99 Manually Arranging Button Routing

#99 Manually Arranging Button Routing

Button routing controls where viewers go when using the arrow controls on their remote control. Normally, Encore DVD manages button routing automatically, but if you've added or arranged buttons manually, routings may need a bit of tweaking. Here's how.

Consistency? Ease of Access?

With menus like the one shown in Figure 99, I typically choose consistency over ease of access, and cycle the viewer through all buttons in numerical order rather than by position. This means that the down and right arrow keys always send the viewer to the same button, as do the up and left arrow keys. I'm not advocating this approach as much as encouraging you to choose a navigational paradigm and stick to it.

1.	In the Menu Properties panel, deselect the Automatically Route Buttons checkbox. This allows you to manually route the buttons.
2.	Below the Menu window, click the Show Button Routing icon (Figure 99). Encore DVD will reveal the button routing in the Menu window. Figure 99. Click and drag the link to the target button. Note In the cross over each button, the center number is the number of that button, while the other numbers are the buttons currently assigned to that arrow key. For example, for button 13 in the lower-right corner of Figure 99, clicking the up arrow key would move the viewer to button 12, the right and left arrow keys to button 9, and the down arrow key to button 1 (not shown).
3.	To change the target for any button, click the arrow key and drag it to your button of choice. For example, in Figure 99, the right arrow key for button 9 is being reassigned from button 13 to button 10.
4.	When finished, click the Show Button Routing icon to return to normal viewing mode.