Eliminate root, setting and chapter menu pages in a template

[ckhouston]

Suppose you like one of the menu templates but sometimes don't need the root, settings and chapters menu pages that are part of it. You can easily make a new template from it with only the title menu, the extra menu pages will not be generated.

1. Open the appropriate template INI file in Notepad if you have CX2D version 3.2.3.77 or later. For earlier versions, you must use Wordpad (see note below) if you do not need to preserve script language characters in the template description or another editor that can save in UTF-8 format without byte order marks to preserve script characters.

2. Search for [CXT\pages], be sure to type the bolded expression carefully. You should find something like

[CXT\pages]
Count=N

where N will be 1 if the template allows only a title menu, it is 4 for those that allow only title, root, chapter and setting menus, it is 8 for the Thriller menu. For all of them presently supplied by VSO, the last three are for the root, chapter and setting menus.

So the root, chapter and setting menus will not be generated for present templates if any value of N that is greater than 1 is reduced by 3 (4 reduced to 1 or 8 reduced to 5 in other words). Future templates will have to be checked to be sure the root, chapter and setting menus are the last three before using this fix.

3. Go back to the top of the INI file and find the [CXT\localized_names\...] section that describes the template in your language. Change the template_name=.... line to indicate a template with no root menu, I simply add NRM to distinguish it but you can use anything that is clear to you like NO ROOT.

4. Click File>Save As... and provide a new name for the INI, add NRM to the original name for example, and save it to the same folder as the original INI.

Your new template should be available to choose the next time you start CX2D in addition to the original with all the menu page types. Copies of templates that are not supplied by VSO should be stored in a separate folder to prevent losing them during an uninstall/reinstall.

Wordpad Note: SteveSatch pointed a bug in Wordpad out that can keep CX2D from recognizing your new changes if you have the default setting in Windows to not display file extensions.

To prevent that, Open Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer, search Windows help if you don't know how), click on the menu bar Tools > Folder Options then the View tab, uncheck Hide extensions for known file types and click OK.