With Encore, you can create navigational links quickly and easily with drag-and-drop actions. You can select items in the Project window, and drag them into buttons in the Menu Editor.
As you saw in Chapter 1, the easiest way to make a menu with buttons to clips is to just drag-and-drop. It doesn’t get much easier than this:
Import your video assets (double-click in the Project window to display the Import as Asset dialog).
Create a menu (select a menu background in the Library window and click the New Menu button). Encore displays the Menu Editor window.
Select the video files in the Project window and drag them to the Menu Editor window.
Done! You now have menu buttons (in the default style from the Library), complete with video thumbnails, with all the links set to jump to the clip, play through it, and return back to the menu. The buttons are shown in Figure 7-9.
Figure 7-9. Automatically create buttons, and their associated links, by dragging video clips from the Project window.
However, let’s go beyond what we did in Chapter 1 and take a closer look at what Encore did for us. First, select one of the buttons in the Menu Editor and look at its settings in the Properties palette. Encore automatically created a timeline for each clip (now listed in the Project window), which you can now edit to add chapter points, additional audio tracks, and subtitles. The button is linked to the timeline for the clip, as shown in Figure 7-10.
Figure 7-10. The Button Properties Palette shows that Encore linked the button to the associated timeline for the clip.
Next, select one of the timelines and look at its settings in the Properties palette. Encore set the end action for the timeline to return to the menu after the clip is done playing. Finally, Encore also set the Menu Remote button to return to the same menu, so the timeline is now fully linked into the project. See Figure 7-11.
Figure 7-11. The Timeline Properties Palette shows that Encore linked the timeline back to the menu.
Warning
If you create multiple buttons for the same clip using this drag-and-drop technique, Encore will create multiple timelines for that clip. This can result in multiple copies of the clip on the final DVD. This probably is not what you want in your project. Use playlists and end action overrides, which are better alternatives.
Besides creating buttons and their associated links in one operation like this, you also can assign links to existing buttons using drag-and-drop. Let’s add another button template to the menu (select a button design in the Library and click the Place button). The Properties palette for this button shows the link as not set.
To set the link, display the Project window and drag a timeline or menu to the new button. Encore adds a link from the button to the destination. If you drag to a button that is defined with a video thumbnail layer, Encore inserts a thumbnail image of the destination clip or menu design.
When you link to an existing timeline or menu, Encore does not change the already-defined end action for the destination. You can, however, also drag a video clip file to the button, and Encore will again automatically create a new timeline for the clip, and link it back to the button.