Still menus linking and structure in Scenarist

[piloucarni]

Hello everybody!
Is it possible to navigate through still menus with the next or previous button of the player independently of the button of each menu and in choosed order?

I have tried few things but was not successfull:(
What is the best place for the still menus? VMG, VTS, nested in one PGC or independant PGCs...?

Thanks for taking time with this;)

Pierre

[DnGermany]

Use the the next and prev PGC links (the symbols at the top of the window next to the menu with the arrow and pgc on them).Click which button you want and just link from the pre or post cmd to the PGC that you want to goto.

[piloucarni]

I have already tried the 3 different ways possible in scenarist including prev PGC and next PGC icons but the only one that works is the GoUp PGC. With the 2 others scenarist doesn't accept to take the link except to link the PGC with itself!
It could be a bug or I wonder if I missed something...:(
Thanks anyway.

[DnGermany]

Yeah just tried it also, seems to only work for the title folder.

[Dimmer]

You can navigate through still menus if they are set up as programs within the same PGC. This way, you can use Prev/Next buttons to scroll through them without any special settings. It would work well for chapter selection screens or a still image gallery, for example. However, if you want to get to other than the first menu when you call such a PGC, you'll have to use Pre commands to jump to the appropriate program.

As for the best location of the menus, there is no single answer. It depends on your DVD structure, and the main idea to keep in mind is simplicity of navigation between the menus. If you have only one titleset, use VTS menus. If you have more than one VTS, put common menus into VMG. Menus nested in one PGC as described above are only good for certain purposes like chapter selection. More often you can see one menu per PGC.

[piloucarni]

Ok here are the last results.
As you said DnGermany the only place to use previous or next PGC is in Title domain, not very usefull as if you want to put menus there they have to use the same subtitle specification/ langage and perhaps even sound track that is impossible as still menu don't have sound track.

As dimmer said menus as different programs of the same PGC can be navigated with the next and previous buttons of the player. If there are put in the order you want to navigate it'easy enough. It's usefull for a kind of mini stil show but it seems it can't be used for all the menu because there will be some trouble for linking with something outside the domain. For exemple a link from the title menu to some nested menu in a VTS language folder is not possible at least as I know.
Anyway I'm able to do something with this and I will use it for some of my menus. Thanks!

About the right place I understood it like you said Dimmer. It appears to be the most reasonable way but If you put everything in the VTS langage folder and want to have a title menu (just a copy of the root menu) you can't have links to other menus than system menus, isn't it? In this case perhaps an automatic redirection from the title menu to the root menu is possible? Or are there some link commands that allow you to do this kind of linking?

Thanks a lot to both even if I can't do exactly what I wanted I'm now on the right track due to your advices:)

[Dimmer]

Actually, you can easily do everything you need, even if you wish to put all your menus into one PGC. For one thing, if you want Title menu to be a copy of your root menu, create an empty Title menu and put a jump to the root menu in the Pre commands. You can do this by dragging mouse cursor in Scenario Editor from Pre of the Title menu onto the root menu. The result of this is that you make Title button on your remote work the same way as Menu button assuming you have only one VTS.

Here's how you can jump from the Title menu (or any other VMG PGC) to one of the menus nested within a VTS menu. First of all, the VTS menu must be a root/PTT/subp./audio/angle menu, not just any PGC (you figured this out correctly). Perform a link as above. Then you have to use a GPRM in the Pre commands of the Title menu as a flag and set it to a different value for each VTS menu program you want to jump to. So your Pre commands in Title menu would look something like this:
1: Mov GRPM0, 2
2: JumpSS vts_1, vts_ttn_1:RootMenu

Root menu in VTS 1 in this example is the one with nested menus. In its Pre commands, you have to check the value of the flag GPRM and use Jump to Program command to select appropriate menu screen within your Root menu. It would look like this:
1: if (GPRM == 2) LinkPGN Menu2-scn-pg, button=0
2: if (GPRM == 3) LinkPGN Menu3-scn-pg, button=0

and so on for each program. Program 1 is the default, you don't need to check for it.

You can use the same method to link VMG menus to VTS menu PGCs other than system menus. Of course, you'll have to use Jump to PGC command instead of Jump to Program for this.

And no, Prev PGC won't work for a menu, Next PGC can only link to self (loop the menu). However, Go Up PGC can perform two functions for a menu: go to another menu or resume the playback.

[piloucarni]

Great it 's so easy when you know it... I have now all my menus in the first and unique VTS some/most of them (submenus) nested in few main menu accessible from the root menu. All works perfectly and I can navigate with the prev and next player buttons in all these nested menus.
The title menu is an empty one with the PRE command that redirect to the root menu.

I didn't use it but I'm not sure to understand your explaination about linking from the title menu to any PGC in the VTS folder. You I have to set the title PRE command like this:
1: Mov GRPM0, 2
2: JumpSS vts_1, vts_ttn_1:RootMenu
But in this case it will jump to the root menu with always the same GRPM0 value(2). Shouldn't be the title button command set like this with a different GRPM0 value for each button rather than the PRE command?
One more question in many comands there is at the end 'button=0'. What does it mean? If I put 2 is the second button highlighted?
I ask this too because the last thing I would like to do is highlighting different buttons in main menus depending on where you come from. I tried to to use GRPM and Set Hilighted Button function but it didn't work.
Hope I'm not abusing...

[Dimmer]

Glad I could help. I didn't use it but I'm not sure to understand your explaination about linking from the title menu to any PGC in the VTS folder. You I have to set the title PRE command like this:
1: Mov GRPM0, 2
2: JumpSS vts_1, vts_ttn_1:RootMenu
But in this case it will jump to the root menu with always the same GRPM0 value(2). Shouldn't be the title button command set like this with a different GRPM0 value for each button rather than the PRE command? Of course, you have to set GPRM0 to different values according to your navigation scenario. That's just a simple example of getting from VMG to the second page of a nested menu in VTS. Another example would be if you actually have Title menu and want to use its buttons to get to the different pages of your nested root menu. You can do it like this. Remove Pre commands and put JumpSS vts_1, vts_ttn_1:RootMenu as the only Post command. Then for each button use commands:
1. {Mov GPRM0, 2; LinkTailPGC, button=0}
2. {Mov GPRM0, 3; LinkTailPGC, button=0}
and so on. This way, pressing each button will set GPRM0 to a different value before redirecting to the root menu, where you can link the programs as appropriate based on GPRM0.

Button=0 means highlighted button is not changed. If you want to set a highlighted button using GPRM, there is a little trick: you have to multiply button number by 1024, i.e. button1=1024, button2=2048 etc. Don't forget to set Forced Selected Button to Nonexistent. You do this by clicking on Buttons icon in Scenario Editor, then go to simulation window - Subpicture and Highlight - Highlight.

[piloucarni]

Wonderfull all the buttons are now highlighted as I wanted. The GPRM use with 1024 factor is really tricky and impossible to gess. How did you learn all this. Did you use somme references on the net or books or just this forum?
Now my DVD project has reached its end and with success due to your advices. Thanks a lot to my new 'Guru' dimmer the great!:) :) :) :p

[Dimmer]

Piloucarni - You're quite welcome.

I mostly gathered all that information bit by bit from different web sites. Besides this one, here are few that have a lot of useful stuff:

http://dvd.sourceforge.net/dvdinfo/
http://www.dvd-replica.com/DVD/
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

And of course check out the Links section here. Unfortunately, I haven't really seen that many useful books on the subject.

Good luck.

[piloucarni]

OK I bookmark these and again dimmer thank you very much!:)