[alangcox]

I have just installed TOAST 7.0.2 and am horrified by the garish DVD themes on offer, and the 'extras' one can buy from Roxio are equally awful. Does any one know how to get or create a simple background to a menu? it's dead easy in iDVD.

Alan Cox
UK

[debit72]

Alan, I don't know how much patience you have with this, but I was able to slightly modify the themes in Toast. If you go to the Toast application itself and control-click, select Show Package Contents.
Drill down through Contents > Resources > Toast DVD Menu Styles. All of the menu styles are there.

They are PSD files - Photoshop files. I happen to have Photoshop, so I made a copy of one of the styles and opened it up. I was able to change the background to a simple black fill. I tried changing the title font too but that didn't do anything. Oh, I forgot to mention that I renamed the PSD file and moved it back into the Menu Styles folder. When I opened Toast, it showed my new theme in the list, although oddly when I selected it, it changed the name from the new name back to the original name, so I had two themes with the same name. But I was able to burn a disc image with my new theme and it showed my plain black background.

Perhaps with a bit more experimentation one could figure out how it works and have more control. Hmmm ...

[freshburn]

Here's a Guide on how to create your own themes.

http://docs.roxio.co...7styleguide.zip

[debit72]

debit72, on Apr 5 2006, 12:07 AM, said:

Perhaps with a bit more experimentation one could figure out how it works and have more control. Hmmm ...

Yes, it's definitely possible. I had some more success. The key is figuring out where everything is. The PSD document has many many layers (to cover the different types of DVDs - video, slideshow, music; as well as covering all the bases for how many items appear on each menu). Luckily the layers are named in a fairly obvious fashion and one can make the layers visible/invisible to see what and where they are. And I solved the naming problem too ... it's in the File Info as the Document Title or somesuch.

The joys of reverse-engineering!

[alangcox]

Jeepers - thanks everyone. There's enough there to keep me going for quite a time.

Alan Cox
UK

[jfl4]

I have a related question. I'm trying to get rid of the thumbnail preview on the 1-DVD layout and replace it with a static image. I've only been able to succeed in obscuring the preview (the graphic image, however, did not show in it's place). I know I have to have a layer named "image" but I just want to know how to get rid of the preview and put something in it's place. I know my way around Photoshop but am not an expert by any stretch.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[miketall]

freshburn, on Apr 4 2006, 11:14 PM, said:

Here's a Guide on how to create your own themes.
http://docs.roxio.co...7styleguide.zip

I had read this manual previously and couldn't find any info on menu styles that support widescreen (16:9) format. Most of the video I have is widescreen, and it would be great if the menu was not the standard 4:3 aspect ratio.

I don't know enough about the DVD-Video specs to know how this is handled. Does anyone know if the menu also has the "16x9" flag that the video does? Or do I just need to change the image files from the included 4:3 to 16:9 aspect ratio.

Also, has any found someone that supplies 16x9 menu styles for Toast 7? Thanks.

-Mike

[tsantee]

miketall, on May 4 2006, 09:53 AM, said:

I had read this manual previously and couldn't find any info on menu styles that support widescreen (16:9) format. Most of the video I have is widescreen, and it would be great if the menu was not the standard 4:3 aspect ratio.

I don't know enough about the DVD-Video specs to know how this is handled. Does anyone know if the menu also has the "16x9" flag that the video does? Or do I just need to change the image files from the included 4:3 to 16:9 aspect ratio.

Also, has any found someone that supplies 16x9 menu styles for Toast 7? Thanks.

-Mike

I don't think Toast has an option for creating 16:9 menus. What you could do is use MyDVDEdit to change the IFO in the VIDEO_TS folder so the Toast menu gets anamorphically stretched to 16:9 (the same as have a 4:3 video "widened" for full frame viewing on a 16:9 TV. The process to do this is to use Toast to Save as Disc Image. Drag the VIDEO_TS folder from the mounted image file to the desktop. Select the VIDEO_TS folder and use Get Info to change the permissions for all the folder's contents to Read & Write. Open MyDVDEdit and select the VIDEO_TS folder. Select the item that is the menu. Choose the IFO tab and change the aspect ratio from 4:3 to one of the 16:9 options. Save. Burn the edited VIDEO_TS folder to DVD using Toast.

Maybe you can find a clever way to design the menu so that it looks correct when it gets stretched.

[JW34]

I've dissected the supplied theme go-by and made lots of changes which seem to work... except one. My main list Frame Selected is always defaulting to yellow. I changed what is called Frame Selected to red, but it always comes out yellow! Is this hidden soemwhere that I'm missing?

Thanks.