B4J Library Menu Manager

miker2069 · Sep 28, 2017

Very cool! I like being able to define the tool tips right there in code. A question, I very briefly looked at the example and it's has one main menu item (one column). To add additional main menu items (i.e. like File and Help) is it simply a matter of building up a MenuManager object and then calling MenuBar.Add.Items passing in that object?

stevel05 · Sep 28, 2017

Yes, a new manager for each menu, So:

B4X:

    Dim MM2 As MenuManager
    MM2.Initialize(Me,"MMMain","Help")
    Dim Simple2 As List = MM2.SimpleMenuList(Array As String("About"))
    MM2.AddItems(Simple2,True)

'Add to menubar in your required order
MenuBar1.Menus.Add(MM2.menu)

Will add a second menu. You can use the same callback sub (MMMain in this case).

Thanks, I forgot to add that to the demo, I will rectify that tomorrow.

miker2069 · Sep 28, 2017

Very nice and straight forward. I don't mind the original JSON way however it does get a bit cumbersome to manage it when you need to add or change something. Your library makes it pretty easy and we now have tooltips (+1000) for that!

Great work and thank you!

stevel05 · Sep 29, 2017

First update:

Fixes a bug when adding a tooltip on a MenuCustomClass item to a context menu. It couldn't calculate the size correctly and crashed. This is now fixed, I found another way to get the size of a context menu.

Added a parameter MouseTransparent to the hideonclick sub in the MenuCustomClass, if set to true (and the included css file is loaded and attached to the mainform), then the item will not respond to the mouse.

While implementing that, I found that the implementation of the css classes was woefully inadequate (I'm not very up on css), so I've had to change the class names which are now all prefixed with 'mm-' to avoid conflicts. The upside of this is that I found an excellent css template for menus which can be found here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12299162/how-to-style-menu-button-and-menu-items.

It is a major part of the css file now included in the demo with a few lines to implement the mouse transparency from me.

Also with a nudge from miker2069, I have renamed the variables in the demo to make it more obvious what's going on, and added more comments and a second menu to the menubar.

Apologies if you have started to use the css classes and this breaks your code, but it is far more flexible now.

Update uploaded to post 1

Johan Hormaza · May 9, 2018

Great work and thank you!

Starchild · Mar 4, 2019

Thanks to Steve for this very useful B4j library.

I have made some additions and a bug fix to the library see attached MyMenuManager.Zip
Steve, feel free to include these changes into your MenuManager library.
There is a commented "Change History" at the top of the Main code file.

Bug Fix .. Separator lines were not displayed in sub-menus.

Added functions .. SetCheckbox() and GetCheckbox() to the MyMenuManager class to work with CheckMenuItems contained in menus and/or sub-menus. Searched for Tag referance to locate a checkbox.
Can now save and restore checkbox states.

Added function .. SetBold() to BOLD a Menu Text Line.

Added property .. to read/write the Enabled status of a menu on the Menu bar.
eg. HelpMenu.Enabled = false .. temporarily disables the menu already included in the MenuBar.

Hope others find these additions useful.

Again, Thanks.

Jeanc161 · Jun 29, 2020

How do i assign a shortcut key if the menu is created inside the the designer and not in code, i want to assign a different type of shortcut key to each if different menuitem.

Ex:

Menu in designer:

    {Text:"A_ide", Children:
        [
            {Text:"A _Propos de...",EventName:"mnuPropos",Tag:"07"},
            {Text:"Information/Licence/Paiement",EventName:"mnuInfos",Tag:"08"},
            "-",
            {Text:"Zoom + 10%",EventName:"mnuZoomPlus",Tag:"09"},
            {Text:"Zoom - 10%",EventName:"mnuZoomMoins",Tag:"10"},
            {Text:"Zoom Normal = 100%",EventName:"mnuZoomNormal",Tag:"11"}
        ]
    }

I want to assign a key to A_Propos de.. to use the Ctrl i for that item i know that there are a shotcut defenition as
, Shortcut: { key: {????,"i"} in the menu defenition but what are the Ctrl,Alt and Shift constant for those defenition wich i have no clue ??

Any light on that matter could be usefull.
I don't want to define it in code since these menu exist on other same type of application that i develop and don't want to change the menu in any of these app, so making shure it is defined in the designer is my best option, but like i said i don't know the constant you use to define control keys.

Thanks

stevel05 · Jun 29, 2020

Hi Jeanc161, this question is not related to the library in this thread, please post your question in the B4J Questions forum where it is more likely to be seen by someone that knows the answer.

