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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


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

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© Apple Computer, Inc.
11 JUL 1996