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  • The Still Menu Practical (PG 2 of 3)
  • This page will offer the practical application of Still Menus in Reel DVD 2.5. It is highly recommended that you read The Basics before trying this tutorial.


Now you're ready to create buttons
6. Undock the preview window by right clicking on the gray area around the screen. Uncheck "Allow Docking." This will offer a larger workspace.

7. As you can see, all of the black moons appear next to the text. The idea for this menu is to have those moons appear only when a command has been selected, so the moon appears to jump down the screen as opposed to simply changing colors as they are selected.

8. The four color bars at the bottom of the preview window's toolbar will make specific color changes to any menu selected. If you'd like to make selections for colors that will be project wide, you can do so at the beginning of the project from Edit>Project Settings>Color. Using this method will only change overlays imported after making these adjustments. Using the color tools at the bottom of the preview window are menu specific (they only change the selected menu) and can be done at any time.
NOTE: If you would like a more detailed description of the Color Tools and its functions, please visit our Color Tools page.

9. We must first define what areas of the subpicture overlay will be our buttons. We do this using the button creator tool highlighted to the right. This tool will operate like most selection type tools and is very easy to familiarize yourself with.

Note: This tutorial does assume that your already somewhat familiar with making button links. The hotspots in this example will be drawn larger than typical so you may see the number ReelDVD assigns to them. In real applications, simply remember that ReelDVD will number them in the order you created them. Start at the top and work your way down to keep things simple. It is very important that button "area" never overlap.

Need more detailed training?

10. Select the button tool and draw a box around the first moon next to "Play One." Notice that ReelDVD assigned this hotspot a number. Continue to do this for the remaining three moons, being careful not to overlap these boxes. Some DVD players will not play DVD's with overlapping buttons. Always start with the button that you want to be selected when the menu first loads. This will always be your default button. We can determine the remaining button order in the next step.
11. Button order will tell the player which button to highlight when a user presses the up, down, left, or right keys on the player remote. For this we use the Up/Down tool located directly to the left of the button circle.

12. Once you've selected the tool click on the box around the first moon, holding the mouse button down, drag it over top of the moon below, and release. You should have two arrows facing the two boxes, up and down. Repeat this step between all of the moons, and then finally from the bottom moon, to the top moon. This will allow the user to scroll though the selections using simply one button on their remote.

Note: In this particular case, there is no need to determine left/right button orders. When necessary, you would do so using the button on the opposite side of the up/down tool. You can also create the same button order using the left/right tool, so your user can scroll through the available choices, regardless of what button their using.

13. Notice now that the track window shows content within the Buttons track. This will become important as you become more familiar with Reel. This will allow you to delete an overlay and reapply a new adjusted one, without having to start over with button selections, button order, or even button links.