- NAME
- menu, tk_menuSetFocus — Create and manipulate 'menu' widgets
and menubars
- SYNOPSIS
- STANDARD
OPTIONS
- -activebackground,
activeBackground, Foreground
- -activeborderwidth,
activeBorderWidth, BorderWidth
- -activeforeground,
activeForeground, Background
- -background or -bg,
background, Background
- -borderwidth or -bd,
borderWidth, BorderWidth
- -cursor, cursor, Cursor
- -disabledforeground,
disabledForeground, DisabledForeground
- -font, font, Font
- -foreground or -fg,
foreground, Foreground
- -relief, relief, Relief
- -takefocus, takeFocus,
TakeFocus
- WIDGET-SPECIFIC
OPTIONS
- -postcommand,
postCommand, Command
- -selectcolor,
selectColor, Background
- -tearoff, tearOff,
TearOff
- -tearoffcommand,
tearOffCommand, TearOffCommand
- -title, title,
Title
- -type, type,
Type
- INTRODUCTION
- TYPES OF
ENTRIES
- COMMAND
ENTRIES
- SEPARATOR
ENTRIES
- CHECKBUTTON
ENTRIES
- RADIOBUTTON
ENTRIES
- CASCADE
ENTRIES
- TEAR-OFF
ENTRIES
- MENUBARS
- SPECIAL MENUS IN
MENUBARS
- CLONES
- WIDGET COMMAND
- active
- end
- last
- none
- @number
- number
- pattern
- pathName
activate index
- pathName
add type ?option value option value
...?
- pathName
cget option
- pathName
clone newPathname ?cloneType?
- pathName
configure ?option? ?value option value
...?
- pathName
delete index1 ?index2?
- pathName
entrycget index option
- pathName
entryconfigure index ?options...?
- pathName
index index
- pathName
insert index type ?option value option value
...?
- pathName
invoke index
- pathName
post x y ?index?
- pathName
postcascade index
- pathName
type index
- pathName
unpost
- pathName
xposition index
- pathName
yposition index
- MENU ENTRY
OPTIONS
- MENU
CONFIGURATIONS
- DEFAULT
BINDINGS
- BUGS
- SEE
ALSO
- KEYWORDS
menu, tk_menuSetFocus — Create and manipulate 'menu' widgets and
menubars
menu pathName ?options?
tk_menuSetFocus pathName
- -activebackground,
activeBackground, Foreground
- -activeborderwidth,
activeBorderWidth, BorderWidth
- -activeforeground,
activeForeground, Background
- -background or -bg,
background, Background
- -borderwidth or -bd,
borderWidth, BorderWidth
- -cursor, cursor,
Cursor
- -disabledforeground,
disabledForeground, DisabledForeground
- -font, font, Font
- -foreground or -fg,
foreground, Foreground
- -relief, relief,
Relief
- -takefocus, takeFocus,
TakeFocus
- Command-Line Name: -postcommand
- Database Name: postCommand
- Database Class: Command
- If this option is specified then it provides a Tcl command to
execute each time the menu is posted. The command is invoked by the
post widget command before posting the menu. Note that in Tk
8.0 on Macintosh and Windows, all post-commands in a system of
menus are executed before any of those menus are posted. This is
due to the limitations in the individual platforms' menu
managers.
- Command-Line Name: -selectcolor
- Database Name: selectColor
- Database Class: Background
- For menu entries that are check buttons or radio buttons, this
option specifies the color to display in the indicator when the
check button or radio button is selected.
- Command-Line Name: -tearoff
- Database Name: tearOff
- Database Class: TearOff
- This option must have a proper boolean value, which specifies
whether or not the menu should include a tear-off entry at the top.
If so, it will exist as entry 0 of the menu and the other entries
will number starting at 1. The default menu bindings arrange for
the menu to be torn off when the tear-off entry is invoked. This
option is ignored under Aqua/MacOS, where menus cannot be torn
off.
- Command-Line Name: -tearoffcommand
- Database Name: tearOffCommand
- Database Class: TearOffCommand
- If this option has a non-empty value, then it specifies a Tcl
command to invoke whenever the menu is torn off. The actual command
will consist of the value of this option, followed by a space,
followed by the name of the menu window, followed by a space,
followed by the name of the name of the torn off menu window. For
example, if the option's value is “a b” and menu .x.y
is torn off to create a new menu .x.tearoff1, then the
command “a b .x.y .x.tearoff1” will be invoked. This option
is ignored under Aqua/MacOS, where menus cannot be torn off.
