What is Toast used for?

[annelies]

I am trying to create a data CD for the hobbycrafts market. It was suggested that I use Toast. As far as I can see it does nothing different than what my mac can do.

 

I am a graphic designer and I have designed backing papers for the craft market. I would like to put them on a CD so that when the CD is opened anyone can look at one of the papers and click on it and print but when I drag my documents in it appears as an illustrator file. If I convert it to a jpeg is there a way that when the CD is opened the actual thumbnail can be made much larger?

 

I do hope that somebody can help.

 

Annelies

[tsantee]

Do you have Toast 9 now or are you looking for info to help in deciding whether to buy it?

 

Typically your situation is addressed by creating some kind of browser application or a PDF file so people can preview the images. A simple approach would be to use something like iWeb to create a gallery and to save the files so they are burned to your data CD. A user can then open the home.html page (or whatever you name it) and your gallery will be viewable in their Web browser.

 

Something you might check is the Photo Disc option in Toast's Data window. That creates a gallery of all the .jpg images.

 

I'm a little confused about what you're wanting this to look like.

[annelies]

Do you have Toast 9 now or are you looking for info to help in deciding whether to buy it?

 

Typically your situation is addressed by creating some kind of browser application or a PDF file so people can preview the images. A simple approach would be to use something like iWeb to create a gallery and to save the files so they are burned to your data CD. A user can then open the home.html page (or whatever you name it) and your gallery will be viewable in their Web browser.

 

Something you might check is the Photo Disc option in Toast's Data window. That creates a gallery of all the .jpg images.

 

I'm a little confused abotut what you're wanting this to look like.

 

 

I actually already have Toast 9.

 

It is a bit confusing to try and explain what it is I want. I want somebody, most women use pc's, to be able to open the CD up and in front of them they have a number of pictures named as e.g. Japanese, Art Deco, Art Nouveau etc. and when they click on the picture up comes various choices e.g. backing papers, toppers, embellishments, teabag folding, scrapbooking etc. etc. If for example they choose backing papers they will be sent to another screen and this is where they would make a choice of what paper they require, click on that, and it sends you to a page that you would print. Sometimes these CD's are interactive for instance you can change colours, sizes, fonts etc. but I am quite happy with a static CD at the moment.

 

Hope this is a bit clearer. I have already used iweb to design a site at http://www.headjamgraphics.com but at present there is nothing on it for the crafter there are only galleries of wedding stationery and greeting cards.

 

You mentioned that I should check out the Photo Disc option in Toast's Data window, where exactly is that.

 

Thanks in advance

[tsantee]

I actually already have Toast 9.

 

It is a bit confusing to try and explain what it is I want. I want somebody, most women use pc's, to be able to open the CD up and in front of them they have a number of pictures named as e.g. Japanese, Art Deco, Art Nouveau etc. and when they click on the picture up comes various choices e.g. backing papers, toppers, embellishments, teabag folding, scrapbooking etc. etc. If for example they choose backing papers they will be sent to another screen and this is where they would make a choice of what paper they require, click on that, and it sends you to a page that you would print. Sometimes these CD's are interactive for instance you can change colours, sizes, fonts etc. but I am quite happy with a static CD at the moment.

 

Hope this is a bit clearer. I have already used iweb to design a site at http://www.headjamgraphics.com but at present there is nothing on it for the crafter there are only galleries of wedding stationery and greeting cards.

 

You mentioned that I should check out the Photo Disc option in Toast's Data window, where exactly is that.

 

Thanks in advance

This is outside my area of expertise. I think the easiest thing to do is to create this in iWeb except instead of putting in on the Web you merely save it and copy the iWeb content to a CD (with Mac & PC as the format). When they open the home page file it launches their Web browser where they can click on the images which link to the pages you're describing. You might go to the iWeb forum at discussions.apple.com to find someone there who could help you learn if this is doable with iWeb.

 

There is some control in Toast with what people see when the disc is inserted. It is different for Mac and PC users because the OS treats these differently. When you select Mac & PC as the format in the data window you'll see an option to Auto-open disc window. Clicking the More button shows you options for what view the window defaults t, whether there is a background to the window, and if there is an autorun item for Windows users (Macs don't do autorun).

 

The photo disc is something you just need to see to understand. Choose it as the format in the data window and drag two or three folders of photos to the window and burn a CD. You also can choose Save as Disc Image and then mount the resulting .toast file to see how this works. It creates both a Mac and a PC slideshow along with the folders that contain the original images. Opening the slideshow starts a player that on the Mac has an index page of thumbnails and a quick import to iPhoto option. The PC side has an autorun that starts the slide show when the disc is inserted. This doesn't provide an opportunity to link to other files, however, so it doesn't meet your basic requirement. It is an excellent way for people to view a gallery of images, though.

 

Unless you find someone who has experience creating the kind of disc you're wanting I'm afraid you're in for some trial and error on your own. Something to note is that Toast lets you create a temporary partition. This temporary partition is like an empty hard drive the size of your CD. You can add and edit anything on the temporary partition and when you're ready to burn the disc, just drag the contents to the Data window. Everything will be properly linked. The option to create the temporary partition is in the Toast Extras menu.