AutoPlay Menu Builder creates startup screen under DOS

If you search on the Internet, you will find that if you are a computer expert, most people will not dare to give you an answer. It does not matter whether the interface is good or bad, the main thing is that the CD is easy to use! You said that friend!

Use AutoPlay Menu Builder to create a personalized AutoRun

1. Introduction to the software

You can find many such AutoRun (automatic play menu) for creating CDs on the Internet Tools, I have used 4 kinds of software so far: AutorunBuilder, AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 Professiona, AutoPlay Menu Builder and "Qiwei" mentioned by Fengzi moderator in the simple DIY process of the original teaching disk. Comparative use The final effect, regardless of the operability of the software; the aesthetics of the AutoRun interface produced, etc., AutoPlay Menu Builder is undoubtedly one worth recommending.

The following content is quoted from the Yingzheng Download Station’s introduction to this software:

AutoPlay Menu Builder is a powerful CD auto-run menu creation tool. To use it, you do not need to have Anyone with professional knowledge can easily create a very beautiful AutoRun menu program with just drag-and-drop and a few mouse clicks, making menu creation as easy as building blocks!

2. Software download

3. Software usage

1. As shown in Figure 1, when the software starts, the "New Project" window pops up first along with the main interface of the program. In this window, you need to select a template for the AutoRun to be produced and specify the storage path of the file.

2. This is the main interface of the program. Although it is an English interface, the main menus and buttons are similar to those of most software. Several buttons and panels that require special attention are noted in Figure 2. The content that is not mentioned is in the following. I will add to the post:

Below I will use two production examples of AutoRun to talk about the basic usage of this software in detail. The first example is made by imitating the template that comes with the software. By the way, I will mention it here. I like this kind of software that comes with templates very much. When I start using it, it is very helpful for a novice like me to study the templates that come with the software. I can quickly master the basic usage of the software. If I am in this post Regarding the usage not mentioned in this software (hereinafter referred to as AMB), you can carefully consider several templates of AMB. The method is to click the buttons and labels of each template with the mouse and then look at the Properties and Properties on the right side of the AMB interface. Actions panel, you can also create a blank project and then select each control from the control panel on the left side of the AMB interface and add it to the project design window, try editing them, and then look at the Properties and Actions on the right ( The corresponding items in the Actions panel can deepen your understanding of this software.

I downloaded the live video of "Riverdance" in rmvb format from the Internet. I am tired of the previous data burning and saving method. This time I plan to use AMB to make an AutoRun to beautify it.

1. First, create a folder in a suitable location (it is recommended to be in the installation directory of AMB), and add the required materials such as pictures, executable programs, documents, ICO icons (note: the file name of the ico icon must be autorun.ico), etc. Put them all in. When there are more files added, you can create some subdirectories. You don't need to set a directory, because AMB comes with a very practical function - Virtual Drive Manager (Virtual Drive Manager [VDM]), which can map direct paths under Windows into relative paths. For example: CDROM\subdirectory\*.doc, etc.

The reason why a dedicated directory is established is to avoid the trouble of switching back and forth between various partitions and directories when there are many submenu items that need to be added and there are many executable programs.

2. Create a blank template project as shown in Figure 1, then click view-options on the menu bar, and check the items in Figure 3 in the options window that pops up.

(1) Display grid---Display the document template format of the visual grid in the design window. It's a bit like coordinates.

(2) Align controls to grid---Automatically arrange controls to the position closest to the grid line.

The grid size can be resized along the x or y axis.

(3) Minimize other windows when testing - When testing a certain menu, you can minimize other non-essential windows to preview the effect.

(4) Create a standard independent executable file--when saving the project, autorun.exe and

autorun.apm (AutoRun data file) will It is automatically created in the root directory of the directory where the project is saved. The purpose of selecting this option is to save space on the disc without burning autorun.apm when burning CDROM in the future.

3. Click Eidt-Project Options and set the following settings in the pop-up project properties window according to your personal preferences:

1. Select the icon file here. This icon file will replace the AutoRun.exe icon and be produced in the future. When a good AutoRun disc is inserted into the CDROM, this icon is displayed on the CDROM drive under the resource manager.

2. Select the mouse pointer. The mouse pointer will be displayed in the non-hot area of ??AutoRun (the location where no controls are added).

