Info: (elisp) Defining Menus

elisp: Defining Menus

 
 21.17.1 Defining Menus
 ----------------------
 
 A keymap acts as a menu if it has an “overall prompt string”, which is a
 string that appears as an element of the keymap.  (Format of
 Keymaps.)  The string should describe the purpose of the menu’s
 commands.  Emacs displays the overall prompt string as the menu title in
 some cases, depending on the toolkit (if any) used for displaying
 menus.(1)  Keyboard menus also display the overall prompt string.
 
    The easiest way to construct a keymap with a prompt string is to
 specify the string as an argument when you call ‘make-keymap’,
 ‘make-sparse-keymap’ (Creating Keymaps), or
 ‘define-prefix-command’ (Definition of define-prefix-command).
 If you do not want the keymap to operate as a menu, don’t specify a
 prompt string for it.
 
  -- Function: keymap-prompt keymap
      This function returns the overall prompt string of KEYMAP, or ‘nil’
      if it has none.
 
    The menu’s items are the bindings in the keymap.  Each binding
 associates an event type to a definition, but the event types have no
 significance for the menu appearance.  (Usually we use pseudo-events,
 symbols that the keyboard cannot generate, as the event types for menu
 item bindings.)  The menu is generated entirely from the bindings that
 correspond in the keymap to these events.
 
    The order of items in the menu is the same as the order of bindings
 in the keymap.  Since ‘define-key’ puts new bindings at the front, you
 should define the menu items starting at the bottom of the menu and
 moving to the top, if you care about the order.  When you add an item to
 an existing menu, you can specify its position in the menu using
 ‘define-key-after’ (Modifying Menus).

 
· Simple Menu Items       A simple kind of menu key binding.
· Extended Menu Items     More complex menu item definitions.
· Menu Separators         Drawing a horizontal line through a menu.
· Alias Menu Items        Using command aliases in menu items.
 
    ---------- Footnotes ----------
 
    (1) It is required for menus which do not use a toolkit, e.g., on a
 text terminal.

Info Catalog

elisp: Menu Keymaps

elisp: Mouse Menus