Customizing Remote Control "highlight/selection Order"

[secretss]

How do I customize the order in which the videos and buttons get highlighted when I press the arrow keys on the remote control? Does anybody know?

 

The default order is screwed up, and even if it weren't screwed, I have in mind my own personal preference for my project, so I'm wondering if Roxio does have a settings interface for this. I think this is quite an important feature in a DVD.

 

Here's a screenshot for an example:

 

There are 4 videos on the screen. Downfall of a Droid is highlighted first by default, as it should be. But when I spam the right arrow key, the highlight order goes from

Downfall of a Droid to

Cloak of Darkness to

Bombad Jedi to

Next to

Bombad Jedi again to

Home to

Next

 

and then it repeats in a triangle: Bombad Jedi -> Home -> Next, completely skipping Duel of the Droids. From Next, I hit the left arrow key and it goes to Prev, skipping Home, and then Downfall of a Droid. At this point I was so flabbergasted at how unintuitive and ridiculous the ordering was that I gave up plotting the rest of the paths.

 

What I want to achieve is:

Spamming right arrow key on video 06 goes to 07 -> 08 -> 09 -> 06 (repeat)

Spamming left arrow key is similar, but in the other direction

Left and right arrows stay within the 4 videos

Hitting the down key from 06 and 07 goes to Prev, down from 08 and 09 goes to Next

Left and right keys stay within Prev, Home, and Next

Up key from Prev goes to 06, up from Home goes to 08, and up from Next goes to 09.

 

I really hope there is a way to achieve this. I'm using Roxio Creator 2009 Ultimate. There should be a highlight order settings menu that lets us customize the highlight sequence/action taken upon hitting EACH of the 4 arrow keys for each clickable/linkable object (videos/chapters/episodes and buttons).

 

The ordering of videos in the "movies" tab in the task display area under "Project View" does not affect highlight order. The ordering merely lets us know in what sequence the videos were added to the project, nothing more. The order of buttons in the "Menus" tab also doesn't seem to affect the highlight order. All my menus and videos and buttons and whatnots are arranged neatly and in order (I am a perfectionist and a nitpicker) but the default highlight sequence STILL goes from video 06 to video 09 as I mentioned above.

 

What a headache!

[secretss]

Thanks for the reply! I'm not quite sure what you mean by "rearrange the navigation using the Menu Tree on the left by dragging the button to the Menu Tab".

 

This is my menu tree under the "Menus" tab:

 

Where do we drag the button from? Do we

1) Drag the actual, graphical button from the "Preview" area and drop it anywhere indiscriminately on the white space in the "Menus" tab? Or

2) Drag the actual, graphical button from the "Preview" area to the Menus tab and drop it specifically onto the title of the "slide" that contains said button? In my case, dropping the button on "Episode 2/6". Or

3) Drag the text-entry representation of the button from the Menu Tree and dropping it back onto the title of the slide that contains it? In my case, dragging "06 Downfall Of A Droid" to "Episode 2/6" and dropping it. That would bring the text-entry representation "06 Downfall Of A Droid" to the bottom of the Tree list and will also affect the corresponding actual graphical button's geographical position on the screen in the "Preview" panel.

 

I've executed number 3 many times before throughout the project as I like to have my video numbers in sequence on the Tree list. Doesn't seem to affect highlight order though. BUT, as you have also said, I too have a feeling the geographical positions of the actual graphical buttons (on the screen in the "Preview" panel), and especially their RELATIVE geographical positions, can affect the highlight sequence, albeit the effect is decidedly random and unpredictable.

 

Creator suite has always been aimed at less experienced users. ... Once you start moving the buttons around, etc. , then navigation can seem to be random.

 

Although my problem doesn't seem to have a solution, oddly enough I'm quite at peace now knowing this is out of my control (and not to do with my ineptitude with techie programs). Thanks again for replying, I'd honestly rather have someone reply telling me there is no hope than no replies at all which leaves me hanging.

 

A mini rant though: Roxio really NEEDS to give this some thought! There's "Create a DVD" and there's "Create a DVD - Advanced". It's an ADVANCED version for goodness sake, they should beef it up with more features and functions. If not why would I be using the advanced instead of the simpler version? The video commercial for Roxio Creator 2009 made it seem like a very professional "it-can-do-anything" tool. I didn't expect limited creative control. It's not just the highlight order that bugs me, although most of the other bugs I can live with or have found an alternative.

[sknis]

A mini rant though: Roxio really NEEDS to give this some thought! There's "Create a DVD" and there's "Create a DVD - Advanced". It's an ADVANCED version for goodness sake, they should beef it up with more features and functions. If not why would I be using the advanced instead of the simpler version? The video commercial for Roxio Creator 2009 made it seem like a very professional "it-can-do-anything" tool. I didn't expect limited creative control. It's not just the highlight order that bugs me, although most of the other bugs I can live with or have found an alternative.

 

Perhaps a poor choice of words or just comparative terminology. "Create a DVD" is a limited option "lite" version of MyDVD. MyDVD (Advanced) is the less limited application with lots of functions that will satisfy probably 95 % of the people who want to make home DVD. This is a consumer product whose cost is with reach for people who want to do this. I've used some other software of this type and they are all about the same or more limited.

 

For really advanced features, a pro-sumer software package is needed. Roxio's "Create a DVD - (Really) Advanced" is called DVDit. It will do what you want and more but it is expensive for just making menus the way you want them.

 

The menu you chose was designed to contain only 3 movies although you can add more. The default order for that menu is 1,2,3, For number 4, is placed over 2, you can drag it down. For the navigation, the right arrow should give you 1,2,3,4. That holds true for the 5th movie also. If you add the sixth, the navigation changes.

 

1,2,3,

down arrow

4,5,6.

 

If you don't use the right arrow, the navigation changes so that after the 6th movie is added, the navigation is 1,2,3,6 --since it can't go right anymore it goes down.. Getting back to 4 and 5 is a challenge involving back up and then using that down arrow. Since you want 4 movies on the first title page, look for one there with 4 movies.

[secretss]

For really advanced features, a pro-sumer software package is needed. Roxio's "Create a DVD - (Really) Advanced" is called DVDit.

 

The menu you chose was designed to contain only 3 movies although you can add more. The default order for that menu is 1,2,3, For number 4, is placed over 2, you can drag it down. For the navigation, the right arrow should give you 1,2,3,4. That holds true for the 5th movie also. If you add the sixth, the navigation changes.

 

Hey thanks for the heads up about DVDit! I'm going to check it out now. I'm actually using MyDVD though, not the lite version. I'm not quite sure I understand your explanation about the navigation though, I'll fiddle around with my project again and figure it out. Thanks again!

 

Edit: Wow! DVDit looks awesome! There're even audio tracks and a subtitle function!

[ggrussell]

Sorry, there is very little control over navigation. Creator suite has always been aimed at less experienced users. Navigation should follow according to how you added the video files AND the default template. Once you start moving the buttons around, etc. , then navigation can seem to be random.

 

The ordering of videos in the "movies" tab in the task display area under "Project View" does not affect highlight order. The ordering merely lets us know in what sequence the videos were added to the project, nothing more.

One user posted a way to rearrange the navigation using the Menu Tree on the left by dragging the button to the the Menu Tab. This does affect the selection order. This method still isn't consistent for me, but I can get to work sometimes.