How to make selection pointer in DVD Lab-Pro!!!

[caesarhawy]

Hi there..
I wanna know if somebody knows how to make a pointer in DVD Lab-Pro
I mean I wanna make a selection pointer (like arrow or any other shape)
instead of filling the sentence with another color when the selection comes to it..

THANKS IN ADVANCE..
CAESAR

[LloydAZ]

Hi there..
I wanna know if somebody knows how to make a pointer in DVD Lab-Pro
I mean I wanna make a selection pointer (like arrow or any other shape)
instead of filling the sentence with another color when the selection comes to it..

THANKS IN ADVANCE..
CAESAR

I don't have DVD-Lab in front of me at the moment, so I'm going off the top of my head. I've done this before, so it works.

Drop a graphic of a pointer next to each menu entry. Something like this:

-> Play Movie
-> Chapters
-> Extras

With my example of Play Movie, you select the graphic (not the text), go into links and select the movie file and select movie start (or chapter 0). With the other two you would do the same thing, but point at the menus for those options.

I also like to set the graphic as visible only when it is selected.

[guns1inger]

DVD Lab Pro ships with a number of pre-built pointers. Admittedly they aren't too flash, but they are there if you need them. I use dingbat fonts (font's made up of symbols) from dafont.com for mine, or create them photoshop.

Follow LloydAZ's advice, as it holds for DLP as well. The visibility settings are found in the right-hand property sheets when in menu design mode.

[LloydAZ]

DVD Lab Pro ships with a number of pre-built pointers. Admittedly they aren't too flash, but they are there if you need them. I use dingbat fonts (font's made up of symbols) from dafont.com for mine, or create them photoshop.

Follow LloydAZ's advice, as it hold for DLP as well. The vivibility settings are found in the right-hand property sheets when in menu design mode.

Dingbats! That's one I never thought of! I'll have to give that a shot, it sounds great! Thanks for the idea!

[caesarhawy]

Well it worked great for what I wanna do..
Thanks guns1inger..

[guns1inger]

Cool. dafont has a pile of specialised dingbats in themes. Pretty much something for every occasion.

[mwkurt]

If I understand this request, You want a pointer -> to follow the selections down your menu? So you do not want to have the pointer symbol always on each of your selections? If I am wrong sorry. but I believe the only way to do this properly is with switched menus. DVDLab Pro does this very well, and will in fact make all of the menus for you.
Look up "Switched Menus" in help and at the DVDLab forums.
Mark

[Gabaldad]

mwkurt, that's what I have been wrestling with for a few days.

I want to:
put a bullet point next to only the chapter that is selected. The bullet points would not be visible next to the other chapters until they are selected.

I have tried:
working with layers, button visibility, putting screens in front of the bullets, and grouping buttons (among other things I have found in tutorials).

The problem I am finding:
no matter what I try, the button SHAPE is selected with the button selection color, but the image itself does not appear.

A few notes:
- I can make underlines and frames appear using the visibility options, just not a graphic bullet point.
- switched menus work, I have made those before, but I would like to keep background music flowing, so this isn't an option (unless I missed something in the tut)
- I have many discs that have menus set up like this, so I know it can be done. I think I am just missing one crucial step.

Any help is of course greatly appreciated. Let me know if I am unclear about what I'm trying to do. Oh yeah, I'm using DVDLabPro.

Phil

[mikiem]

If it helps...

Most DVD authoring apps let you define a basic shape, and that shape is used as a highlight mask. AFAIK that mask defines where the highlight colors appear.

"no matter what I try, the button SHAPE is selected with the button selection color, but the image itself does not appear. "

If I understand this correctly, then I think you want more then just the basic highlight in whatever shape to appear/dissappear -- to my knowledge you have to find/use another app or use a highlight color that matches the background, covering an existing graphic. I *Think* you might be able to do what you originally wanted in DVD Author GUI, & I think also Maestro might be able to do it.

THat said, maybe I don't understand your question. If so please forgive.

"I can make underlines and frames appear using the visibility options, just not a graphic bullet point. "
--------------------
"switched menus work, I have made those before, but I would like to keep background music flowing, so this isn't an option"

THere have been a couple of threads discussing alternatives, like using a picture compilation with BOV for menus, though I'm not sure anyone reported success or not.

[Gabaldad]

mikiem, thanks for the input. Apparently I wasn't clear with my issues, so I re-tought my problem. I searched and looked at a bunch of different posts on many different boards. I finally found the phrase that brought everything home. To paraphrase, "this action can only accept single colors, the DVD spec does not allow for the full graphic to show through." My problem was simple perception. I had seen symbols on menus, balls, check marks, stars, even the DMB firedancer. It was my thought that any graphic could be used as a "bullet". I went back and looked at some of the menus I had and realized that no matter what shape the bullet was in, it was always a single color. Of course, you can use switched menus and retain the graphical bullets, but my intent was to keep a single audio track playing behind the menu. The bottom line is, what I wanted to do can't be done, and the answer was already there, I just had to find it.

Onward and upward, thanks for the help.

[dogano]

I can't do it, too. Here's my problem. I made an orange rectangle as a pointer. There are 1 menu and 2 buttons on it. The 1st one links to movie 1 and 2nd one to movie 2. Now i generate switched menus and get a copy of 1st menu. I made two images, (the 1st one=the orange rectangle is on button 1 and the 2nd one=the orange rectangle is on 2nd button). Then i replaced them as sw1 and sw2 but when i press down arrow on remote the orange rectangle (my pointer) doesn't go down on button 2 and still on button 1. I'm exactly wrong somewhere, pls help me...