Changing number of chapter selections per menu

The number of chapter selections is defined by the individual theme design. I believe it can be up to 12 per page. iDVD will automatically put into the maximum number grid positions in a page and more pages if needed, You can however move the chapter buttons between pages using the cut and paste afterward.

There is definitely a trade-off between getting chapter selections to make sense and getting them to navigate easily.

The last project I did was three performances of the same production. After cutting and pasting, being careful to do this just right so that I didn't lose a whole menu, I had three rather crowded but sensible menus, corresponding to the three performances. Unfortunately, after burning the DVD, I found these to be very difficult to navigate during playback. The cursor buttons did not always correspond correctly to what I thought they should do! Next time, I will keep this in mind, and opt for more, less cluttered menus.

By default, the theme should have the grid turned on, iDVD would put buttons according to the grid without overlapping. If you have a long chapter name, it might skip a grip position to the next.

As for the "cut and paste", if you have grip turned on, it should be snapped into proper position without any efforts. You can also use AppleSCript tool iDVD Companion to control button alignment and positioning.

The cut and paste is an excellent idea for moving chapters from one menu screen to another.
If you select a chapter name; a box indicating the buttons 'select area' will appear and you can use this hidden grid to make sure it is not overlapping another chapter selection by then 'Selecting All' to see the other selection areas.

One thing I did discover is that you cannot force any menus or make any new ones. For instance my project of a theatre production has 28 chapters:
3 menus have 9 chapter selections and the last has just 1!

...rather stupid as the first three menus are very crowded with long names!

So I tried to cut and paste the chapters to have 5 menus pages; with 6 chapters in the first 4 menus and 4 in the last.
I managed to move these all correctly until the 4th page which ended up with 10 chapters and no sign of another menu page becoming available.
The option to 'Snap to Grid' was greyed out so I couldn't force them into their normal position.

The absolute essential process missing from the menu editing is to be able to move chapters around in the 'map' and also for them to be named below the snapboard icons so you can see what ones you're moving.

Since this feature doesn't exist (yet I presume!) I will have to go back into FCP HD and rename all my Chapter Markers and re-export the movie. The duration is an hour & 37 minutes so this is going to take ages.
Also I have already printed the DVD covers and the menus will now not co-oberate... grrrr!

Anyone find a way to make extra menu pages please help!!

Click the floder button on the bottom left of the iDVD window.

The folder becomes a portal to a new menu page.

You can name it anything you like, change it's theme and put any content in there that you wish,

The folder button is between the 'customize' and 'slideshow' windows.

Hi wda_Skint,

The option to 'Snap to Grid' was greyed out so I couldn't force them into their normal position.

'Snap to Grid' should work if you select one of the chapter button first. Since the option can be independently applied to the title text and the button.

I will have to go back into FCP HD and rename all my Chapter Markers and re-export the movie.

I am not sure why you need to do that. You should be able to select the text portion of the chapter button and type over the text label in iDVD.

Anyone find a way to make extra menu pages please help!!

One way is to use Greg's suggestion of the 'Folder' button. However, this creates a folder icon on the page instead of the forward arrow to the next sub-menu. The only thing I find that works is to make additional 'dummy' chapter markers prior to importing into iDVD, such that the additional menu pages are created automatically. You can then go back to the iMovie/FCP to remove those 'dummy' markers, when iDVD re-updates the chapter markers, it does not remove the additional menu pages. You can then re-distribute the chapter buttons between the pages via cut and paste.