Animate button when clicked. Simper way?

johnmeyer wrote on 1/11/2006, 4:05 PM

I want a button to show a short animation (actually a video clip) when clicked, and once that plays, I want the button to link to the main media (MPEG-2 file) and start playing.

I did this by creating an exact duplicate of my menu. On the first menu, I have the button with the animate/still selection set to still. That button then links to the second menu which, as just noted, is identical, except that the animate/still for the button is set to animate, and the duration of the underlying menu is set to exactly the duration of the animation with the end action for the menu set to link to the MPEG-2 file.

This works just fine but, since there is no copy/paste way to duplicate the entire menu page, it is cumbersome to make everything identical. Also, any changes I make later have to be made to both menus, and they have to be exactly the same.

Is there an easier way to do this?

Comments

ScottW wrote on 1/11/2006, 5:57 PM

Well, the ability to clone or copy menus would sure be nice to have - DVD Lab Pro will let you do this (as well as save the menu as a template).

Baring that ability, you could create the menu in Photoshop and use the "Insert Menu from File" feature.

Another option - go into preview mode, click on CopyToClipboard, save the clipboard out to a file (via Paint or whatever) , then use that as the background initially for your new menu so you can get buttons aligned properly. and then switch to your standard background.

--Scott

johnmeyer wrote on 1/11/2006, 6:17 PM

Scott,

Thanks for the input.

I guess its time I tried making a menu in PhotoImpact (my PhotoShop equivalent). I know I can do far more that way but just haven't taken the time to learn.