The Tool palette provides single-click access to tools for selecting and editing objects in the Menu window, as shown in Figure 5-18. Like the other palettes, it floats over the entire desktop, beyond the bounds of the main Encore window.

Figure 5-18. The Tool palette.

Encore provides two selection tools on the Tool palette: the plain Selection tool (the top solid arrow) and the Direct Select tool (the second outlined arrow).

To select a complete object in the Menu Editor (e.g., a menu button), choose the Selection tool and then click the object. Encore displays a blue bounding box with selection handles around the object. To select multiple objects, Shift-click (or Ctrl-click) additional objects with the Selection tool to add them (or remove them) from the current selection. You can also select objects by dragging a rectangular marquee in the Menu Editor window. Drag the Selection tool to select only buttons, or the Direct Select tool to select all kinds of objects.

The menu elements are also listed in the Layers palette. You can select a button, text, or graphical element in either the Menu Editor window or the Layers palette, and the corresponding element is also highlighted in the other window, as well as displayed in the Properties palette (see Figure 5-19).

Figure 5-19. Menu elements are displayed simultaneously in the Menu Editor window, the Layers palette (shown), and the Properties palette.

The Direct Select tool is used to select individual elements within the layer set that defines a button. These can include the button graphics, text, video region, and highlights. You also can view and select individual layers by clicking the disclosure triangle for the button in the Layers palette (see Figure 5-20).

Figure 5-20. Select individual button layers using the Direct Select tool or the Layers palette.

Positioning objects in the Menu Editor window works as you would expect: you select items and then drag them around. You can drag more objects into the window to add them to the menu (e.g., from the Project window or Library palette), and you can select and press Delete (or choose Clear from the right-click contextual menu) to delete them.

Encore offers handy assists for positioning objects:

Encore also provides assists for copying objects:

Although you can use a tool such as Photoshop for more advanced object editing, Encore also does provides options for flipping the orientation of an object:

For example, you can copy the same decorative element in the four corners of a menu, and then flip the two on the right side horizontally and the two on the bottom vertically so that all four are mirrored in their corners.

Guides

Encore 1.5 also introduces the concept of alignment guides that can be displayed in the Menu Editor, as shown in Figure 5-21. These guides can be displayed as overlays to help align objects in the Menu Editor window. They are stored with the menu for use in editing, but are not included in the final DVD.

Figure 5-21. Use the Display Guides button to show each alignment guides; use the Add New Guide button to add an another guide.

Press the Display Guides button (or select View → Show Guides) to display the guides defined for each menu in the Menu Editor window. If you want to add a new guide, press the Add New Guide button (just next to it). After doing so, you will see a small dialog open, asking you if you want a new horizontal or vertical guide, and how many menu pixels to the right or down Encore should place it. See Figure 5-22.

Figure 5-22. Adding a new alignment guide to the Menu Editor.

Once onscreen, you can adjust the position of a guide by using the Selection or Direct Select tool and placing the cursor exactly over the line. The cursor will change its appearance, and you can drag to reposition the guide along the menu. If you want to prevent yourself from accidentally moving guides, you can lock them in place by choosing View → Lock Guides (or pressing Alt-Ctrl-;).

Warning

Again, remember that the guides will line up according to the actual pixels in the menu, which will differ from the displayed screen pixels if you are displaying the menu using nonsquare pixels.

When moving elements inside a menu, alignment guides help you by “snapping” the element to the line when it gets close enough. (The selection boundaries and centerpoints of elements will snap to the guides, as well as the baseline of any type that is inserted.) Note that this works the other way around as well: when adjusting the position of an alignment guide, the guide will snap to a selected object in the same way. If you want to disable this snapping effect, choose View → Snap to Guides (or press Shift-Ctrl-;).

To remove a guide, just drag if off the edge of the menu. If you want to remove all the guides, you can also choose View → Clear Guides.

Use the selection handles around the perimeter of the blue bounding box to resize the selected object. If multiple objects are selected, all of them will be rescaled accordingly. Use the center handles on each side to scale vertically or horizontally, or the corner handles to scale in any way (see Figure 5-23).

Figure 5-23. Encore provides assistance for positioning, copying, and scaling objects on a menu.

Encore lets you scale proportionally or from the object’s center point (you can stretch one side of the object in the direction that you drag, or expand or contract the object from its current position on the menu):

Besides tools for positioning and copying objects, Encore also provides layout tools for adjusting multiple objects, arranging the stacking order of overlapping objects (or layers within an object), and for laying out objects across the menu window.

Choose Object → Arrange to adjust the stacking order of multiple overlapping objects, from top to bottom (front to back):

Figure 5-24. Use the Arrange, Align, and Distribute options to lay out objects (and layers) on the menu.

For both Align and Distribute, you can choose whether the objects are laid out across the entire area of the menu, or within the rectangular region that encloses the selected objects:

Use Object → Align to align multiple objects horizontally or vertically on the menu:

Choose Object → Distribute to spread out multiple objects evenly across the menu:

With these tools, you can line up groups of buttons or other elements, and spread them evenly on the menu.