3. Select the hot pointer, and the mouse pointer will be displayed in the AutoRun hot zone.

4. Select the text pointer. If you add text effects in the AutoRun interface (I will mention it in this example), this pointer will be displayed in the text area.

5. The start page is the window displayed when AutoRun starts running. Generally, the default is to display the main menu. The "Always show the start page" below can also be kept as default and unchecked.

6. You can add background music to AutoRun here. I like this function very much because AMB can add more than a dozen background music formats. The supported music formats are: MP3/MP2/MP1 /OGG/WAV/MID/RMI/XM/IT/MOD/S3M/MTM, while another powerful AutoRun production software AutoPlay Media Studio Professional only supports background music in OGG format. Of course, if you want to save disc space, it is recommended to use background music Use media format conversion software to convert formats such as MP3 to OGG format.

7. Check this item to use the Esc key to close AutoRun. Use System Message Box - If you add a message prompt effect in AutoRun, AMB uses office-style message prompts by default. If you like the system's default message prompt box, please check this option. I have not used the following settings in this simple AutoRun except Font, so I will not mention them for now.

4. Return to the AutoRun project design window to adjust the page size, as shown in Figure 5.

5. You should always add a name to the AutoRun you designed. In the future, it will be displayed in the AutoRun window. Take a look at Figure 6. What you see is what you get! This is another reason why I like this software.

6. Add pages; because this is a simple AutoRun, we plan to make 2 pages, see Figure 7.

8.

The following steps are the key. You need to add content to AutoRun here. In this example, the control selected for the play, install and other buttons is the "hot label". The specific setting method is shown in Figure 8. AMB, like other software, supports right-click editing operations, such as copying, pasting, etc. The following content is an explanation of the right-click menu:

Duplicate--Clone

Copy--Copy

Paste--Paste

Send To Page--Move to the page. This function is very useful for making multiple pages with the same controls. You can send the same buttons, labels, etc. in batches Go to the next page.

Align To Grid--Align to grid

Send to Back--Send backwards

Bring to Front--Restore to current

The above two effects are very useful for setting several control effects in a hot zone at the same time

Lock Control(s)--Lock the control; when setting the properties of all controls in the AutoRun design window, After editing the actions, you can lock all controls on the current page through this right-click menu item to prevent the position of these controls from changing when editing other effects.

9. After editing the properties of the control, you need to edit the operation of each control. If editing properties is to add appearance effects to each control, then operation editing is to add effects to each control, such as pressing a button to execute an installer, pressing a button to open a document, etc. The specific setting method See Figure 9. What needs to be supplemented is to specify the path of the sound and image through the "..." button and click Load-OK in the small window that pops up. Add a "Return" hotspot label to the second page, and the corresponding operation is "Jump to Page 2", which is also set in the Actions panel on the right. If the background color and label color of the image file inserted on this page in the future are not considered For collocation problems, you can directly use the properties of the first page (Main) to set the effect.

10. After all this work is done, test the effect by clicking File-Test on the menu bar or clicking the yellow Test button like "lightning" on the toolbar. Figure 10 is the test effect

11 . After you are satisfied with the test results, you can add a background to the current page. First, drag a rectangular frame over all the controls to select all controls, then Lock Control(s), and then cut, so that the inserted picture background will not Cover the controls. Follow the steps below to insert a background image and then right-click Paste--Paste to bring back the controls you just cut off.

At this point, you should think that the reason why you don’t insert pictures first and then add controls is to prevent the inserted pictures from blocking the grid on the page. It is like coordinates. It is definitely necessary to add multiple controls in order to align them. of.

Note here that the inserted picture is not added as a "background", but as an Image control from the control panel. Why not add the picture background directly as a background? Woolen cloth? Because I tried AMB to use background effects on multiple pages, it can only use the same picture as the background. Compared with AutoPlay Media Studio Professional, this is a pity. Fortunately, AMB can add different images by adding image controls. Background effects

12. Figure 12 shows the steps for adding an image control as a background.

13. Figure 13 and Figure 14 are the effects of adding backgrounds to the Main page and Page 2.

14. Figure 14: Add a return button to the second page, and set Action Tepy to Jump To Main.

15. There is a button on the first page called "Content Introduction". You need to add this control effect on the second page. The method is shown in Figure 15.

