BleepingComputer.com: Interactive Menu For Dvd/cd

Hello,

At work I currently produce a CD or DVD as a deliverable for the client. It is very basic and when the user accesses it all they currently see is the following:

Three standard Windows yellow file folders/icons that you see in any Windows based application. One contains a series of PDFs which are simply copies of scanned documents, the other two contain "Indexes", 1 in each folder. The index is currently a HTML based (it was previously MS Excel) list of descriptions of the PDF documents and hyperlinks to each document. Essentially, all the user does is locate a category they want to review, i.e. Environmental Remediation, and then they click on any of the hyperlinks to open the document(s) in that category. Very simple...

My objective: Instead of the user seeing the three lame and ugly standard Windows yellow file folders, I'd like to have a cool interactive menu screen that they can use to access the Indexes, pretty much like the Switchboard idea in MS Access.

***Also, I'd like this interactive menu screen to be the very first object they see when they open the cd or dvd*** - more or less an automatic process so they don't have to click anything until the menu screen appears.

It would be awesome to be able to 'hide' the PDFs and Indexes so that the user has to use the interactive menu screen. Essentially, I'd just to make it a more visually appealing product but still functional.

Do you have any ideas on applications that will allow me to build this concept and turn it into reality? Would any of the MS Office applications allow something like this, i.e. MS Word? I work in a govt. office so different types of software that they use is somewhat limited.

Thank you - please advise if this post should be placed in another category.

jon

A few years ago I did something similar for my customers. I made a cd with a bunch of useful programs Antivirus, spyware removal, games, and other useful tools. All freeware. Then I needed something like you are looking for. A good, clean, menu driven front end to install whatever they wanted. I wanted to present them with a menu and idiot proof it.

To do this I found a program called MenuIDE by Mutant Penguin Software. I believe they were out of the UK. The program was pretty cheap. 30 bucks or so, if I recall.

The way it worked was really slick! I have never seen anything like it since.
Bascially you just draw what you want. It would do an unlimited amount of menus deep. You could imbed images, easily create buttons, insert help files etc. You compile the project into an exe file & it writes the autorun.inf for you. It was fun, very powerful and easy to work with. I really liked it.

Unfortunately, Mutant Penguin is out of business as far as I know.
If you Google it, mutantpenguin.co.uk is not the one you want
You might be able to find it on a shareware site somewhere

Eyesee,

Excellent post - I am most grateful, comrade. I located a site that I believe has the software to which you refer:

http://www.downloadatoz.com/software-devel...ctory/menu-ide/

I am going to give this a shot. Unfortunately, it's not compatible with Windows Vista at this time.

Thank you again,

jon

Wont work with vista. Is your cust running XP?

Had more time to look today. Tried various sites that referenced it. All download links appear to be dead
Last time I used it was about three years ago which is about when they went out of business.
let me check dome abandonware sites

Edited after researching

Nope MenuIDE appears to be a dead program
Too bad too. It was really slick!
Quite frankly, I am suprized that no one has developed anything like that again

This post has been edited by Eyesee: 16 December 2007 - 09:44 PM