- Command-Line Name: -title
- Database Name: title
- Database Class: Title
- The string will be used to title the window created when this
menu is torn off. If the title is NULL, then the window will have
the title of the menubutton or the text of the cascade item from
which this menu was invoked.
- Command-Line Name: -type
- Database Name: type
- Database Class: Type
- This option can be one of menubar, tearoff, or
normal, and is set when the menu is created. While the
string returned by the configuration database will change if this
option is changed, this does not affect the menu widget's behavior.
This is used by the cloning mechanism and is not normally set
outside of the Tk library.
The menu command creates a new top-level window (given by
the pathName argument) and makes it into a menu widget. That
menu widget can either be used as a pop-up window or applied to a
toplevel (with its
-menu option) to make it into the menubar for that toplevel.
Additional options, described above, may be specified on the
command line or in the option database to configure aspects of the
menu such as its colors and font. The menu command returns
its pathName argument. At the time this command is invoked,
there must not exist a window named pathName, but
pathName's parent must exist.
A menu is a widget that displays a collection of one-line
entries arranged in one or more columns. There exist several
different types of entries, each with different properties. Entries
of different types may be combined in a single menu. Menu entries
are not the same as entry widgets. In fact, menu entries are not
even distinct widgets; the entire menu is one widget.
Menu entries are displayed with up to three separate fields. The
main field is a label in the form of a text string, a bitmap, or an
image, controlled by the -label, -bitmap, and
-image options for the entry. If the -accelerator
option is specified for an entry then a second textual field is
displayed to the right of the label. The accelerator typically
describes a keystroke sequence that may be used in the application
to cause the same result as invoking the menu entry. This is a
display option, it does not actually set the corresponding binding
(which can be achieved using the bind command). The third field is an
indicator. The indicator is present only for checkbutton or
radiobutton entries. It indicates whether the entry is selected or
not, and is displayed to the left of the entry's string.
In normal use, an entry becomes active (displays itself
differently) whenever the mouse pointer is over the entry. If a
mouse button is released over the entry then the entry is
invoked. The effect of invocation is different for each type
of entry; these effects are described below in the sections on
individual entries.
Entries may be disabled, which causes their labels and
accelerators to be displayed with dimmer colors. The default menu
bindings will not allow a disabled entry to be activated or
invoked. Disabled entries may be re-enabled, at which point it
becomes possible to activate and invoke them again.
Whenever a menu's active entry is changed, a
<<MenuSelect>> virtual event is send to the menu. The
active item can then be queried from the menu, and an action can be
taken, such as setting context-sensitive help text for the
entry.
The most common kind of menu entry is a command entry, which
behaves much like a button widget. When a command entry is invoked,
a Tcl command is executed. The Tcl command is specified with the
-command option.
A separator is an entry that is displayed as a horizontal dividing
line. A separator may not be activated or invoked, and it has no
behavior other than its display appearance.
A checkbutton menu entry behaves much like a checkbutton widget.
When it is invoked it toggles back and forth between the selected
and deselected states. When the entry is selected, a particular
value is stored in a particular global variable (as determined by
the -onvalue and -variable options for the entry);
when the entry is deselected another value (determined by the
-offvalue option) is stored in the global variable. An
indicator box is displayed to the left of the label in a
checkbutton entry. If the entry is selected then the indicator's
center is displayed in the color given by the -selectcolor
option for the entry; otherwise the indicator's center is displayed
in the background color for the menu. If a -command option
is specified for a checkbutton entry, then its value is evaluated
as a Tcl command each time the entry is invoked; this happens after
toggling the entry's selected state.
A radiobutton menu entry behaves much like a radiobutton widget.
Radiobutton entries are organized in groups of which only one entry
may be selected at a time. Whenever a particular entry becomes
selected it stores a particular value into a particular global
variable (as determined by the -value and -variable
options for the entry). This action causes any previously-selected
entry in the same group to deselect itself. Once an entry has
become selected, any change to the entry's associated variable will
cause the entry to deselect itself. Grouping of radiobutton entries
is determined by their associated variables: if two entries have
the same associated variable then they are in the same group. An
indicator diamond is displayed to the left of the label in each
radiobutton entry. If the entry is selected then the indicator's
center is displayed in the color given by the -selectcolor
option for the entry; otherwise the indicator's center is displayed
in the background color for the menu. If a -command option
is specified for a radiobutton entry, then its value is evaluated
as a Tcl command each time the entry is invoked; this happens after
selecting the entry.
