CMenuEX - A bitmap menu class

Introduction

MS Visual studio and MS Office products have menus with bitmaps next to commands which are associated with toolbar buttons. The aim of this class was to provide a quick and easy method of implementing these types of menus. The menu class can be used to replace the mainframe window menu as well being used as a context menu.

Implemention

Files:

• ToolBarWrapper.h & ToolBarWrapper.cpp (Toolbar resource wrapper)
• MenuEx.h & MenuEx.cpp (principle Menu class)

Add the above files to your project.

Next add the view header file to your projects header file where the menu is to be used for instance Mainfrm.h

#include "MenuEx.h"

CMenuEx is the class to be included to implement the menu.

class CMainFrame : public CFrameWnd
{
 ... Some other code
 CMenuEx m_menu; 
};

To initialise the menu for a frame window, call CMenuEx::Initialize in the OnCreate procedure.

int CMainFrame::OnCreate(LPCREATESTRUCT lpCreateStruct)
{

  if (CFrameWnd::OnCreate(lpCreateStruct) == -1)
    return -1;

// MENUEX_ADD - Mainframe menu is initialized with parent window
  if (!m_menu.Initialize(IDR_MAINFRAME,this))
    return -1;

 ... Some other code

We now need to provide support for sizing and drawing the menu, the requires processing the WM_MEASUREITEM and WM_DRAWITEM messages. Use the class wizard to create the message handlers (Note: You change the message filter option in the class wizard to Window).

For menu items which use the Radio feature in MFC require this adding to your project where the SetRadio option is used to update the command user interface.

// Example message handle for radio buttons
void CMainFrame::OnUpdateRadioItem3(CCmdUI* pCmdUI)
{

  pCmdUI->SetRadio(m_nRadioGroup == 3);
  m_menu.SetRadio(pCmdUI,m_nRadioGroup == 3); // Set radio button here
}

That's it, the next versions will support the intelligent menus and the new fangled MS Visual Studio 7.0beta menus.

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