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Chapter 11: Creating and managing links
Understanding navigation
Project navigation and links
Once you have imported the assets for your project, created your menus, and prepared the timelines for the video,
audio, and still images, it's time to link them together. To create the actual navigation links, regardless of which
element type you're working with, you can use the Properties panel or the Flowchart. Before creating links, however,
you need to understand link types and options.
Menus and their buttons provide the primary method for a viewer to move through the disc's content. Beyond the
viewer-induced movement, however, there are also end actions, overrides, and other navigation details, set by the
author, that help guide the viewer. For example, a viewer activates a button to play a video. What happens when that
video finishes playing is determined by the end action set by you, the author. Your goal is to make project navigation
intuitive and streamlined for the viewer.
Choose Navigation Design from the Workspace menu to open the Adobe-designed workspace customized for
navigation.
Link types
Adobe Encore DVD lets you link to practically any destination in the project, whether it be a menu, timeline, slide
show, playlist, or chapter playlist. (ROM content is the exception. ROM content must be accessed via a computer's
desktop.) You can set the following types of links to create navigation:
Specifies what happens when you insert the DVD into a player. For Hollywood discs, the first play link
First play
typically invokes an FBI warning. The first play could also display the main menu of the disc, if the copyright warning
isn't required. To specify the first play, see "To set disc properties and navigation" on page 173.
Specifies what happens when the Title button on the remote control is pressed. Typically, the Title
Title button
button links to the disc's main menu. To specify the Title button link, see "To set disc properties and navigation" on
page 173. To disable the Title button on the remote control, see "To disable or edit user operations" on page 184.
Specifies what happens when the viewer presses the Menu button on the remote control while content
Menu Remote
is playing. You set Menu button links for timelines and slide shows. Typically, the Menu button links back to the
menu for the current feature. To specify the Menu button link, see "To set timeline navigation" on page 174. To
disable the Menu button on the remote control, see "To disable or edit user operations" on page 184.
Specifies what happens when a viewer activates a button on a menu. To specify standard links, see "To
Standard link
specify a link" on page 172.
Specifies what happens when an item finishes playing, or when you have specified a duration for a menu
End action
and the viewer takes no action within that time. End actions specify the destination to display next; this could be a
menu (including the button to highlight), a timeline (including the chapter from which to begin), or any other DVD
element. If a DVD contains video clips that can be viewed individually or in succession (such as outtakes or topics
in an educational DVD), you might choose to have the end action of each clip take the viewer to the next clip, or
instead, you could have the end action lead back to the menu from which the viewer accessed the clip.
End actions for menus are optional. You use them when you want to control the display if a viewer does not activate
a button on the menu. Menu end actions are useful in DVDs that remain playing in a public place or educational
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