Menu System - Overview

The Menu System facilitates the rapid design and implementation of user interfaces. It provides developers with a convenient, consistent set of application interface components.

Menu system menus are driven by templates. Each template is composed of two parts: the header, which describes the general features of the menu, and the detail, which describes each individual menu item. Developers can create the menu template through either the BASIS Menu Editor or on the fly during application execution.

Menu system menus can be created and edited using the BASIS Menu Editor. To interactively modify menus, call the module _msedit.utl. The user interface conforms to the Input Subsystem conventions. This means that all of the amenities provided by the Input Subsystem, such as help and hotkeys, are available.

Visual PRO/5 Menus and Pointing Devices

Menus created in Visual PRO/5 are automatically mouse enabled. This applies to static menus created with the Menu Editor as well as dynamic menus. However, note that the menus created by the Menu Editor are not SYSGUI-type menus.

When you install your application in conjunction with PRO/5 and Visual PRO/5 ports that support pointing devices, the menus in your application will have mouse functionality automatically. The same menus also function in character mode without change. It is not necessary to maintain two versions of your application to provide pointing device functionality.

The pointing device functionality of static menus that are created in the Menu Editor is very simple:

• Single click to choose a menu item. All menus that drop down from the main menu bar and their submenus will behave as above.

• In dynamic menus, pointing device functionality is:

• Click and drag to view the mouse-sensitive areas of the window. Menu items are highlighted as the mouse pointer passes over them. An item is chosen when the mouse button is released.