Are you running the latest version (c)? I've never had any problem with the order...
It appears to just go to whatever is closest in that particular direction -- if every item is on top of each other, the down arrow would go through them in the order you see them. I just tried piling ten items top to bottom, and it worked.

See:

Options|Show Object Order

Then, select an item on your menu.

Edit|Object Order|Move Forward, Move Back

...and there ya' go.

Yup i am running version C

I think i figured it out. Instead of manually aligning them i'll play with the built in aligmnets in the left hand tool bar. It was probalby some kind of spacing issue where it couldn't see the next title in the list.

By playing with the left hand bar alignments i could get it to work to how i want it probably.

argh, i played with the built in alignments and i can't get it to work and have all the titles left aligned. If I align horizonal center it works, but that doesn't look good at all.

When i align left the program seems to think that the longer titles are not directly underneeth it when a short title is above or below it. It thinks it is to the right thus i doesn't highlight it when you push down but does if you push right.

Here are my titles:

Victor
add Jeff - Futch - Béla
Dm 5/4
Mudslingers of the Milky Way Story
Mudslingers of the Milky Way
Sherpa Story
Sherpa
Cheeseballs in Cowtown
Encore Intro
Sleeping Dogs Lie
Tell it to the Gov'nor

You see add Jeff - Futch - Béla is significantly longer in title then Victor or Dm 5/4, so the program think it's to the right some reason even though it's directly underneeth.

Mudslingers of the Milky Way Story and Mudslingers of the Milky Way are significantly longer then Dm 5/4 and Sherpa Story. So it skipps over those.

Cheeseballs in Cowtown is skipped over for the same reasons i feel.

But Cheeseballs in Cowtown is bascially the same length as Tell it to the Gov'nor and Tell it to the Gov'nor isn't skipped over because the one above it is also simlar in length. Sleeping Dogs Lie is not very short or long comapred to the titles around it.

So i tested this and renamed Sleeping Dogs Lie to 'AS' in my menu. I alignled it to how i wanted it and previewed it. Guess what happend, it skipps over 'AS' because I think the length of the title is significantly shorter then the one above thus the program doesn't think it is right below it even tho it is.....

just wondering - instead of messing around w/ the lengths & how DVDA assigns the orders at first, one of the posts above shows how to override the order & set it yourself...that seems easier than trying to play w/ the title lengths, etc.

rant mode on:
Yes the auto alignment features of DVDA suck. The concept of having DVDA do everything automatically and not give the DVD author the controls they need to make professional menus sucks. Hopefully they will completely rework this for version 2.
rant mode off:

Since the default for a scene selection menu is to arrange in rows and columns, you must have used one of the alignment tools to get it into a column, when you did this, its flawed routine to move the objects grabbed them by which one was closest or whatever wierd method it uses, rather then by their control order, which is what it should use. The alignment tools work graphically. You are over analyzing the reason for the menu order. It got out of order when you moved the rows and columns into a list. It is not calculating which way to go on the fly based on length or anything. It simply grabbed the text items and moved them to the left, probably in the order of left to right, screwing up the order of the items.

If the text items themselves are not in the order you want, you have to drag them to the correct order. But doing so does not adjust their control order, they keep their previous control order number. This can furthur screw up the order.

Follow kentwolf's post to turn on a number over each object to show that control order. Then select an object that is out of order, use control+page up or page down to change that object's control number to the correct number. Do that to all that are out of order and you will be good to go.

This doesn't seem to change the order that the highlight moves when the arrow keys (on keyboard or the remote) are pressed. It does the same regardless of the "order". I tried changing some of the items on a sub menu then went to preview mode and they went exactly the same as before they were changed. There is some algorithm for the motion, I'm sure, but it seems arbitrary to me.

Tom

Well color me WRONG on that one!

Like kentwolf I assumed the object order refered to the selection order, my menus just happened to come out in the correct order so I never noticed that before. So I looked at the Help and sure enough, "object order" refers to the layering of the graphics, not the selection order! You apparently have no control over the selection order. ARRRGGGHHH!!! Yet another stupid limitation in DVDA. Yet another example of the "we will set this for you automatically and not let you have any creative control over your design" concept of DVDA. Did the same people that designed Vegas design DVDA too?, sure doesn't seem like it. Hopefully they are working on DVDA 2.0 and it will put the control in our hands and not theirs.

In case anyone is wondering I burnt a test dvd-rw and it bahaves just like with the preview.

DVDA is scanning for the next nearest object, horizontally and vertically, then linking to it as the next object. And as you have noticed, the object it thinks is next isn't always so. It seems in my tests as long as they are more or less horizontal or vertical, it will find them in the right order. I guess you are just going to have to manually adjust the position and test it in preview until DVDA gets it right.

..I think this needs to be fixed in a patch, very tough to work with it the way it is now

-david abraham

Actually, it is using the text size to determine the next item to go to. I can repro yeedog's issue quite easily if I have a long text item below a short text item... it will skip over the long text item. If I shorten its text, the problem goes away.

Changing the object order doesn't do anything (in contrast to what I posted in another threaD), except that object#1 is selected first when the page comes up.

However, there is a workaround. You can make the items with short text actually have a bigger selection rectangle... use the selection tool and drag its rectangle out so its more or less as wide as the widest item of text (you'll need to have your font size fixed)

Well, I will disagree with everybody saying that "Alighment tools in DVDA sucks" - they DONT, the work exactly as they should, so just take a little time to UNDERSTAND THEM, and what gets allighned to what and by what base from which side.
Regarding menu navigation, I was gonna post that it should be achived by object ordering, but it being reported as not the case. Can SOFO please comment on this. We need to know what will affect navigation order of the menu items: is it the object order? object size? object allighnment? object color? what is it?

Don't know how to link it, but below is what sonicSDB said back in April...bummer...I was just wrestling with the same issue.

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=172656&Page=0

DVD Architect automatically determines the navigation. You cannot customize this.