but originally contained long filenames.

I understand the majority of it but is this one step or two different options? If it's one step what do they mean by re-deploy? Is this something I can do? Sounds like a developer term.

If I install by hand will it be any different from the other installation? Is the Visual Basic application only used to install the GFD app?

[borax]

I don't understand the problem either. I think your harddisk will support long filenames...
Nevertheless it may make sense to try the installation from another source drive (at least if you should have more than just a drive C: ).
The installation 'by hand' is exactly the same as the installer version.

Is the Visual Basic application only used to install the GFD app?

No, GFD is a Visual Basic application. But the VB installer is not the best in the world...
On a WinXP machine there should be everything VB needs (i.e. the vb runtime modules like msvbvm60.dll, riched32.dll...)

[rdwalt]

The more I think about it the more I don't think it's a problem with long filenames. I did the 'by hand' install and that seems to be working. I don't have any files to author yet but I'll be back if I have any other questions. Thanks for all the help.

[liquid217]

Not intending to further hijack this thread any, but Borax, if you are looking to get a better installer, I would suggest using NSIS. If you'd like, I can share with you the install script that I use with dvdauthorgui. They are fairly easy to modify, if you are interested in adapting it for your gui.