A cascade entry is one with an associated menu (determined by the
-menu option). Cascade entries allow the construction of
cascading menus. The postcascade widget command can be used
to post and unpost the associated menu just next to of the cascade
entry. The associated menu must be a child of the menu containing
the cascade entry (this is needed in order for menu traversal to
work correctly).
A cascade entry posts its associated menu by invoking a Tcl
command of the form
menu post x y
where menu is the path name of the associated menu, and
x and y are the root-window coordinates of the
upper-right corner of the cascade entry. On Unix, the lower-level
menu is unposted by executing a Tcl command with the form
menu unpost
where menu is the name of the associated menu. On other
platforms, the platform's native code takes care of unposting the
menu.
If a -command option is specified for a cascade entry
then it is evaluated as a Tcl command whenever the entry is
invoked. This is not supported on Windows.
A tear-off entry appears at the top of the menu if enabled with the
-tearoff option. It is not like other menu entries in that
it cannot be created with the add widget command and cannot
be deleted with the delete widget command. When a tear-off
entry is created it appears as a dashed line at the top of the
menu. Under the default bindings, invoking the tear-off entry
causes a torn-off copy to be made of the menu and all of its
submenus.
Any menu can be set as a menubar for a toplevel window (see
toplevel command for
syntax). On the Macintosh, whenever the toplevel is in front, this
menu's cascade items will appear in the menubar across the top of
the main monitor. On Windows and Unix, this menu's items will be
displayed in a menubar across the top of the window. These menus
will behave according to the interface guidelines of their
platforms. For every menu set as a menubar, a clone menu is made.
See the CLONES section for more
information.
As noted, menubars may behave differently on different
platforms. One example of this concerns the handling of
checkbuttons and radiobuttons within the menu. While it is
permitted to put these menu elements on menubars, they may not be
drawn with indicators on some platforms, due to system
restrictions.
Certain menus in a menubar will be treated specially. On the
Macintosh, access to the special Application, Window and Help menus
is provided. On Windows, access to the Windows System menu in each
window is provided. On X Windows, a special right-justified help
menu may be provided if Motif menu compatibility is enabled. In all
cases, these menus must be created with the command name of the
menubar menu concatenated with the special name. So for a menubar
named .menubar, on the Macintosh, the special menus would be
.menubar.apple, .menubar.window and .menubar.help; on Windows, the
special menu would be .menubar.system; on X Windows, the help menu
would be .menubar.help.
When Tk sees a .menubar.apple menu as the first menu in a
menubar on the Macintosh, that menu's contents make up the first
items of the Application menu whenever the window containing the
menubar is in front. After all of the Tk-defined items, the menu
will have a separator, followed by all standard Application menu
items. Such a .apple menu must be present in a menu when that menu
is first configured as a toplevel's menubar, otherwise a default
application menu (hidden from Tk) will be inserted into the menubar
at that time and subsequent addition of a .apple menu will no
longer result in it becoming the Application menu.
When Tk sees a .menubar.window menu on the Macintosh, the menu's
contents are inserted into the standard Window menu of the user's
menubar whenever the window's menubar is in front. The first items
in the menu are provided by Mac OS X, and the names of the current
toplevels are automatically appended after all the Tk-defined items
and a separator. The Window menu on the Mac also allows toggling
the window into a fullscreen state, and managing a tabbed window
interface (multiple windows grouped into a single window) if
supported by that version of the operating system.
When Tk sees a .menubar.help menu on the Macintosh, the menu's
contents are appended to the standard Help menu of the user's
menubar whenever the window's menubar is in front. The first items
in the menu are provided by Mac OS X.
When Tk sees a System menu on Windows, its items are appended to
the system menu that the menubar is attached to. This menu is tied
to the application icon and can be invoked with the mouse or by
typing Alt+Spacebar. Due to limitations in the Windows API, any
font changes, colors, images, bitmaps, or tearoff images will not
appear in the system menu.
When Tk sees a Help menu on X Windows and Motif menu
compatibility is enabled the menu is moved to be last in the
menubar and is right justified. Motif menu compatibility is enabled
by setting the Tk option *Menu.useMotifHelp to true or by
calling tk::classic::restore menu.
