Menus with Movie Factory 6

Henderson50 · Post by **Henderson50** » Thu May 17, 2007 5:40 pm

Is there a way to add more menu entries per page instead of the defaults that Movie Factory sets up?

I'm making a DVD with 11 short movies on it. It spaces out the 11 titles anywhere from 2-4 per page, making you flip through 4-6 menu pages. For the life of me I can't figure out how to get more titles added per page so there might be only 2 menu pages (or even 1) instead 4-6 pages to flip through. I've resized the video preview area to just about nothing (I'd like to delete it entirely if possible, but haven't found a way to do that either), but it still doesn't accept more entries per page even when there's plenty of extra room for it.

Thanks for any advice.

DarrenUK · Post by **DarrenUK** » Thu May 17, 2007 8:37 pm

Not sure about Movie Factory but in Video Studio there is a customize option in the menu album, you can choose different layouts, some have up to 9 spaces for thumbnails on them. I would think MF would have the same sort of feature.
I also have PhotoImpact and have thought about copying and opening up a layout .ufo to add even more thumbnails to a page.
Seeing as VS and MF menus can both be created in PI, this should work.

In fact I just looked in VS, there is a 12 thumbnail template in the 4_3 layouts, but strangely not in the 16_9 ones. If MF does use .ufo layout files I could probably try to create a new one.

lazael · Post by **lazael** » Sat May 19, 2007 11:07 am

Once you've chosen your desired menu template you can edit its layout.

In the menu stage 2/3 click EDIT > Customise and then click on the drop-down menu to change from the default navigation buttons to layout selection. Choose a layout - and away you go

!

Henderson50 · Post by **Henderson50** » Sat May 19, 2007 4:33 pm

lazael wrote:In the menu stage 2/3 click EDIT > Customise and then click on the drop-down menu to change from the default navigation buttons to layout selection. Choose a layout - and away you go !

The only option in that drop down menu is Navigation Buttons. There is no Layout Selection option there. How do I get that to show?

lazael · Post by **lazael** » Sat May 19, 2007 7:29 pm

Your project has to have a couple of chapters in at least one of your clips.
In step 1/3 click on Add/Edit Chapter, then either on Auto Add Chapter or move the cursor to where you want one and click Add Chapter.

In the step 2/3 you will now see that Advanced Settings allows you to tick the Create Chapter Menu. You'll also see that the preview offers a selection in the Currently displayed menu which was previously greyed out.

Henderson50 · Post by **Henderson50** » Sat May 19, 2007 11:15 pm

Finally!

Thanks so much for the help.

I think my original installation of the program was bad which was probably a lot of my problems. I added chapters for each title, and still the Layout selection didn't appear in step 2/3. So I closed it all and started over again from scratch and it wouldn't let me change menus from the Gallery. It would keep popping up an error message "Failed to change menu". Rebooted and same thing.

So I dug up my disk and reinstalled it choosing to repair installation. Tried it all again and there's way more menus available now, some even with 9 thumbnails on the first page that I didn't have before. When I added chapters, Layout selection was there and templates alone will give you up to 8 items on page 1. Went back for the heck of it and deleted all chapters, and it still would bring up the Layout selection there, so probably having chapters isn't necessary.

Two final questions if I can impose one last time. Is there a way to have the music play only once instead of constantly repeating?

And once in awhile the program pops up a message that it requires a 1280 screen resolution and won't let me do anything until I change to that. I'm usually at 1192 res and usually not that bad to change over since I don't run anything else when working with videos. It's just one of those annoying things that doesn't always happen, just once in awhile and never at the same step. Any fix to stop it (other than being in perma 1280 res that is)?

Thanks again for all the help. Loving this program.

silverstyle · Post by **silverstyle** » Sun May 20, 2007 1:48 am

I recently upgraded from version 4 to version 6. In MF4, I could put up to 12 items on each menu page (not that I ever had to use that many,) but in MF6, i am limited to 5 or 6 items per menu page (including those for chapters.)

I note that Henderson50 applied the repair option from his disk and was able to then get up to nine. I have the download version of the software and there is no repair option. Am I missing something.

I find I am falling back to MF4 for some projects because of this.

Thanks.

Henderson50 · Post by **Henderson50** » Sun May 20, 2007 6:49 am

Not sure how the downloaded version differs but I would think the functions would be the same.

The repair option comes up when you start up the installation of the program again. The install wizard starts, and then when it picks up that you've already installed Movie Factory 6, the next screen gives you 2 options, to either Repair or Remove the program.

lazael · Post by **lazael** » Sun May 20, 2007 11:03 am

Henderson50 wrote: I added chapters for each title, and still the Layout selection didn't appear in step 2/3.
... reinstalled it choosing to repair installation. Went back for the heck of it and deleted all chapters, and it still would bring up the Layout selection there, so probably having chapters isn't necessary.

It all depends on which template you choose. MF is wizard driven and as such some options are only available under certain conditions. And so you play the game - where the heck is that option I used last time. Visible but greyed-out options would have been more helpful.

Is there a way to have the music play only once instead of constantly repeating?

DWS2 has the option to play a menu once, or X number of times - MF does not.

a message that it requires a 1280 screen resolution and won't let me do anything until I change to that.

For the monitor resolution - sorry, programmers are now only catering for the guys with BIG screens. Each screen size and or adapter needs coding. The same applies to audio cards. Thats where the minimum required spec comes into play. Some games e.g. are only written for one or two popular ( i.e. latest ) display cards !

lazael · Post by **lazael** » Sun May 20, 2007 11:15 am

silverstyle wrote: ... upgraded to version 6. In MF4, I could put up to 12 items on each menu page but in MF6, i am limited to 5 or 6 items per menu page (including those for chapters.)

Have you tried using the Layout option as described in this thread ?
Copy your MF4 templates to MF6's directory to better test it - not sure if they'll all work. ( Not sure what you mean when you say "upgraded to version 6" ).

I have the download version of the software and there is no repair option. Am I missing something.

The trial is a limited version as regards extra content, and only has one template. I think the download version of MF6 may have the repair function incorporated.