Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials /

Chapter 3 - Menu Manager

You can use the Menu Manager to create and manage the menus in your application. Menus allow the user to view or choose from a list of choices and commands that your application provides.

All Macintosh applications should provide these standard menus: the Apple menu, the File menu, and the Edit menu. If you include an Apple menu as a menu of your application, the Menu Manager automatically adds the Help and Application menus to your application's menu bar; it adds the Keyboard menu if more than one keyboard layout or input method is installed.

Menus are typically stored as resources. This chapter describes the menu-related resources. See the chapter "Introduction to the Macintosh Toolbox" in this book for general information on resources and see the chapter "Resource Manager" in Inside Macintosh: More Macintosh Toolbox for information on Resource Manager routines.
See Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines for additional examples of menus that incorporate many principles of user interface design. Inside Macintosh: Text contains further information on localizing your application for worldwide markets.

You can choose to provide help balloons for your application's menus. See the chapter "Help Manager" in Inside Macintosh: More Macintosh Toolbox for additional details on providing help balloons for your application's menus.

You often present a dialog box to the user as a result of the user's choice of a menu command that requires additional information before you can perform the command. See the chapter "Dialog Manager" later in this book for information on creating dialog boxes in your application.

For additional information on processing events, see the chapter "Event Manager" earlier in this book.

This chapter provides an introduction to menus and the menu bar, and it then describes

• various types of menus your application can use
• standard menus
• how to store menus as resources
• how to create menus
• how to create a menu bar
• how to change characteristics of menu items
• how to add items to a menu

---

Chapter Contents

Introduction to Menus

Menu and Menu Bar Definition Routines

The Menu Bar

Menus

Menu Items

Groups of Menu Items

Keyboard Equivalents for Menu Commands

Menus Added Automatically by the Menu Manager

The Apple Menu

The File Menu

The Edit Menu

The Font Menu

The Size Menu

The Help Menu

The Keyboard Menu

The Application Menu

Pop-Up Menus

Hierarchical Menus

About the Menu Manager

How the Menu Manager Maintains Information About Menus

How the Menu Manager Maintains Information About an Application's Menu Bar

Using the Menu Manager

Creating a Menu

Creating a Menu Resource

Creating a Menu Bar Resource

Setting Up Your Application's Menu Bar

Creating a Hierarchical Menu

Creating a Pop-Up Menu

Changing the Appearance of Items in a Menu

Enabling and Disabling Menu Items

Changing the Text of an Item

Changing the Font Style of Menu Items

Changing the Mark of Menu Items

Changing the Icon or Script Code of Menu Items

Adding Items to a Menu

Adding Items to the Help Menu

Adding Items to the Apple Menu

Adding Fonts to a Menu

Handling User Choice of a Menu Command

Handling Mouse-Down Events in the Menu Bar

Adjusting the Menus of an Application

Determining if the User Chose a Keyboard Equivalent

Responding When the User Chooses a Menu Item

Handling the Apple Menu

Handling the Help Menu

Handling a Size Menu

Accessing Menus From a Dialog Box

Writing Your Own Menu Definition Procedure

Calculating the Dimensions of a Menu

Drawing Menu Items in a Menu

Determining Whether the Cursor Is in an Enabled Menu Item

Menu Manager Reference

Data Structures

The Menu Record

The Menu List

The Menu Color Information Table Record

Menu Manager Routines

Initializing the Menu Manager

Creating Menus

Adding Menus to and Removing Menus From the Current Menu List

Getting a Menu Bar Description From an 'MBAR' Resource

Getting and Setting the Menu Bar

Drawing the Menu Bar

Responding to the User's Choice of a Menu Command

Getting a Handle to a Menu Record

Adding and Deleting Menu Items

Getting and Setting the Appearance of Menu Items

Disposing of Menus

Counting the Items in a Menu

Highlighting the Menu Bar

Recalculating Menu Dimensions

Managing Entries in the Menu Color Information Table

Application-Defined Routine

The Menu Definition Procedure

Resources

The Menu Resource

The Menu Bar Resource

The Menu Color Information Table Resource

The Menu Definition Procedure Resource

Summary of the Menu Manager

Pascal Summary

Constants

Data Types

Menu Manager Routines

Application-Defined Routine

C Summary

Constants

Data Types

Menu Manager Routines

Application-Defined Routine

Assembly-Language Summary

Data Structures

Global Variables

Result Codes