When a menu is set as a menubar for a toplevel window, or when a
menu is torn off, a clone of the menu is made. This clone is a menu
widget in its own right, but it is a child of the original. Changes
in the configuration of the original are reflected in the clone.
Additionally, any cascades that are pointed to are also cloned so
that menu traversal will work right. Clones are destroyed when
either the tearoff or menubar goes away, or when the original menu
is destroyed.
The menu command creates a new Tcl command whose name is
pathName. This command may be used to invoke various
operations on the widget. It has the following general form:
pathName option ?arg arg ...?
Option and the args determine the exact behavior of
the command.
Many of the widget commands for a menu take as one argument an
indicator of which entry of the menu to operate on. These
indicators are called indexes and may be specified in any of
the following forms:
- active
- Indicates the entry that is currently active. If no entry is
active then this form is equivalent to none. This form may
not be abbreviated.
- end
- Indicates the bottommost entry in the menu. If there are no
entries in the menu then this form is equivalent to none.
This form may not be abbreviated.
- last
- Same as end.
- none
- Indicates “no entry at all”; this is used most commonly with
the activate option to deactivate all the entries in the
menu. In most cases the specification of none causes nothing
to happen in the widget command. This form may not be
abbreviated.
- @number
- In this form, number is treated as a y-coordinate in the
menu's window; the entry closest to that y-coordinate is used. For
example, “@0” indicates the top-most entry in the
window.
- number
- Specifies the entry numerically, where 0 corresponds to the
top-most entry of the menu, 1 to the entry below it, and so
on.
- pattern
- If the index does not satisfy one of the above forms then this
form is used. Pattern is pattern-matched against the label
of each entry in the menu, in order from the top down, until a
matching entry is found. The rules of string match are
used.
If the index could match more than one of the above forms, then
the form earlier in the above list takes precedence.
The following widget commands are possible for menu widgets:
- pathName activate
index
- Change the state of the entry indicated by index to
active and redisplay it using its active colors. Any
previously-active entry is deactivated. If index is
specified as none, or if the specified entry is disabled,
then the menu ends up with no active entry. Returns an empty
string.
- pathName add type
?option value option value ...?
- Add a new entry to the bottom of the menu. The new entry's type
is given by type and must be one of cascade,
checkbutton, command, radiobutton, or
separator, or a unique abbreviation of one of the above. If
additional arguments are present, they specify the options listed
in the MENU ENTRY OPTIONS section below.
The add widget command returns an empty string.
- pathName cget
option
- Returns the current value of the configuration option given by
option. Option may have any of the values accepted by
the menu command.
- pathName clone
newPathname ?cloneType?
- Makes a clone of the current menu named newPathName.
This clone is a menu in its own right, but any changes to the clone
are propagated to the original menu and vice versa.
cloneType can be normal, menubar, or
tearoff. Should not normally be called outside of the Tk
library. See the CLONES section for more
information.
- pathName configure
?option? ?value option value ...?
- Query or modify the configuration options of the widget. If no
option is specified, returns a list describing all of the
available options for pathName (see Tk_ConfigureInfo for information
on the format of this list). If option is specified with no
value, then the command returns a list describing the one
named option (this list will be identical to the corresponding
sublist of the value returned if no option is specified). If
one or more option-value pairs are specified, then the
command modifies the given widget option(s) to have the given
value(s); in this case the command returns an empty string.
Option may have any of the values accepted by the
menu command.
- pathName delete
index1 ?index2?
- Delete all of the menu entries between index1 and
index2 inclusive. If index2 is omitted then it
defaults to index1. Attempts to delete a tear-off menu entry
are ignored (instead, you should change the -tearoff option
to remove the tear-off entry).
- pathName entrycget
index option
- Returns the current value of a configuration option for the
entry given by index. Option may have any of the
names described in the MENU ENTRY OPTIONS
section below.
- pathName entryconfigure
index ?options...?
- This command is similar to the configure command, except
that it applies to the options for an individual entry, whereas
configure applies to the options for the menu as a whole.
Options may have any of the values described in the
MENU ENTRY OPTIONS section below. If
options are specified, options are modified as indicated in
the command and the command returns an empty string. If no
options are specified, returns a list describing the current
options for entry index (see Tk_ConfigureInfo for information
on the format of this list).
- pathName index
index
- Returns the numerical index corresponding to index, or
none if index was specified as none.
- pathName insert index
type ?option value option value ...?
