API reference - Class AbstractMenu

Notation used in Ruby API documentation

Description: The abstract menu class

The abstract menu is a class that stores a main menu and several popup menus in a generic form such that they can be manipulated and converted into GUI objects.

Each item can be associated with a Action, which delivers a title, enabled/disable state etc. The Action is either provided when new entries are inserted or created upon initialisation.

The abstract menu class provides methods to manipulate the menu structure (the state of the menu items, their title and shortcut key is provided and manipulated through the Action object).

Menu items and submenus are referred to by a "path". The path is a string with this interpretation:

"" is the root
"[<path>.]<name>" is an element of the submenu given by <path>. If <path> is ommitted, this refers to an element in the root
"[<path>.]end" refers to the item past the last item of the submenu given by <path> or root
"[<path>.]begin" refers to the first item of the submenu given by <path> or root
"[<path>.]#<n>" refers to the nth item of the submenu given by <path> or root (n is an integer number)

Menu items can be put into groups. The path strings of each group can be obtained with the "group" method. An item is put into a group by appending ":<group-name>" to the item's name. This specification can be used several times.

Detached menus (i.e. for use in context menus) can be created as virtual top-level submenus with a name of the form "@<name>". A special detached menu is "@toolbar" which represents the tool bar of the main window. Menus are closely related to the Action class. Actions are used to represent selectable items inside menus, provide the title and other configuration settings. Actions also link the menu items with code. See the Action class description for further details.

Public methods

[const]Actionaction(string path)Get the reference to a Action object associated with the given path
voidcreateEnsures the C++ object is created
voiddelete_item(string path)Delete the item given by the path
voiddestroyExplicitly destroy the object
[const]booldestroyed?Returns a value indicating whether the object was already destroyed
[const]string[]group(string group)Get the group members
voidinsert_item(string path,
string name,
const Action action)
Insert a new item before the one given by the path
voidinsert_menu(string path,
string name,
string title)
Insert a new submenu before the item given by the path
voidinsert_separator(string path,
string name)
Insert a new separator before the item given by the path
[const]boolis_const_object?Returns a value indicating whether the reference is a const reference
[const]boolis_menu?(string path)Query if an item is a menu
[const]boolis_separator?(string path)Query if an item is a separator
[const]boolis_valid?(string path)Query if a path is a valid one
[const]string[]items(string path)Get the subitems for a given submenu

Deprecated methods (protected, public, static, non-static and constructors)

[const]boolis_menu(string path)Use of this method is deprecated. Use is_menu? instead
[const]boolis_separator(string path)Use of this method is deprecated. Use is_separator? instead
[const]boolis_valid(string path)Use of this method is deprecated. Use is_valid? instead

Detailed description

[const] Action action(string path)

Description: Get the reference to a Action object associated with the given path

path:The path to the item. This must be a valid path.
Returns:A reference to a Action object associated with this path

void create

Description: Ensures the C++ object is created

Use this method to ensure the C++ object is created, for example to ensure that resources are allocated. Usually C++ objects are created on demand and not necessarily when the script object is created.

void delete_item(string path)

Description: Delete the item given by the path

path:The path to the item to delete

void destroy

Description: Explicitly destroy the object

Explicitly destroy the object on C++ side if it was owned by the Ruby interpreter. Subsequent access to this object will throw an exception. If the object is not owned by Ruby, this method will do nothing.

[const] bool destroyed?

Description: Returns a value indicating whether the object was already destroyed

This method returns true, if the object was destroyed, either explicitly or by the C++ side. The latter may happen, if the object is owned by a C++ object which got destroyed itself.

[const] string[] group(string group)

Description: Get the group members

group:The group name
A:vector of all members (by path) of the group

void insert_item(string path,string name,const Action action)

Description: Insert a new item before the one given by the path

path:The path to the item before which to insert the new item
name:The name of the item to insert
action:The Action object to insert

The Action object passed as the third parameter references the handler which both implements the action to perform and the menu item's appearance such as title, icon and keyboard shortcut.

void insert_menu(string path,string name,string title)

Description: Insert a new submenu before the item given by the path

path:The path to the item before which to insert the submenu
name:The name of the submenu to insert
title:The title of the submenu to insert

The title string optionally encodes the key shortcut and icon resource in the form <text>["("<shortcut>")"]["<"<icon-resource>">"].

void insert_separator(string path,string name)

Description: Insert a new separator before the item given by the path

path:The path to the item before which to insert the separator
name:The name of the separator to insert

[const] bool is_const_object?

Description: Returns a value indicating whether the reference is a const reference

This method returns true, if self is a const reference. In that case, only const methods may be called on self.

[const] bool is_menu(string path)

Description: Query if an item is a menu

path:The path to the item
Returns:false if the path is not valid or is not a menu

This method is deprecated. Use method 'is_menu?' instead

[const] bool is_menu?(string path)

Description: Query if an item is a menu

path:The path to the item
Returns:false if the path is not valid or is not a menu

[const] bool is_separator(string path)

Description: Query if an item is a separator

path:The path to the item
Returns:false if the path is not valid or is not a separator

This method is deprecated. Use method 'is_separator?' instead

[const] bool is_separator?(string path)

Description: Query if an item is a separator

path:The path to the item
Returns:false if the path is not valid or is not a separator

This method has been introduced in version 0.19.

[const] bool is_valid(string path)

Description: Query if a path is a valid one

path:The path to check
Returns:false if the path is not a valid path to an item

This method is deprecated. Use method 'is_valid?' instead

[const] bool is_valid?(string path)

Description: Query if a path is a valid one

path:The path to check
Returns:false if the path is not a valid path to an item

[const] string[] items(string path)

Description: Get the subitems for a given submenu

path:The path to the submenu
Returns:A vector or path strings for the child items or an empty vector if the path is not valid or the item does not have children