20.5. Phase 3: Design the Menu ScreenOn the main menu screen now before you, you'll find two buttons :
Tip: If iDVD seems sluggish when you change screens, it's because the program is busily processing video in the background. To make it work faster, choose iDVD Preferences, click the General icon, and turn off "Enable background encoding." (Finally, close the General window.)Creating your DVD at the end of the process will take longer now, because the video hasnt been preprocessed. But at least you'll be able to work in the program without feeling like you're walking through quicksand.If things are still slow, your Mac may need more memory. iDVD consumes RAM like the ravenous tripletoed dire sloth of the Northern Antipodes consumes white-tailed wombats. (Dire sloths can be very, very ravenous indeed.) 20.5.1. All about ThemesThe moving drop zones, any music that's playing, and the font for your buttons are all part of a theme : a unified design scheme that governs how the menus look and behave, complete with attractive backgrounds, coordinated typography, and background music. iDVD 5 comes with 15 eye-catching new themes that include a host of visually stunning effects. It takes a lot of individual design decisions to make a theme. For example:
Figure 20-4 illustrates two very different looks for the same project. The difference lies only in the chosen theme.
20.5.2. Choosing a ThemeGoodness knows , you don't have to be satisfied with the tropically inspired Travel Cards theme. A wide range of canned themes awaits your inspection:
Tip: If you want all of your menu screens to have the same look except for the main menu, first use the Apply Theme to Project command described here. Then return to the main menu screen and click the theme thumbnail you want for it only.For example, you might apply Travel 2 to your entire project, and then choose Travel 1 for your main screen. When you're happy with the way the new theme looks, you're ready to proceed with your iDVD design work. Fortunately, you don't have to commit to a theme at this moment; you can swap in a different theme at any time until you actually burn the DVD. 20.5.3. Editing MenusIf you like the way everything looks when you click a desired theme, terrific . You're good to go. Skip ahead to "Phase 5: Burn Your DVD." Note, however, that a great deal of flexibility and control await in the meantime. You don't have to accept every element of the theme as it appears when you first select it. You can move your buttons around, change the labels on them, and so on. Chapter 21 offers the full scoop on these procedures, but here are a few of the most common redesign tasks . 20.5.4. Editing Titles and ButtonsiDVD usually adds a title to your menu screens, often near the top of the page, and usually in a larger font than any other text. You can edit it just as you would a Finder icon name : Click inside it to open up an editing box, type your changes, and then press Enter or Return. Editing button names works almost the same way, except that you single-click the button first, and then click the text itself to open the editing box. Keep these points in mind when working with iDVD text:
Tip: If your buttons' text labels are crashing into each other, try making the text wrap into a narrow column, so that it's several lines long. Simply press Return to start a new line; unlike previous versions of iDVD, pressing Return doesn't close the editing box. 20.5.5. Moving Buttons AroundEach theme comes with predetermined locations for your buttons. In fact, internally, each theme stores separate layout maps: one that specifies the button positions if you have three buttons, another for four buttons, and so on. iDVD lets you move your buttons around into new positions, but it's not as easy as just dragging them with your mouse. There's no grid to guide you, so the new button positions might not look especially professional. For example, when you play your iDVD disc on a standard DVD player, your menu buttons will sprout glowing rectangles to indicate which button is highlighted. If you've positioned the buttons too closely together, this highlighting might overlap other buttonswith ugly results. If you're absolutely , positively sure that you want the freedom to drag buttons around into new positions, open the Customize drawer. Click the Settings button at the top, and then in the lower third of the pane, turn on Free Position. Now the buttons are liberated from their grid. (You may want to choose Advanced Show TV Safe Area so that you dont wind up dragging the buttons off the TV screen.) Apple disavows all responsibility for the cosmetic quality of the results. Tip: At any time, you can make your buttons snap back to their original positions by choosing Snap to Grid from the Settings pane. 20.5.6. Reordering ButtonsApple may not want you to drag buttons randomly around the screen, but reordering them is a different story. See Figure 20-7. 20.5.7. Removing ButtonsTo remove a button from a menu screen, click it and then press the Delete key. Tip: You can also click the first button, and then Shift-click another button, to highlight all of the buttons in between. Or -click individual buttons to highlight only those. Of course, if your purpose in removing a button is to move it to a different menu screen, you can use the Cut and Paste commands in the Edit menu. (See Section 21.4 for details on navigating screens.) 20.5.8. Setting Button ImagesIn some themesincluding all of the iDVD 5 designsthe buttons on your menu screen are just bits of text. In some older themes, though, the buttons can actually be icons, pictures, or tiny movie clips that preview what's in store if viewers click it. In those situations, here's how you specify what that image is. 20.5.8.1. Moving previewsSuppose you have a button that, when clicked, plays a movie you've created. Here's where you can make iDVD display up to 30 seconds of that movie right there on the button.
