To reduce the number of screens, you should try combining the contents of two screens onto one. You can then use the Hide and Show commands to control which objects are visible and which are hidden.
Examples
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To reduce two screens to one, select the contents of the second screen, copy them to the clipboard, then paste them onto the first screen.
Use the Hide Itself command under the Before Display action to hide all of the second screen objects.
Change the action that previously linked to the second screen to instead show the "second screen" contents while simultaneously hiding the "first screen" contents.
Here is what the original two screen project might look like.
| Screen | Object | Action | Command/Link |
| 1 | Picture1.PIC | Before Display | Disable Itself
Show Itself |
| Button.PIC | Before Display | Enable Itself
Show Itself |
| | Mouse Up | Go to Screen 2 |
| 2 | Picture2.PIC | Before Display | Disable Itself
Show Itself |
Here is what the combined screen project might look like.
| Screen | Object | Action | Command/Link |
| 1 | Picture1.PIC | Before Display | Disable Itself
Show Itself |
| Picture2.PIC | Before Display | Disable Itself
Hide Itself |
| Button.PIC | Before Display | Enable Itself
Show Itself |
| | Mouse Up | Show Picture2.PIC
Hide Picture1.PIC
Hide Itself |
To reduce the number of media elements, you may want to try combining two PICT files of the same size into one two-frame QuickTime movie. The two frames can be addressed individually by using the "Go To Beginning" and "Go To End" commands.
Here is what the original two-PICT screen might look like.
| Object | Action | Command/Link |
| Picture1.PIC | Before Display | Disable Itself
Show Itself |
| Picture2.PIC | Before Display | Disable Itself
Hide Itself |
| Button.PIC | Before Display | Enable Itself
Show Itself |
| Mouse Up | Show Picture2.PIC
Hide Picture1.PIC |
Here is what the same screen might look like after combining the two PICT files into a two-frame QuickTime movie.
| Object | Action | Command/Link |
| Movie.MOV | Before Display | Disable Itself
Go To Beginning of Itself
Show Itself |
| Button.PIC | Before Display | Enable Itself
Show Itself |
| Mouse Up | Go To End of Movie.MOV |
NOTE: When consolidating screens, it is important to remember that increasing the number of media elements on a screen slows the overall performance of a project, so it is recommended that no more than two screens be combined into one.
By combining these two techniques, you can potentially reduce the number of screens and PICT media elements by as much as one half.