Hidden Tricks in iDVD 5, Part 2

Tutorial: Page (1) of 2 - 03/29/05

Hidden Tricks in iDVD 5, Part 2 Changing button size and creating new button styles By Dave Nagel In Part 1 of this article series, we looked at a method for changing existing buttons in iDVD 5 so that you could have your own, custom button styles for your projects. However, that method involved replacing an existing button with your new buttons. This time, we'll look at a method for adding new buttons without replacing old. But we won't stop there. We'll also look at a method to change the physical dimensions of your buttons so that they can be any size you want.

For this tutorial, you'll need three things. The first is a graphics program capable of saving TIFF files with alpha channels and transparency. (I'm using Adobe Photoshop CS.)

The second is a free program called Property List Editor. This program is most likely already installed on your hard drive at Macintosh HD/Developer/Applications/Utilities/Property List Editor. If it's not there, you'll need to install it. Fortunately, the installer is located on your hard drive already, so there's nothing new to download. The installer is at Macintosh HD/Applications/Installers/Developer Tools/Developer.mpkg. Double-click the Developer.mpkg item, and follow the onscreen instructions for installing the software.

The third thing you'll need is a basic understanding of button creation in iDVD 5. We covered this in Part 1 of this tutorial series. Today's tutorial uses the same method with one difference: rather than replacing an existing button, we'll be duplicating the files for those buttons and renaming them to create new ones. The specific techniques involved are the same. You can read about these in Part 1 of this series by clicking here.

Creating new buttons
To create you're new buttons, you're still going to have to work with the old ones. You will access the old files by right-clicking (or Control-clicking) on the iDVD 5 application icon and choosing "Show Package Contents" from the contextual menu.

When you do this, a new window will pop up, containing a folder called "Contents." Navigate from here to Contents/Resources, and you'll see a list of files. From here, select all of the files that start with the term "HeartDown," as seen in the following example.

Hold down the Option key and drag these files to a new folder outside of the iDVD application. This will duplicate the files for you and allow you to work on them without getting them confused with the originals.

Now you need to rename these six files. The name you use will be the name iDVD uses to refer to the button. I'll rename mine "Dave1." To do this, I'll simply replace the term "HeartDown" in all these files with the term "Dave1," making sure to leave the rest of the file names as they are now. So I'll have six files with the following names:

? Dave1.Highlight.tif
? Dave1.Icon.tif
? Dave1.Mask.tif
? Dave1.Media.pox
? Dave1.Shape.tif
? Dave1.tif

Now, with my files renamed, I can proceed to modify them to make my custom buttons, as shown in Part 1 of this tutorial series. Again, if you haven't read this yet, you'll need to in order to complete this tutorial.

When you're done, save all of the files you've modified, and then drag them into the iDVD 5/Contents/Resources folder where they came from.

And now you're ready to add them to your button selection menu.

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