Jeanc161 · Jun 30, 2020

Well i thauth that was a question related to this library, not the B4J itself since this is a question related specificly to the menu library, and since i can't find the full documentation on how to define this in designer and not in code.
This is kind of confusing as to where to post questions to get answers. But hey my mistake i will post the question on B4J Questions and see if i got a response Thanks stevel05

focus330 · Apr 2, 2021

Hi Steve
thanks for your library. It seems very useful but I have this question:

I have a menu with menu items and submenus items. After creating my menu I have to enable or disable some items. To do this I use the Tag field.
With the menu items, I haven't problems. With submenus items, I don't know how to do it.
To inspect the menu I try this sample code.

B4X:

Private Sub Scan
    For Each m As Menu In MenuBar1.Menus
        For Each mi As MenuItem In m.MenuItems
            If mi.IsInitialized Then
                Log(mi.Text)
                Log(mi.Tag)
            End If
        Next
    Next
End Sub

All menu items are displayed and all submenus items are not displayed.
Can you give me a solution?
Thanks

stevel05 · Apr 4, 2021

Sub Menus are stored as Menu Objects, You need to check which each item is and scan deeper.

Try this:

After you have created the menus.

B4X:

For Each M As Menu In menuBar1.Menus
    ScanMenus(M)
Next

B4X:

Private Sub ScanMenus(M As Menu)
    
    For Each O As Object In M.MenuItems
        If O Is Menu Then
            ScanMenus(O)
        Else
            Dim MI As MenuItem = O
            Log(MI.Text)
            Log(MI.Tag)
        End If
    Next
    
End Sub

stevel05 · Apr 5, 2021

I rarely use the MenuManager library any more, you can do 99% of what it does with available classes. The only extra is the Custom menu item, which you can copy to your project if needed. I now set it up as follows.

1) New Code Module MenuUtils:

B4X:

'Static code module
Sub Process_Globals

End Sub

#Region Menu Utils
'Set a shortcut key for this menu item
'Returns the menu item
Public Sub SetShortCutKey(MI As JavaObject,Combination() As String) As MenuItem
    Dim KC As JavaObject
    KC.InitializeStatic("javafx.scene.input.KeyCombination")
    Dim KCS As String
    For i = 0 To Combination.Length - 1
        If i > 0 Then KCS = KCS & "+"
        KCS = KCS & Combination(i)
    Next
    MI.RunMethod("setAccelerator",Array(KC.RunMethod("keyCombination",Array(KCS))))
    Return MI
End Sub

Public Sub MenuSeparatorItem As JavaObject
    Dim TJO As JavaObject
    TJO.InitializeNewInstance("javafx.scene.control.SeparatorMenuItem",Null)
    Return TJO
End Sub
#End Region Menu Utils

2) Sub in Main, or wherever you want to create the menus:

B4X:

Private Sub NewMenuItem(Text As String, EventName As String,KeyShortCut() As String) As MenuItem
    Dim MI As MenuItem
    MI.Initialize(Text,EventName)
    If KeyShortCut.Length > 0 Then
        Menu_Utils.SetShortCutKey(MI,KeyShortCut)
    End If
    Return MI
End Sub

This handles shortcuts if you need them, pass an empty string array if not required, or just create a menu Item in the normal way. You can add a tag parameter to the NewMenuItem sub if required.

Then a sub to create the menu structure:

B4X:

Private Sub CreateMenu
    menuBar1.Menus.Clear
 
    FileMenu.Initialize("File","Menu")
    FileMenu.MenuItems.AddAll(Array( _
        NewMenuItem("Open","Menu",Array As String("Ctrl","O")), _
        NewMenuItem("Save","Menu",Array As String("Ctrl","S")), _
        NewMenuItem("Save As","Menu",Array As String())))
 
    Dim MI As MenuItem
    MI.Initialize("Exit","Menu")
    FileMenu.MenuItems.Add(MI)
 
    Dim SubMenu As Menu
    SubMenu.Initialize("SubMenu","Menu")
 
    SubMenu.MenuItems.AddAll(Array(NewMenuItem("SM1","Menu",Array As String()),NewMenuItem("SM1","Menu",Array As String())))
 
    FileMenu.MenuItems.Add(SubMenu)
 
    menuBar1.Menus.Addall(Array(FileMenu))
 
End Sub

swChef · Jun 5, 2021

For those who want to try the jMenuManager more quickly I'm attaching a compiled lib here.
Just unzip to your additional library B4J folder.

While it did work (when using for example a Label context menu), I also found it was unnecessary in the end for my purpose.

B4J Library Menu Manager

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