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Lost in Menu creation area
JohnVIII [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Feb 20, 2011 19:44 Messages: 19 Offline
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Please see screenshot.

I've been away from this project for a while and forgotten how I did what I did and am not quite sure where I am. I only need to change it a little and it will be "good enough" in the circumstances. I can work with some elements in this shot but cannot touch the colored stylized ones, main title and "Starring." I created those elements but do not recall how and simply cannot touch them in this window.

1) Can anyone tell me exactly where I am? (In modify? Then why can I only work with certain elements? In the "main Disc Menu"? In "Menu Designer?")

2) How can I work with the main title and "starring" elements? (Again, how is it that I can work with some elements - evidently the original template ones, and not with others, the ones I added?)

I am afraid to navigate away from this for fear of losing my work - the four following chapter pages are done, OK. This page only needs a couple of tweaks. (Uniform stylization and centered title.)

3)How can I be sure this menu page and the pages following are saved before navigating away (to look for a place where I can work with the presently untouchable elements)?

The only "save" function I see here is "Save project." I am aware of and confused by saving issues within menu designer - save the "project", and perhaps the menu's not saved, different save functions for different parts of the project, for menu and menu structure. I seem to recall directions for saving a menu template or something in the menu design that involved "OK."

(This is a complete, hopefully simpler, restatement of a message I posted two days ago.)
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ynotfish
Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline
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Hi JohnVIII -

1. You are NOT in Menu Designer (in your screenshot). You have selected a menu template and clicked on "Apply to All Pages". That is why you cannot see any Save button. As you can see, you are at the final stage before burning your disc.

In your menu templates you have two called "elk 2010 title". One of those is the one you've selected.

In this part of Menu Preferences, you can change the actual words on the page & modify only basic text formatting (font, size & alignment).

Menu Designer is where you can fully format elements of the menu. That's where you can save your template (as you've obviously done previously)

You get to Menu Designer (to make or modify a template) by clicking on Modify or Create Menu.

If you want to further modify your menu:
i. Click on one of the "elk 2010 title" templates & select Modify
- now you're in Menu Designer
ii. Make the formatting changes you want (font, size, colours, buttons, layout etc)
iii. Save your modified template. Call it Elk_NEW or something different.

Then, to apply your modified template to your disc:
iv. Click on "Elk_NEW" and select "Apply to All Pages"
v. Change the actual words if you need to
vi. Click Preview to see if it's what you want
vii. Click Burn!

Hope that helps.

Cheers - Tony
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JohnVIII [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Feb 20, 2011 19:44 Messages: 19 Offline
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Thanks, Tony - you seem to have a grip on my world and I'd like to see if I can refine it and get any more light in here.

For reasons not related to PD I've had to restart my main computer, and am not back at it now. So my how-do-I-save-this-nearly-finished-menu-before-leaving-this page issue, unaddressed, is moot. I did use the "save project" button that was there. I'll find out if it's there tonight.

I didn't mention it but none of the thumbnails of saved menu templates matches the existing template. Still didn't after the "save." That was a source of my unease about the save issue.

I'm sure I did "select a menu template" to get there, and probably "apply" - the chapter pages have a different look from the menu or title page.

I'm OK with the way the chapter pages look, so I needn't select "Apply to all pages," right? Just "Apply"?

Now, if I read a little into your message, the answer to the puzzle about why I can work with some elements in this window and not others, is that some are simple and others are not within the "basic text formatting" that can be done here. But I can't even align them, can't even see the text box, just can't touch them. And since I can change other things, and did, on the menu template and on the chapter pages, I'm left with that save issue. What happens to that work when you leave that window - you selected "apply" to get there and now changed it - and can't "apply" the changes? If I can make changes, I should be able to save them, surely. Perhaps it will all clear up tonight.

I do have the program on this computer, and I just disturbed myself by playing with it. Selected a menu template, clicked "apply," made a change, and cannot find any way to save or "apply" it. Tried "save project", "apply" after making the changes (that re-applys the unchanged template and you can see that your work is lost). It's utterly senseless to be able to make changes but not be able to save them, so what am I missing here?

Right now it appears that I will find all my work lost, since I did it in this window. I even previewed the work, so losing it this way will be arrrrrrgh.

Hope you can clear this up for me - Thanks much-

John

Carl312
Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline
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Right now it appears that I will find all my work lost, since I did it in this window. I even previewed the work, so losing it this way will be arrrrrrgh.


If you saved your project before you shut down, then you should be OK.

All of that work is saved in the project file. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

JohnVIII [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Feb 20, 2011 19:44 Messages: 19 Offline
[Post New]
I have finally gotten back to PD, and there is no trace of my work even though I did "save project," the only save function available (?) where I was.

Tony was right, I was not in Modify, and I had clicked "apply." I think the lost work was all done before "apply" was clicked, on some generic template that appears before you select anything. Selecting a template I lose that. You can make changes in that space, but you can't save them - that's my understanding now, but it can't be true. Can it?

Opening the three templates that look like they are my work does not get me back to where I was. (I believe I created them long ago, and they're unrelated to my how-to-save and lost work issue.) If you refer to the screenshot in the message above you'll see a play button and a chapters button. Gone. I have numbered "Item" buttons, (Which mean nothing to me! No "play," no "scenes" or chapters," how does this work?). And the chapter pages presentation that shows up alongside the template - in the "modify," "apply," "apply to all pages" window - is generic and not anything like what I had.

I can see my chapters in "Menu Structure," with their names, but the main title and the page names I used are gone - all back to "My Videos."

How I would ever access the structure without a "scenes" button (replaced by "item" boxes) on the title page I do not know. The generic title window that shows before I go into "Modify" has one of my frames as background and the rather useful "play" and "scenes" (which I had renamed "chapters") buttons are there. I have attached a screenshot of this space, as I do think it is where I worked.

So if I work from where there is a "play" and a "scenes" button, I cannot save the work? And if I go to Modify, I haven't a clue how to make/access those functions?

I was 98% done with menu and chapters, and now I am in a real mess. Lost work, and much worse, have no clue how to recreate it. (well, I might be able to recreate it outside of Modify, before "Apply," but that's back to square one - how to SAVE that.)

I did the lost work on my laptop and saved it (hummm . . .) to a thumb drive, which I still have. I know that worked, because that's how I got it onto this desktop, where my bluray sometimes-burner is. I will go back to the drive, rename the PD file (to avoid confusion, or try) and open that project. But I imagine that, at best, will put me back where I was when I was afraid to leave the page (not in Modify, just in "create disc") because I didn't trust the "save project" button there. Which in fact didn't work.

So even if I find my work, what then?

Help!
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