Text Buttons

[Jeff Bellune]

Try using the Text tools in Encore – they’re pretty powerful and may keep you from having to go to PS.

But it you want to stick to PS, here’s what I would do. Subpicture highlights can’t be anti-aliased, so it should be turned off for the highlight layer. Your base text can be anti-aliased, have styles applied, whatever looks good.

In Encore, if the highlight is still nasty-looking (whether you used Encore or PS), use the Menu Color Set dialog to tinker with the text highlights.

Typically, I use Highlight Group 2 to control the highlights of my text buttons. Buttons on a menu default to using Highlight Group 1. Setting the transparency of the Selected state in HG2 to a mid-range value like 47% should produce good results.

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Scott Gene]

Thanks Jeff. Is there anyway to turn off the original text once you roll over a button to highlight? I’m getting bleedthrough!

[Jeff Bellune]

1. “Rolling over” a button sounds like you are using a mouse with a software player. In that environment, the answer is no.

2. For a hardware player, it can be done, but it requires extra menus and the auto-activate button property. And if you use extra menus, you can dispense with highlights altogether and use whatever fancy base text you want to distinguish the selected button from the non-selected buttons.

Example:

1. Main Menu/all highlights fully transparent/default button text different from other buttons’ text.

2. User selects different button.

3. Auto Activate instantly takes user to next menu, which is identical to the Main Menu except for which button text is “dressed up”.

4. You will need many menu copies and careful use of a flowchart to keep track of all of the possible links.

My thoughts:

1. Bleedthrough is not always bad. Can you make it help instead of hinder your text design?

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0