To help in applying a consistent look to your menu designs, Encore also provides a Styles palette to change the appearance of images, text, and graphics objects in the Menu Editor. As you might expect, you can apply styles simply by dragging and dropping from the palette, and you can create and import your own styles from Photoshop.
Because Encore is based so strongly on Photoshop for defining and storing everything from basic graphics objects to layered buttons to complete menu designs, you will not be surprised to learn that styles are actually defined as Photoshop layer effects, which provide a large range of edge, shadow, overlay, and other effects to adjust and enhance the look of an object.
The Styles palette looks much like the Library palette you have seen before, with a Set menu to select from groups of styles, a preview area, toggle buttons to select between image, text, and shape styles, and the list of styles, as shown in Figure 5-42. The palette also includes a flyout menu to add and delete new items and sets, and action buttons at the bottom right.
Encore provides styles for three types of elements on your menus, corresponding to Photoshop layer effects for these types of graphics objects:
- Image
Bitmap images and graphics such as button elements
- Text
Text characters
- Shapes
Vector graphics objects
The predefined style sets provided with Encore include the following:
- General
Includes removing all existing effects
- Basics
Includes glow, emboss, bevel, and shadow
- Colors and Gradients
Used to change tint, sepia, and to apply color gradients
- Glass Styles
This option can be used for shapes
- Novelty
This option contains fun effects that you can use to spice things up
- Strokes
This option can be used for edge outline and shape interiors
- Textures
This option contains several textured patterns
To apply a style to an object in the Menu Editor, just drag and drop the style from the Styles palette onto the object in the Menu Editor.
To experiment with different styles, you can first select the object in the Menu Editor, then select the style in the Styles palette and click the Apply Style button at the bottom of the palette (or use the right-click context menu). Even better, just double-click the style name to apply it to the selected object.
In this way, you also can apply a style to a group of elements at once—for example, by selecting all the buttons on the menu and then double-clicking to change their text style.
To simplify using styles, you can apply them to layered objects such as buttons that may have multiple types of elements. Encore will apply the style as appropriate for the type—for example, by applying a text or vector style to the first such layer in a button. To apply a style to a specific element within a layered object, first select that layer in the Layers palette or by using the Direct Select tool. In this way, you actually can apply text styles to shape objects, and vice versa. And Image styles can be applied to all types of objects.
To remove all existing styles applied to an object, use the Clear All Styles item under the General set, or use the No Image Effects, Plain Text, and Plain Shape styles to remove style effects from specific types of objects.
A style in Encore is actually defined by a Photoshop file containing a single layer with layer effects applied to it. The type of the layer (image, text, or shape) determines the category under which it is stored in the Styles palette. Use the Add Item and Delete Item buttons under the palette (or in the flyout menu or right-click contextual menu) to add and remove new styles to the palette from saved Photoshop files. Or drag an element from the Menu Editor to save it in the palette as a new style.
Because Photoshop supports a broad range of layer effects, a style in Encore can either replace all styles applied to an object, or add to any existing styles that are already applied to it. You may have noticed that some of the predefined styles installed with Encore have names that begin with a + sign; these add the new effect to the existing styles applied to an object, instead of replacing all of them.
To replace all existing styles currently applied to an object, simply create a Photoshop file with the new effects applied to the layer.
To add new styles to an object without removing any other existing styles, create a Photoshop file with all possible effects applied to the layer. Then select only the effects that you want applied as part of the style by hiding all the other effects by clicking the eye icon in the Layers palette to make them invisible. You can copy the built-in styles to simplify doing this, as shown in Figure 5-43.
Figure 5-43. Use Photoshop to create new styles as layer effects. Make effects that you do not want to change invisible.
To create a new style in Photoshop, create a new image with a small resolution (Adobe suggests 150 x 150) and transparent background. Then create an object corresponding to the type of layer that you want the style to affect: draw a filled image pixel shape, type a text character, or draw a vector graphics shape. Then apply layer effects to create the desired style (choose Layer → Layer Style or use the button under the Layers palette). Finally, save the Photoshop file so that you can add it to the Encore Styles palette.
Or, you can modify an existing style. Like the Library palette, the original Style files installed with Encore are stored in its application program directory, in folders for the different sets. By default, the files are stored under:
| C:Program FilesAdobeEncore DVD 1.5Styles |
Encore then stores copies of imported style files on a per-user basis under the user’s data directory. For example:
C:Documents and Settings
username
Application DataAdobeAdobe Encore DVD 1.5Styles
|
Remember that the Application Data folder in the username directory is a hidden folder, so you’ll need to set your Windows folder properties to see it.