What is shown in the text editor in the picture below is not the final effect. The final effect still needs to be set in the control panel on the right. You can use the Test button to see the effect while editing and modifying, and choose the effect you are most satisfied with.

16. This is the final effect.

17. When you are satisfied with the AutoRun tests, you will need to add the font file. The method is very simple as shown below. If you are using the fonts that come with the system, you don’t need to add them. After adding the fonts, click the OK button and a font data folder FontData will be automatically generated under the path where the project was originally created. Non-system fonts are already in it.

Compared with the complicated font registration process of AutoPlay Media Studio Professional, AMB is much simpler and more convenient. This is another reason why I recommend this software.

18. So far, this simple AutoRun has been completed. Before packaging and burning, let’s talk about a small and practical tool “Virtual Drive Manager” that comes with AMB. You can use it to add various files. The messy paths are automatically organized using mapping, so you only need to burn the mapped content in this gadget.

The method to create a virtual drive manager is to click Tools-Virtual Drive Manager on the menu bar and click Create-OK in the window that appears. A prompt window will appear before clicking OK. .

The last drive letter of my system is the alcohol 120% virtual optical drive I, then the virtual optical drive manager will start with J and be automatically named after the last physical partition on my hard disk and can be created in sequence. Until the Z disk. The created virtual optical drive manager will automatically disappear after restarting the computer and will not affect the location of other drive letters. Therefore, when making large-scale AutoRun, you should also save the project regularly to avoid unnecessary losses.

19. Open the Virtual Drive Manager (that is, the created J disk) and see that the statement in the autorun.inf file is not icon=autorun.ico but icon=autorun.exe, 0

This way you will burn in the future You do not need to add the autorun.ico icon file to the CD.

20. Before burning a disk, you can use UltraISO to create an image and add the content in the picture below.

If you select "Create Stand-alone Executable Files" when you start creating the project (view-options), and you do not plan to edit the AutoRun data file autorun.apm in the future There is no need to add the autorun.apm file to modify it.

Note: If "Create Stand-alone Executable Files" is not selected when you start creating the project (view-options), the content of the burned disc must include this item. Otherwise, the content of AutoRun cannot be run normally.

21. After the disc image is created, try running it in the virtual optical drive to see if it can achieve the effect of automatic operation, and then you can burn the disc.

22. This is the final AutoRun effect. Unfortunately, the nice mouse sound effects cannot be demonstrated here.

I have always wanted to make a CD that contains the original works of the Yingzheng original team and the members of the Yingzheng Forum. It can be regarded as a commemoration of the time spent in Yingzheng. If you use AMB , you will find that as long as all the materials are ready, making such a CD can be done in half an hour.

The previous preparation work is similar to the method mentioned above and will not be mentioned here. First, click the Add Page button on the toolbar to add pages to the project, including the home page (Main), system tools, graphics and images, etc. ***It requires eleven pages, so I plan to use Wall Paper style for the background, so I just need to prepare a suitable picture as the background.

1. Click the Project Option on the toolbar to start setting the project properties. The first "normal" setting method will not be discussed again. I will add several other setting methods. Let's talk about Tool Tips first. This effect can be Create prompt effects for other buttons or controls with operational attributes on the AutoRun interface. If you check "Use Customized tools tips" in the picture below, you can make relevant settings according to your personal preferences:

1. Set the position of the tool tips around the AutoRun control here.

2. Select the style of the tool tip bar here.

3. Here, select the gradient direction and gradient color of the gradient color when the tool tip adopts the gradient style (this effect is only valid and needs to be set when the gradient style is selected.)

4. Set the background of the tool tip here. Border and shadow color.

5. Shadow offset.

6. Set the font size of the tool tip, etc.

7. Click here to preview the appearance of the customized tooltip.

In the following demonstration, I did not use a customized tool tip but used the system's default style.

2. Set the splash screen effect before AutoRun starts here. This effect is like the effect when Coral QQ is started. The setting method is shown in the figure below. If you use AMB to make an MTV disc with AutoRun effect to send to MM, you can check the second "Irregular Shape", so that you can choose a cartoon image in active GIF format to make a splash screen effect. Give it a try and the effect will be Don't be too nice!