- Same as the add widget command except that it inserts
the new entry just before the entry given by index, instead
of appending to the end of the menu. The type,
option, and value arguments have the same
interpretation as for the add widget command. It is not
possible to insert new menu entries before the tear-off entry, if
the menu has one.
- pathName invoke
index
- Invoke the action of the menu entry. See the sections on the
individual entries above for details on what happens. If the menu
entry is disabled then nothing happens. If the entry has a command
associated with it then the result of that command is returned as
the result of the invoke widget command. Otherwise the
result is an empty string. Note: invoking a menu entry does not
automatically unpost the menu; the default bindings normally take
care of this before invoking the invoke widget command.
- pathName post x y
?index?
- Arrange for the menu to be displayed on the screen at the
root-window coordinates given by x and y. If an index
is specified the menu will be located so that the entry with that
index is displayed at the point. These coordinates are adjusted if
necessary to guarantee that the entire menu is visible on the
screen. This command normally returns an empty string. If the
-postcommand option has been specified, then its value is
executed as a Tcl script before posting the menu and the result of
that script is returned as the result of the post widget
command. If an error returns while executing the command, then the
error is returned without posting the menu.
- pathName postcascade
index
- Posts the submenu associated with the cascade entry given by
index, and unposts any previously posted submenu. If
index does not correspond to a cascade entry, or if
pathName is not posted, the command has no effect except to
unpost any currently posted submenu.
- pathName type
index
- Returns the type of the menu entry given by index. This
is the type argument passed to the add or
insert widget command when the entry was created, such as
command or separator, or tearoff for a
tear-off entry.
- pathName unpost
- Unmap the window so that it is no longer displayed. If a
lower-level cascaded menu is posted, unpost that menu. Returns an
empty string. This subcommand does not work on Windows and the
Macintosh, as those platforms have their own way of unposting
menus.
- pathName xposition
index
- Returns a decimal string giving the x-coordinate within the
menu window of the leftmost pixel in the entry specified by
index.
- pathName yposition
index
- Returns a decimal string giving the y-coordinate within the
menu window of the topmost pixel in the entry specified by
index.
The following options are allowed on menu entries. Most options are
not supported by all entry types.
The default bindings support four different ways of using menus:
Tk automatically creates class bindings for menus that give them
the following default behavior:
- When the mouse enters a menu, the entry underneath
the mouse cursor activates; as the mouse moves around the menu, the
active entry changes to track the mouse.
- When the mouse leaves a menu all of the entries in
the menu deactivate, except in the special case where the mouse
moves from a menu to a cascaded submenu.
- When a button is released over a menu, the active
entry (if any) is invoked. The menu also unposts unless it is a
torn-off menu.
- The Space and Return keys invoke the active entry and
unpost the menu.
- If any of the entries in a menu have letters
underlined with the -underline option, then pressing one of
the underlined letters (or its upper-case or lower-case equivalent)
invokes that entry and unposts the menu.
- The Escape key aborts a menu selection in progress
without invoking any entry. It also unposts the menu unless it is a
torn-off menu.
- The Up and Down keys activate the next higher or
lower entry in the menu. When one end of the menu is reached, the
active entry wraps around to the other end.
- The Left key moves to the next menu to the left. If
the current menu is a cascaded submenu, then the submenu is
unposted and the current menu entry becomes the cascade entry in
the parent. If the current menu is a top-level menu posted from a
menubutton, then the current menubutton is unposted and the next
menubutton to the left is posted. Otherwise the key has no effect.
The left-right order of menubuttons is determined by their stacking
order: Tk assumes that the lowest menubutton (which by default is
the first one created) is on the left.
- The Right key moves to the next menu to the right. If
the current entry is a cascade entry, then the submenu is posted
and the current menu entry becomes the first entry in the submenu.
Otherwise, if the current menu was posted from a menubutton, then
the current menubutton is unposted and the next menubutton to the
right is posted.
Disabled menu entries are non-responsive: they do not activate
and they ignore mouse button presses and releases.
Several of the bindings make use of the command
tk_menuSetFocus. It saves the current focus and sets the
focus to its pathName argument, which is a menu widget.
The behavior of menus can be changed by defining new bindings
for individual widgets or by redefining the class bindings.
At present it is not possible to use the option database to specify
values for the options to individual entries.
bind, menubutton, ttk::menubutton, toplevel
menu, widget
Copyright © 1990-1994 The Regents of the
University of California.
Copyright © 1994-1997 Sun Microsystems, Inc.