Section 16.5. The DVD Mapand Autoplay | iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

16.5. The DVD Mapand Autoplay

As you can see, menus and submenus can build up with alarming rapidity. At times your projects may grow out of control; pretty soon, you feel like Hansel and Gretel with not enough bread crumbs.

iDVD's Map pretty much eliminates these navigation problems. It's a living, interactive diagram whose icons represent your DVD's menus, videos , and slideshows and reveal how they're connected. As your menu and button layouts grow more complex, you can use the map screen to help you keep track of your menu structure.

To view the map, click the Map button at the bottom of the main iDVD window. The element you were working on appears with colored highlighting (Figure 16-9).

When you're finished working with the Map, click the Map button again, or click Return.

Tip: Each menu tile now includes a flippy triangle. Click it to expand or collapse that limb of the menu tree, for ease in managing complex projects.

16.5.1. Editing in the Map

In previous versions of iDVD, the Map window provided a visual treat, but you couldn't really do anything there. But in iDVD 6, the map is interactive; you can actually design and edit your DVD on this single screen. For example:

Delete a bunch of menu screens or other elements all at once. Select them by Shift-clicking them individually (Shift-click a second time if you select an icon by mistake), and then press the Delete key.
Similarly, you can quickly apply new themes to the menu screens of your DVD without ever leaving the Map. Select the relevant menu icons, and then click the new theme on the Themes pane.

Figure 16-9. You can view the map either as a horizontal tree or a vertical one. Use the size slider to adjust the icons' size . Option-drag the background to scroll the whole windowa much faster method than adjusting the scroll bars individually. Open a menu or slideshow for editing by double-clicking its icon.
You can even add new menu screens and slideshows on the Map screen.

Start by highlighting a menu screen's icon in the Map. When you choose Project Add Submenu or Project Add Slideshow, youll see that it now links to a secondary screen.

At that point, you can specify which movies or which photos you want on those new screens by clicking Media, and then either Photos or Movies, and dragging your selections onto the newly created Map tile.
iDVD lets you apply transitions (cross-dissolve effects) that ease from one menu screen to another (Section 16.6.4.2). You can apply or change these transition styles en masse using the Map, too. Just Shift-click to choose the menu icons you want to transition out of, click Buttons , and then use the Transition pop-up menu to choose the style you want for all of them at once.
Watch out for the yellow triangle exclamation points. When you see one, point to it with your cursor (Figure 16-9). You'll see that iDVD has identified some problem with that menu screenit contains no buttons at all, for example, or it's got drop zones that you haven't filled.

16.5.2. Autoplay

The Autoplay tile is the key to a great iDVD feature: It lets you create DVDs that start playing instantly when inserted into a DVD player. No menus, no remote controljust instant gratification.

Hollywood DVDs use this Autoplay behavior to display video before the menu screen appears. You knowa bright red FBI warning, previews of coming attractions, or maybe just a quick snippet of the movie on the DVD.

You can do that, or you can use the Autoplay feature to create a DVD that never even gets to the menu screena DVD consisting only of Autoplay material. That is, you insert the DVD, and the whole thing plays automatically.

You could design a project this way for the benefit of, for example, technophobic DVD novices whose pupils dilate just contemplating using a remote control. They can just insert your Autoplay-only DVD and sit back on the couch as the movie plays automatically. Or you could design your DVD that way for use in a kiosk, or just to avoid having to muck around with menu designs.

The key to this feature is the Autoplay tile, the very first one in Map view (at the top or the left, depending on the view you've chosen ); see Figure 16-10. Whatever you drag onto it will play automatically when the DVD is inserted, before your viewers even touch their remote controls.

These are the kinds of things you can put on the Autoplay tile:

A video clip . Click the Media button, and then click Movies at the top of the pane. Drag the movie you want directly onto the Autoplay tile to install it there.
A still image . Click the Media button, but this time click Photos at the top. Now iDVD shows your complete iPhoto collection, including all of your albums. To use one of these images as a startup screen for your DVD project, just drag it onto the Autoplay tile. (You can add audio to it, too, just as you'd add audio to a slide-showby dragging in an audio file from the Audio section of the Media pane.)

Tip: If you tinker with the graphics tools in a program like Photoshop or AppleWorks, you could come up with a decent replica of the standard FBI warning that appears as the Autoplay of a commercial DVD. You could precisely duplicate the wording and typographical lookor you could take the opportunity to do a hilarious spoof of the usual warning.
A slideshow . Once you've got the Photos list open as described above, you can also drag an entire iPhoto album onto the project icon. Alternatively, you can click and -click just the photos you want, and then drag them en masse onto the Autoplay icon. In fact, you can even drag photosas a group or in a folderright out of the Finder and onto this icon.

To control how long your still image remains on the screen, or how quickly your Autoplay slideshow plays, double-click the Autoplay tile. You arrive at the Autoplay slideshow editor, a screen just like the one shown in Section 16.6.4.1, where you can adjust the timing, transition, and even the audio that plays behind the picture(s).

Note that unless you also turn on looping, described next , the DVD will eventually have to show something after playing the Autoplay material. For that reason, it's a good idea to designate a basic main-menu screen anywaysomething to appear after the Autoplay cycle is complete.

Figure 16-10. If you decide to add or replace your Autoplay material, just drag new stuff right onto it. Or, to eliminate the Autoplay segment, drag it right off the tile. It disappears in a little puff of Mac OS X cartoon smoke.

16.5.3. Looping

If you highlight the button for a movie, slideshow, or Autoplay tileeither in Map view or on a menu screenand then choose Advanced Loop Movie (or Loop Slideshow), you unleash another raft of possibilities. You can make a DVD that repeats the highlighted material (a slideshow or movie) over and over again and, in fact, never gets back to the menu screen.

Tip: In the Map, a small circle appears in the lower-right corner of any element you've set up for looping.

That would be a great way to create a DVD containing a self-running, self-repeating slideshow of digital photos that plays on a TV at a party or wedding reception . You could also use it to create a self-looping kiosk display at a trade show.

In any case, the DVD will loop endlesslyor at least until it occurs to someone in your audience to press the Menu or Title button on the remote, which displays your main menu. At this point, the Menu button redisplays the previous menu screen; the Title button causes a return to the main menu.