Wish list for CVI menu bars

[Al_S]

I have a wish list for CVI menu bars.

• I'd like to see menu bars integrated better with the UI editor.  Basically, I'd like to see the UI editor treat a menu bar as a control.
  
• In the UI editor, I'd like a menu bar to be on the pop-up list of controls that can be added to a panel.  (Instead of using the menu to click Create >> Menu Bar...)
  
• Once a menu bar has been created on a panel, in the UI editor, I'd like to be able to double-click on the menu bar to edit it.  (Instead of using the menu to click Edit >> Menu Bars...)
  
• I'd like to right-click on a menu bar and Generate Control Callback or View Control Callback.
  
• If more than one menu bar has been created on a panel, I'd like to right-click on the menu bar and have an option to Set Active Menu Bar.

• I'd like to get rid of the exclamation mark on menu bar items that have no sub-menu items.  In a post from 2006, LuisG said that "in the next version of CVI, we'll either get rid of it, or make it optional".  Here's his post: http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=180&message.id=22796&query.id=1118197#M22796.     In CVI 9.01, the exclamation mark is still there, and I don't see an option to remove it.  What happened to LuisG's prediction?

I'm ok with having a separate set of functions for menu bars (e.g. GetMenuBarAttribute() vs. GetCtrlAttribute(), etc.)

Any other ideas?

[RobertoBozzolo]

Hi Al, I totally agree with you! Your list seems to address all the relevant wishes I can think of about menu bars.

To make you feel a little bit happy, code generation and direct jump to menu item code via right-clicking on it have been introduced with release 8.5, as you can read in this discussion.

[Al_S]

Roberto:

Thanks for pointing out the feature to view the callbacks.  I wasn't drilling down to the individual menu item when I tried it, so I didn't see those options.  It makes sense that they're tied to a menu item and not to the menu bar.

I wish the other items on my wish list were as easy to solve.

Thanks!

Message Edited by Al S on 09-10-2009 10:47 AM

[CVI-User]

If I may:

• Copy-n-paste of items between menu bars and uirs
• Get rid of the tracking loop (or hide it inside the runtime)

[herosphro]

Al S & CVI-User,

Thanks for the good suggestions.  I will make sure that R&D gets this info and can consider these suggestions for future versions of CVI.

I did want to address Al S's issue with the exclamation mark.  If you look in the help, under the 'Programming with Menu Bars' article it mentions the following:
"By default, immediate action menus contain an exclamation mark following the menu name. You can use the SetMenuBarAttribute function and set the ATTR_SHOW_IMMEDIATE_ACTION_SYMBOL attribute to false to hide the exclamation mark."

So the marks are still there by default, but we can programatically remove them if you want to have a menu with no sub-items.  It might be nice to be able to change it within the Edit Menu Bar window, but until that is available this should hopefully suffice.

Message Edited by herosphro on 09-11-2009 08:55 AM

[ebalci]

I especially second Al's suggestion on treating menus as other UIR controls.

I mean, having them on the UIR editor popup menu next to all other possible controls.

I realized that I am using menus much less than I should.

While most Windows apps have menus, I hardly convince myself to use them in my apps, since I find them hard to access, modify and manage.