How to create an autorun СD menu for a DVD, CD and USB Stick using Flash

In this tutorial, we will create a menu that gradually appears and offers the user to open a text document or run an application. Such menus are very convenient when a CD contains a lot of files. They help the user to quickly find his bearings and run what he needs. Also, you can use menus as a nice decorative element offering the user to run a program or a presentation when he inserts the CD into the drive, which makes such a presentation more attractive.

To view how this menu works, download and unpack the demo file cddemo.zip (attached to the tutorial). After you unzip it, run the file menu.exe. It is a sample menu and we will create it now.

1. Start Flash.

2. Create a new project. Prepare the animation of an appearing menu and add three buttons to it. The first button will run an application, the second button will open a text document, the third button will close our menu.

Or you can download and open the demo Flash project - cdmenusrc.zip (attached to this tutorial).

3. Now configure the three menu buttons so that they execute the following code:

The button running the application: FSCommand("exec", "data/app.exe");
It will run the file app.exe from the data subdirectory.

The button opening a text document: FSCommand("exec", "data/info.txt");
It will open the file info.txt from the data subdirectory in the program for viewing txt documents.

The Close button: FSCommand("quit");
It will close the menu.

If you open the demo Flash project, the code is already added to it, just look at how it is done.

4. Save the project.

5. Open Publish Settings and select where to save the final SWF menu file.

6. Click Publish to get SWF.

Note. If you run the SWF file of the menu, do not worry about the fact that the buttons do not work. They will start working after you turn the SWF file into an executable application using Chameleon Flash.

7. Start Chameleon Flash. If you do not have it, you can download it at http://www.chameleonflash.com/

8. Click New to create a new project with the help of the Wizard. Specify the following information in the New Project wizard:
Application type: EXE application
Application files One SWF file and specify the path to the SWF file of the menu
Application appearance: Transparent
Application file: Specify where the final executable EXE file of the menu should be saved to

9. Save the project.

10. Click "Compile this project".

11. Copy the final EXE file to some directory. Create the data subdirectory in this directory and save some application that will be run from the menu as app.exe and some text file named info.txt to this subdirectory.

12. The menu and files are configured. Everything is ready. Start the menu and click the buttons. Now you can write all files to a CD and it will be convenient for the user to use them from the menu.

For the menu to be run automatically when the user insert the CD into the drive or connects the USB stick, read the "How to auto run flash applications?" tutorial.