Digital Workshop

I'm using Opus Presenter 04 to create a CD menu page from where the user can call up various word and pdf documents. I'm using the trigger 'left mouse click' and the action 'launch' file and then locate the file by browing to the specific one. This works fine on my computer but when a CD is created nothing happens.

I realise that the way I've done it makes it look for the files in a specific directory on my hard drive rather than the CD. Should I be using the <SYSTEM_CD_DRIVE> variable. If so, would it be for example '<SYSTEM_CD_DRIVE>\documents\file1.doc' for a word file stored in a 'documents' folder in the root diretory of the CD.

Also, the manual (page345) states that this variable indicates the first CD ROM drive on the system (not necessarily the drive that the CD is used from).

Help would be much appreciated

Dave

You need to use the <SYSTEM_CD_DRIVE> variable, and as far as I can see, the path you use as an example should work -- it does for me.

The CD must always be placed in the CD drive with the lowest drive letter. e.g. I have 2 CD drives, one is E: and the other is O:. I have to place CDs that interact with published Opus pubs in E.

You will need to give your users specific instructions to allow for the case where a user has more than 1 CD drive.

Does anyone know whether having 1 CD drive and 1 DVD drive causes a problem? Does the computer interpret both as CD drives or as 2 different types of drives?

Hi Dave,

To my understanding, if all your files (and pub) are on the CD, then you do not need to use the <SYSTEM_CD_DRIVE> as the drive path. An example where the CD path is needed, would be when the pub is on Hard Disk and the pub looks for files on the user's first CD-ROM drive.

So if the pub and all launched files are on CD, use <SYSTEM_PUBLICATION_DIR> as the parent path. Then even if the user places your CD into another CD drive all files point to the same path, as the CD is local to itself. A strong recommendation is to have the pub in the root directory on the CD.

In your example of <SYSTEM_CD_DRIVE>, use this instead:

<SYSTEM_PUBLICATION_DIR>\documents\file1.doc

Also, if the user creates a shortcut on the desktop to your pub, (and logically uses the same CD drive for that shortcut), then there should be no discrepancies in paths if you use <SYSTEM_PUBLICATION_DIR>.

Further to Steve's reply, <SYSTEM_CD_DRIVE> only works if the publication CD is inserted into the Master device on the IDE channel. If you have two CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives on the same IDE channel and insert the publication CD into the 'slave' device, this publication variable will not work.

I would therefore always recommend using the <SYSTEM_PUBLICATION_DIR> variable, which tells the publication to look within the location from which it is running (which could be a CD-ROM drive, network directory, Zip disk or external hard drive) to find the resource. If you do not wish to place resources in the root of the publication CD, you can specify subdirectories after this variable. For example:

<SYSTEM_PUBLICATION_DIR>\Resources\myvideo.mpg

This will tell the publication to look within the location from which it running to find a directory named 'Resources', then to look within this subdirectory for the file named 'myvideo.mpg'.

I hope this helps. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further queries.

Kind regards,

Thanks Sentosa, Steve and Robin

You've all been very helpful

Dave