Themes

At this point, iDVD '08 has opened to its default theme, called "Revolution." However, one of the best features of the program is that you get to choose your theme. From the browsing panel on the right, you can choose to browse the themes by iDVD edition (5.0 is from iDVD 5, 6.0 is from iDVD 6, 7.0 is from iDVD '08 – go figure) or you can simply browse All.

When you browse by All, iDVD orders the thumbnails most recent to least recent. This means that the newest menus are towards the top of the list. Next to the newest menus are expander triangles. You can click on these to view the corresponding submenus.

To preview a menu in the Menu Screen, click on the thumbnail once.

The newer menus default to a widescreen aspect ratio. If you previously specified that your aspect ratio is standard (you specified this during the same window where you set the file name and location to save to), a popup menu will remind you of this fact.

• Cancel = "Never mind. I didn't actually want to see that theme."
• Keep = "Yes, I know I chose standard aspect ratio. I would like standard aspect ratio applied to this theme as well."
• Change = "I made a mistake earlier and would like to change my aspect ratio to widescreen."
• Do not ask me again (checked) = iDVD will change the aspect ratio to widescreen each time you try a new menu without asking for permission first.

If you plan on exploring many of the menus, because let's face it – that's just good fun, consider changing the aspect ratio to widescreen by selecting Change. This will ensure that you don't see this little screen every time you try out a new menu. Just don't forget to change your aspect ratio back before you burn your DVD. To do this, go to Project >> Switch to Standard.

A large majority of the menus involve a looping motion. If you want to turn off the loop as you're working on fine-tuning your DVD menu click the MOTION icon (fourth from the left – it looks similar to a refresh icon). Likewise, to start the motion, click the icon again. You know when the feature is running, because the icon changes from a black-white image to a white-neon blue image. Even if you turn off the looping motion during the editing process, it will return once the DVD is burned (unless you change the settings, see Menus).

Below the Menu Screen, you'll notice a white scroll bar. On certain menus, portions at the beginning and the end of the scrollbar will be filled in with tiny white lines. This means that the menu being previewed has both an intro and an outro, an exit that loops back into the intro. If you want to turn the intro/outro off, uncheck the corresponding check box on either end; just be aware that this choice will be carried through the DVD burning process.

The Apple Logo

iDVD defaults to showing the Apple logo at the bottom right corner of your DVD menus. To remove this:

1. From the menu bar select iDVD >> Preferences….
2. Select General (if it's not selected already)
3. Under Menus, uncheck Show Apple logo watermark.
4. Close Preferences by clicking on the red x in the upper left corner of the box.

< previous section

next section >