MediaMenu - Compact Disc Intro Designer
Overview
Media Menu is a free windows application for creating a media menu intro application.
This can be usefull to display the contents of a compact disk inserted into the drive. The buttons could offer the user to start an installation program and view a readme file.
If you are planning to deploy anything installable on a customers Windows computer, try InnoSetup - my preferred tool.
Press <Ctrl><E> to enter edit mode.
The windows layout is controlled by the autorun.inf file. Media Menu has an editor inside, which configures and creates this file for you.
License
Media Menu is under my copyright (Jan Schirrmacher) but you can freely use and copy it for commercial and non-commercial purposes with no time limitation.
The only thing you cant do is declaring it explicitely as your work. In a bundle with your work, you are not bound to declare it explicitely as my work.
However, Iam not responsible in any case of the use of Media Menu.
Tutorial
Here are the most important steps:
- Copy Menu.exe into the root directory of your media (i.e. D:\) and start it.
The appearing window should look like this. Its an empty window with a default pattern,
a close-button and a minimize-button
- Press <Ctrl><E> to enter edit mode
An addition windows appears - the Settings Dialog.
- Now right-click on the the window where a button shall appear and select Add
- Click on the button and you see its properties in the group box Button Properties of the Settings Dialog. In the Caption-edit field enter "Notepad", in the Hint-edit field enter "A famous editor from Microsoft" and in the Command-edit field enter "notepad.exe" - ready.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 until all of your buttons are present
- Select and move the buttons separately or select them all with a mouse-dragged frame and right-clicking select Make Column
- Test your buttons with right-click and Execute
- Save your work by right-clicking on the window (not a button) and selecting Save
- Close Media Menu or go back to live mode by pressing <Ctrl><E> to test your work
Background Image
The size of the window is controlled by the size of the background image. Put any .jpg or .bmp image of your choice into the same folder where your Menu.exe is and rename it to Splash.bmp or Splash.jpg. The windows client size will accept the size of your image.
You can use one of the following images for free. They all are of size 640x480.
Autorun.inf
This system file has a special meaning in windows. If it exists in the root directory of a storage device, windows automatically reads some information and executes some actions. For all details read Autorun.inf in wikipedia
[autorun]
open=Menu.exe
icon=Menu.exe
...
[Menu]
Media Menu entries...
The open-entry tells windows to start application Menu.exe automatically when inserting the media. Note: this behaviour may be disabled on the target machine.
The icon-entry tells windows which icon to use for the media in the explorer view. If you are using another icon from any exe or dll, you can enter a comma-separated index of the icon, if its not the first one of the file.
The [Menu] section and the following [ButtonN]-sections are created and managed bei Media Menu. Instead of using the built-in editor of Media Menu you can edit these entries manually.
Only the open- and the icon-entries are created on demand by Media Menu. Other entries in the [autorun]-section are preserved
Reference
Toggle between Editor Mode and Live Mode
When the focus is on the dialog, press <Ctrl><E> or start the application with command line-parameter "/EDIT".
Close the settings-dialog to enter Live Mode or press <Ctrl><E> again.
Add a button
Right-click anywhere on the window and select Add.
Enter a buttons properties
Click on the button in Live Mode and select tab Button
- Caption: The displayed text, use underscore to display the ALT-Key
- Hint: The hint text which describes the function
- Command: The command text, which defines the action when the user presses the button. This can be path/filename of an .exe, the name of a document to open or a web-URL. If you enter a document or a link, select the open-radio button
- Start type:
- Start simply executes an application
- Run executes the application too but it disables the button and enables it again, when the monitored process is executed
- Open opens a document with the associated viewer or starts the default web browser, if command is a web URL.
- Start option:
- Hide hides the Media Menu after the command. This can be usefull together with Run when you are running an installation program and the menu should appear after the installation has completed
- Close lets disapear Media Menu after the command has been executed