Robin Williams Cool Mac Apps, Second Edition [Electronic resources] : A guide to iLife 05, .Mac, and more! نسخه متنی

Start by Selecting a Theme

DVDs use menus, as explained on page 183, to provide navigation to the content on the disc. iDVD provides various menu themes for you to choose from. Many of them are in motion and arthus called motion menus. If you have a lot of content to squeeze onto a disc, you can economize disc space by using static menus instead of motion menus.

A single iDVD menu can contain a maximum of 12 "buttons" (also called "links") which connect to movies, slideshows, or to other menus. The other menus can also contain up to 12 buttons each. So a single iDVD project can contain a maximum of 99 menus.

To open iDVD, double-click the iDVD icon in your Applications folder. Or single-click the iDVD icon in the Dock, if it's there.

To select a theme

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Drop zones

Some menu themes contain drop zones into which you can drag and drop a movie, a single photo, or a folder of photos. Drop zones do not link to anythingthey're just for visual effect and to make your menu more exciting and sophisticated.

If you click the "Media" button at the top of the Customize drawer, as shown below, you have access to all the photos, movies, and music on your Mac (see pages 198200 for details). To place a photo or movie in a drop zone, drag a photo or movie from the Media pane (or from any Finder window) to a drop zone. A folder of photos plays as a slideshow in a drop zone.

To customize the background of a menu and retain the drop zone, Option-drag a movie, a photo, or a folder of photos on top of the background (not into the drop zone). A blue highlight appears around the window to indicate you are replacing the existing background image. The drop zone remains as part of the menu design.

As you drag a movie to a drop zone, the drop zone highlights with a striped border.

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To remove an item from a drop zone, just drag the item out of the drop zone. When the pointer turns into a little puff of smoke, let go and watch it disappear in a big puff of smoke.

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Dynamic drop zones

iDVD's collection "5.0 Themes" in the themes pop-up menu includes motion menus that contain dynamic drop zonesdrop zones that are animated and move across the screen, adding even more visual dazzle to your menu. Menu themes with dynamic drop zones usually have multiple drop zones in the same menu that move into view. The theme shown here has five drop zones. You can drag a different movie or photo into each drop zone of a menu (see the following page).

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It's easier to work with motion menus if the Motion Playhead and Scrubber Bar are visible. If you don't see them, go to the Advanced menu and choose "Enable Motion Playhead." Click the "Motion" button to see the menu play. The Playhead moves along the Scrubber Bar which is actually a Timeline like you've seen in iMovie. You can grab the Playhead and drag it to any position in the Scrubber Bar, enabling you to easily work with different drop zones.

The intro segment of a motion menu plays only one time, then continues to the looping segment which repeats over and over.

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You can drop items into drop zones while the menu plays and drop zones move across the menu, but it's easier if you click the "Motion" button to stop the motion. Drag the Playhead to a position that shows the drop zone you want to work with, then drag an item into it.

Or double-click a drop zone to open the window shown below. All of the menu's drop zones are shown here and you can drag items to each zone.

Drag an item from the Media pane (or from any Finder window) and drop it into one of the rows in the drop zone window.

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