For this tutorial we're going to create a project with a Menu. Menus make your project more interactive, as well as giving the user the choice to replay content and choose what they want to view. You can fully customize your Menus by adding images, text and buttons.

I'll create a new project for a fictitious company called Joe's Lumber. For this project I'd like to launch a Menu that gives the user the choice of displaying a catalog, or visiting the company web site. First I'll add the Menu Viewer. Your have the choice of using a template or creating your own Menu from scratch. Scroll through the templates and see a preview of what your Menu will look like. To load the template, press the Load button and the Menu Creator will open.

From here you can adjust the elements of your Menu. You have 4 Menu Objects: Label, Image, Text Box, and Button. You can add an object to your menu by pressing one of the buttons along the top right of the screen. Select an object and you can adjust its properties. In this tutorial I will show you how to create this Menu from scratch. I'll close this screen and return to AutoRun.

I'll reset the menu, and Design it from scratch. I've already created the art-work for my Menu and saved it in a folder for use in another project. There's no need to copy the files to your Project Folder as AutoRun will do this for you. It's also a good idea to keep your project content archived for future use.

When you start a new Menu all you have is the background window. You can adjust the size of the Menu by clicking and dragging. You can leave the window the default color, use a custom color, or a background image. If you use a background image you can select how the image is displayed.

Next you can begin adding the objects to your Menu. I'll add a label, and adjust its properties. I can also add an image to enhance the look of the Menu. I'll add a Text Box so I can give information and instructions to the user. You can add formatting to the text if you like as well.

The most important part of any Menu are the Buttons, which add the functionality to your Menu. You have 4 button styles to choose from. If you choose the 'Custom Style' you can select from a pre-made button, or create one of your own. After adding the button you can tweak it as you like. Lastly select the Action to be performed when the Button is clicked. You have 14 actions to choose from. My catalog is a PDF file so I'll choose 'Open a File' as my action. I'll give this Button a name, so I can identify it when I return to AutoRun. I'll add another Button to launch my Web Site, as well as an Exit Button.

You can select several objects by clicking and dragging a box around the objects, or hold down the CTRL button. I'll select my buttons and align them. I'm happy with my Menu so now I'll close the Menu Creator. I can go back at any time to alter my Menu by pressing the Design Menu button.

Now that the Menu is designed I'll finish the Viewers for the Button Actions. The first Viewer is for the PDF catalog I want launched. The second is for the Web Site. I'll add the URL to my site, and customize the browser a bit. You can test the Actions out, as well as the Menu. When you are done, press the Create button. Try out your project by pressing the Test button. When you are happy with it, burn the contents of your Project Folder to CD and you're done.