Tip: A button can display video only if that button actually links to a videonot to a folder or a slideshow, as described in the next chapter.
Tip: If your video buttons don't seem to be moving, remember to set their loop lengths to more than 0 seconds, as described in step 4. Also confirm that you've turned on the Motion button at the bottom of the screen, so that it's green. 20.5.8.2. A still frame from the movieInstead of a looping video, your button's face can display a still image that comes from a particular frame of the movie. This is a typical style in Hollywood DVD movies, where a still image represents the scene that lies behind each button. The steps are exactly the same as described in the previous sectionexcept that you turn off the Movie checkbox shown in Figure 20-8. 20.5.8.3. Drop a picture or movieThe picture on a button doesn't have to be a scene from the movie. It can be any graphic you want. Just drag any graphics file right onto the button itself; you'll see the button image change instantly. This graphic can come from just about anywhere. For example:
20.5.9. Drop ZonesDrop zones let you use video, slideshows, and graphics as the backgrounds of your menu screens. Not every theme offers drop zones, but nearly all of the new 5.0 themes do: Travel Cards, Sliding Panes, Anime Pop, Baby Mobile, and so forth. As if you couldn't guess, the words "Drop Zone" (see Figure 20-9) indicate where the drop zones are. Tip: If you don't see the telltale phrase "Drop Zone" followed by a number, choose iDVD Preferences. Click the General icon, and then turn on Show Drop Zones. (This checkbox just hides the words "Drop Zone," not the drop zones themselves .) Tip: Albums in drop zones can display 30 images at most. What you'll get is a mini-slideshow, right there within the drop zone. (More on dragging out of the Photos pane in Chapter 21.) Replacing items in a drop zone . To replace what you've installed in a drop zone, just drag something new into it. Removing items from a drop zone . To delete an item in the drop zone, drag it away from the spot, just as you'd drag something off the Mac OS X Dock or the Sidebar. You get a cute little puff of smoke to indicate the movie or picture's disappearance. (If you drag it onto a menu button in the process of removing it from the drop zone, it becomes a video menu button.)
Editing a drop zone slideshow . If you've decided to create a mini-slideshow within the drop zone, you may wonder how you're supposed to adjust the order of the photos. Figure 20-10 tells all. Tip: Instead of clicking the drop zone and then clicking Edit Order, you can just double-click the drop zone. You go straight to the Drop Zone Editor window.
Add sounds . Drop zones have no sound, although you can import audio into the menu screen that contains the drop zone. See Section 22.4.2.3. Turning on Motion . If you've installed video into a drop zone and it doesn't seem to be playing, click the round Motion button at the bottom of the iDVD window. (When it's turned on, the button is green; when it's turned off, it's gray.) If it still doesn't seem to be playing, the menu duration may be set to 0 (Section 20.5.8.2). Turning off Motion also turns off any background audio track and brings motion menus and motion buttons to a standstill. (Caution: The status of this button affects both your onscreen project and the final DVD.) Locating a drop zone . As noted above, drop zones in several iDVD 5 themes appear only one at a time. To see them all (so that you can fill them with pictures or movies), drag the thin white scroll bar at the bottom of the menu screen until the zone you want flies into view. Alternately, you can visit the Drop Zone Editor window, which appears when you either double-click a drop zone or choose Project Edit Drop Zones. Figure 20-11 shows how to use this new iDVD 5 feature. (Click Return when youre done.)
Changing the duration . Use the Settings pane in the Customize drawer to adjust the loop duration for your menus (how long a movie clip plays before starting over). Whatever time you specify here controls the loop length of movies in menu backgrounds, video buttons, and drop zones. Note: If you drag a movie into a drop zone, you can't control where the movie begins as you can with button movies. In a drop zone, a movie always begins at the beginning. Startling, huh? 20.5.10. Redesigning the ThemeYou can change every tiny aspect of your themethe music, the background, the colors, the fonts, and so onif you have the time and patience. If you're so inclined, turn to Chapter 22 for a full discussion of theme creation. |