Here I use Ying Zheng’s logo as the material for the splash screen

3. Start the settings.

1. Check this item to set it so that only people with system administrator rights can run the CD, and a text format warning can pop up through the path button. The content of the file can be customized.

2. Setting here allows you to run a program, open a document or visit a web page before running AutoRun.

3. Here you can use the encryption function of AMB to set a usage time limit for the disc, similar to the time limit of free software.

Because I don’t like these effects, I have never tried them, haha~

4. Select your favorite control effect from the control panel on the left side of the AMB window. Here, the "COOL Batton" control is selected as the button. After selecting, click once in the project window, and then double-click the control to bring up the AMB image. Editor, select the button material in the image editor. This is actually the crystal button effect. The attribute setting method of each button has been mentioned before. I emphasize that you can make full use of the editing effect of the right-click menu to group buttons with the same attributes together to set their appearance attributes and then edit and name them individually. This can get twice the result with half the effort.

5. The settings for the Actions of controls that can have the effect of buttons have also been mentioned earlier. Note that in the picture above (Figure 26), several buttons on the AutoRun interface have an underline. This is similar to the "shortcut character" in Chinese. ""&", for example, when naming a button in the properties panel, type "Next", and AutoRun will automatically jump to the next page when you press the word N on the keyboard.

The corresponding Actions setting is "jump to graphic image". There will be a Home button on subsequent pages. Pressing the H key will automatically return to the AutoRun main page. Just enable all pages in the Actions setting. The Action Tepy all points to the homepage Main, that is, Jump To Main.

In the picture below (twenty-seven), the desired effect is that clicking the Visit web button (or pressing the V key) can automatically pop up IE (Note: This effect can only be achieved when the default browser is IE) , and directly open the home page of the Yingzheng Tianxia Forum. The Actions settings and tool tip settings are as shown in the figure.

6. The picture below is the effect of the tool tip.

7. When making future pages, because some buttons have the same attributes and Action Tepy, you can use the AMB right-click editing function to copy or clone a copy first, and then send it directly to each page.

8. When there are many controls to be edited on the AutoRun interface, in addition to using the grid, you can also click View - Alignment Palette and use the alignment panel to adjust the alignment of the selected control group. When on the alignment panel When the left mouse button is pressed, the alignment of the button clicked by the left mouse button will demonstrate a very interesting dynamic effect to tell you the effect of the alignment.

9. The figure below shows the effect when the mouse stays on the AutoRun interface, the operation ends, and the mouse clicks. For example, when pressing the hot tag "SPX Grab Ying Zheng Chinese Version" (actually it is the function of the button), just like the previous "Riverdance", just set it to Run program in Action Tepy and point the path to the SPX Chinese Version setup.exe, the installation program will start executing. If it is green software, you can use the Browse CD button to browse the root directory of the soft folder of the CD and then COPY the folder corresponding to the green software to the hard disk. Of course, you can also use Winrar to make a self-extracting EXE and release it to the specified path.

10. This is a rendering. Due to file size limitations, the subsequent effects will not be demonstrated.

The picture below is a rendering of a similar theme made with AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 Professional. From the perspective of usage, although the AutoRun button made with AMB is not as gorgeous in appearance as AMS, and the special effects of Actions are not as many as AMS. It does not have the function of customizing special effects buttons like AMS (personally, I feel this is the biggest regret of this software), but compared with AMS, it is small in size, simple to operate, and unlike AMS, you need some VB to master all the functions. Code knowledge, as mentioned in the introduction, using AMB to create AutoRun is as easy as building blocks. Families can also use it to create beautiful digital photo albums without using other tools. If you are a teacher, use her own With slight changes to the template, you can create professional multimedia courseware. If you are a product salesperson, you can also use it to create a product demonstration CD to introduce your company's products to customers... Haha~ It feels like an advertisement when I write this.

The first time I came into contact with this software was the recommendation of raindy, the author of the Chinese New Century Chinese version. Unfortunately, I seemed to have been informed by the author that this was a domestic software, so I stopped updating the Chinese version of this software. However, I was happy to see that the author of the software The latest version (V4.3) of the Simplified Chinese evaluation version has been released. Friends who are not used to using English interface software can download the latest Simplified Chinese evaluation version from the author's homepage.linasoft.com/order.html