GST Autoplay Easel Tutorial

Here is how to register the Autoplay Easel 

To register the Autoplay Easel, first purchase it from our purchase page and you will receive a registration code. Click Enter Registration on the menu as shown above, then enter the number and click register. 

Note: If you don't find what you are looking for here, look at the GST Autoplay Easel 15 Minute Autorun page. It may have what you are looking for.

Welcome to the GST Autoplay Easel by GS Technologies

This tool will allow you to build an autoplay for your CD very quickly and easily. It uses a 1-2-3 step approach. The steps are easy to learn. The first step is the autoplay wizard which will do all the hard work by guiding you through some panels with choices for you to make.

Here is an overview of what the wizard will do for you:

Here is a step-by-step look at the wizard

Select the Background

This page allows the user two options, they are:

Choose a Background - This allows you to choose a predefined background for your autoplay program.

User Provided Background Bitmap - This allows you to browse the computer for your own bitmap. This bitmap will automatically copied to the autoplay directory. This option allows you freedom in designing your own background bitmap.

When you use your own bitmap, it is advisable to create it close to a ratio of 1.33(width) to 1(height) and a total size of 800 x 600 or greater.  It will be expanded or shrunk to about 90% of the screen size of the users screen size. The closer you stay to the 1.33 to 1, the better the image will look. It doesn't have to be exact. If it is close to this ratio it will probably look fine.

Select the Layout Template

This page allows you to choose the layout that fits your needs best. You can choose the following:

Enter Headings and Selection Line Text

Note: The evaluation version will only allow you to have two lines of text and two menus. You can test out the ability to launch programs and jump to menu 2 and back. When you register, you will have ten selections and 200 menus available.

This page allows you to enter the text and actions for each screen.

Text

First select the menu number that you want to enter text for
Enter text for two heading lines
Enter the text for each line
Enter text for the left and right lower corner. This is normally "Exit" on the left and "Previous" on the right, but you can make it anything that you want to.

You can now have text lines that won't highlight for sub-headings or instructions. To create a line that won't highlight, just don't put anything in the Action / Path and Program field. If there is no action, it won't highlight.

Actions

Click on the little racing car and checkered flag to set up the action for each line. When you click on it the Configure Actions dialog will come up.

The "Path and Programs" and "Parameters" are best taught by example. First some ground rules - in these examples, all the files on the CD are in the root folder of the CD - no other folders on the CD. This is recommended for you too if you want to keep things simple.

Some examples.

Exit Autoplay Easel without launching anything 

Path and Programs - exit (need this to make it highlight - can't be blank)

Parameters - (blank)

Check the "Quit after execute" checkbox

Launch notepad to show readme.txt

Path and Programs - readme.txt

Parameters - (blank)

Launch a Web Page

Path and Programs - http://www.autorun-autoplay-tools.com/

Parameters - (blank)

Launch the Media Viewer and view an MPEG movie

Path and Programs - dragrace.mpg

Parameters - (blank)

Explore the CD

Path and Programs - explorer

Parameters - \

Explore a specific folder on the CD

Path and Programs - explorer

Parameters - \pictures

Launch a setup program named setup.exe

Path and Programs - setup.exe

Parameters - (blank)

Click here for special instructions for launching Microsoft Power Point

Click here for special instructions for launching Adobe Acrobat Reader

Set up the Title, Colors and Sounds

This page allows you to set up the title bar, colors and sounds for your autorun. The colors and sounds you choose will be used for all menu panels in your autorun.

Autorun Title

Fill in the title of your autorun program. This will display in the title bar.

Text Color

Click on the palette on the left and choose your normal text color and highlight text color.

Sounds

Click on set to select a sound for each category. Click on listen to try out the sound to see if you like it.

Now you are ready to test out your autoplay program that you just designed with the wizard

Green Button - Test how your autoplay works

The autoplay test button will run your autoplay program so you can see what it looks like and try out each line to make sure the highlight and sound work OK.

This test button will test out everything except the launch capability. The reason for this is the program that you wish to run on the CD would be in the root of the CD. If you try to launch here, running on the C: drive it will also look for it in the root (of the C: drive) and it probably is not there. The best way to test the launch is to burn a CD.

Note: For very long text selections, look and see when you test them if they overflow to two lines. If they do overflow, change the font size to the next size smaller. The "very small" is the only font size designed to display two lines of text.

If everything tests out OK it is time to build the CD autoplay image

Yellow Button - Build the autoplay files for the CD

The build information dialog collects the information to build the final set of files for your autoplay program. This is the set of files that will go on the CD. In this example we typed in c:\staging1 and then pressed OK. This caused the following files to be placed in the c:\staging1 sub-directory. Now we would copy all of these files to the root directory of the CD drive.

At this time we would also copy all the programs and files that we want to invoke with the autorun to the CD.

For more information on the CD layout and file paths see Windows Path Tutorial for Autoplay Easel autorun CDs

Now we have built the CD files. When you go to exit the GST Autorun Easel it will ask you if you want to save the current definition. This will allow you to start where you left off to modify this autorun program at a later time.

In this case we said yes and the SaveAs dialog appears. We are going to hit the new folder icon.

and then type in myauto1 for the new folder where we want to save this autorun definition.

Now we use the same name for the project (gpj) file. This doesn't have to be the same name as the sub-directory but it makes it easy to remember.

When we hit save, the following project files are saved in c:\myauto1.  The Autorun Easel needs these project files to allow modification of the autorun at a later time. Notice that we did not use the build location c:\staging1 to save the files. The files that go on the cd and the files that are used to save the project are different and should be kept separate.

Note: If you didn't find what you were looking for here, look at the GST Autoplay Easel 15 Minute Autorun page. It may have what you are looking for.

Send mail to support@autorun-autoplay-tools.com with questions about autorun or any products on this web site - - but first check the (FAQ)Frequently Asked Questions page. Your question might be answered there.

GSTMenu Development kit, GSTAction Development Kit, GST Autoplay Easel, GST AutoFlash, GST AutoFlash Builder, GST AcroPDF Launch, GST Power Launch, GST DigiCardCD Builder,  GST Autoplay Pilot, GST MacEasel Menu, GST Mac Autoplay Pilot, GST Mac Power Launch and GST Mac AcroPDF Launch  Copyright © 2002 GS Technology Works LLC dba GS Technologies
Last modified: August 27, 2008