Pmw.MainMenuBar reference manual
Description: Pmw - a toolkit for building high-level compound widgets in Python

# Pmw.MainMenuBar

### Name

  Pmw.MainMenuBar() - manager for toplevel native menus

### Inherits

  Pmw.MegaArchetype

### Description

  This class is a wrapper for the Tkinter.Menu class. It should be used as the main menu of toplevel windows. The class is similar to Pmw.MenuBar, but should be used when native menus are required. See the Tkinter.Menu documentation for full details.

  This class should be created as the child of a Tkinter.Toplevel and should then be specified as the menu associated with the toplevel, using the toplevel's `configure()` method. For example:

         # Create a Pmw.MegaToplevel.
         megaToplevel = Pmw.MegaToplevel()
         # Get the Tkinter.Toplevel from Pmw.MegaToplevel.
         toplevel = megaToplevel.interior()
         # Create the menu bar for the toplevel.
         menuBar = Pmw.MainMenuBar(toplevel)
         # Configure the toplevel to use the menuBar.
         toplevel.configure(menu = menuBar)

  There are methods to add menus, both as toplevel menus and sub-menus, and for adding menu items to the menus. Each menu item may have help text to be displayed by a Pmw.Balloon. Each menu and cascaded menu (sub-menu) is referenced by name which is supplied on creation.

  This megawidget is derived from Pmw.MegaArchetype (not Pmw.MegaWidget like most other megawidgets), with the hull class being Tkinter.Menu.

  (Note that due to bugs in Tk's menubar functionality, balloon help has not been implemented and status help does not work properly.)

### Options

  Options for this megawidget and its base classes are described below.

  balloon
    Specifies a Pmw.Balloon to display the help text for menu items. If None, no help is displayed. If the balloon has an associated Pmw.MessageBar, the help text will also be displayed there.

    Due to a bug in some versions of Tk (8.0 and possible others), help text will not be displayed by the balloon. However, help text will be displayed in the balloon's associated messagebar. The default is None.

  hotkeys
    Initialisation option. If true, keyboard accelerators will be assigned to each menu item. Keyboard accelerators can be used to access the menus without using the mouse. The accelerator character is always one of the alphanumeric characters in the text label of the menu item and is indicated by an underline.

    To select a menu, simultaneously press the <Alt> key and the accelerator character indicated on a toplevel menu item. The arrows keys can then be used to select other menus and menu items. To invoke a menu item, press <Return> or press the accelerator character indicated on the menu item.

    Each accelerator character will be assigned automatically unless traverseSpec is supplied to the `addmenu()`, `addmenuitem()` or `addcascademenu()` methods. The automatically selected accelerator character for a menu item is the first character in the label text that has not already been used as an accelerator in the menu containing the menu item.

    If traverseSpec is given, it must be either an integer or a character. If an integer, it specifies the index of the character in the label text to use as the accelerator character. If a character, it specifies the character to use as the accelerator character. The default is 1.

### Components

  Components created by this megawidget and its base classes are described below.

  hull
    The toplevel menu widget. By default, this component is a Tkinter.Menu.

### Dynamic components

  Menu components are created dynamically by the `addmenu()` and `addcascademenu()` methods. By default, these are of type Tkinter.Menu and are created with a component group of Menu.

### Methods

  Only methods specific to this megawidget are described below. For a description of its inherited methods, see the manual for its base class Pmw.MegaArchetype. In addition, methods from the Tkinter.Menu class are forwarded by this megawidget to the hull component.

  addcascademenu(parentMenuName,menuName,statusHelp = '',traverseSpec = None,**kw)
    Add a cascade menu (sub-menu) to the menu parentMenuName. The menuName argument must not be the same as any menu already created using the `addmenu()` or `addcascademenu()` methods.

    A menu item in the parent menu is created (with the `add_cascade()` method of the parent menu) using all keyword arguments except tearoff and name.

    If the label keyword argument is not given, the label option of the menu item defaults to menuName. If the underline keyword argument is not given (and the hotkeys megawidget option is true) the underline option is determined as described under hotkeys and is used to specify the keyboard accelerator.

    The statusHelp argument is used as the help string for the menu item. This is displayed using the `showstatus()` method of the balloon.

    The tearoff and name keyword arguments, if present, are passed to the constructor of the menu. See Tkinter.Menu for details of these options. The menu is created as a component named menuName.

  addmenu(menuName,balloonHelp,statusHelp = None,traverseSpec = None,**kw)
    Add a cascade menu to the toplevel menu. The menuName argument must not be the same as any menu already created using the `addmenu()` or `addcascademenu()` methods.

    A menu item in the toplevel menu is created (with the `add_cascade()` method) using all keyword arguments except tearoff and name.

    If the label keyword argument is not given, the label option of the menu button defaults to menuName. If the underline keyword argument is not given (and the hotkeys megawidget option is true) the underline option is determined as described under hotkeys and is used to specify the keyboard accelerator.

    The statusHelp argument is used as the help string for the menu item. This is displayed using the `showstatus()` method of the balloon. Currently balloonHelp is not used, due to a bug in Tk version 8.0.

    The tearoff and name keyword arguments, if present, are passed to the constructor of the menu. See Tkinter.Menu for details of these options. The menu is created as a component named menuName.

  addmenuitem(menuName,itemType,statusHelp = '',traverseSpec = None,**kw)
    Add a menu item to the menu menuName. The kind of menu item is given by itemType and may be one of command, separator, checkbutton, radiobutton or cascade (although cascade menus are better added using the `addcascademenu()` method). Any keyword arguments present will be passed to the menu when creating the menu item. See Tkinter.Menu for the valid options for each item type. In addition, a keyboard accelerator may be automatically given to the item, as described under hotkeys.

    When the mouse is moved over the menu item, the helpString will be displayed by the balloon's statuscommand.

  deletemenu(menuName)
    Delete the menu menuName and all its items. The menu may either be a toplevel menu or a cascade menu.
  deletemenuitems(menuName,start,end = None)
    Delete menu items from the menu menuName. If end is not given, the start item is deleted. Otherwise all items from start to end are deleted.
  disableall()
    Disable all toplevel menus.
  enableall()
    Enable all toplevel menus.

### Example

  The image at the top of this manual is a snapshot of the window (or part of the window) produced by the following code.

      class Demo:
          def __init__(self, parent):
              # Create button to launch the toplevel with main menubar.
              w = tkinter.Button(parent, text = 'Show Pmw.MainMenuBar demo',
                      command = lambda parent=parent: MainMenuBarToplevel(parent))
              w.pack(padx = 8, pady = 8)

      class MainMenuBarToplevel:
          def __init__(self, parent):
              # Create the toplevel to contain the main menubar.
              megaToplevel = Pmw.MegaToplevel(parent, title = title)
              toplevel = megaToplevel.interior()

              # Create the Balloon for this toplevel.
              self.balloon = Pmw.Balloon(toplevel)

              # Create and install the MenuBar.
              menuBar = Pmw.MainMenuBar(toplevel,
                      balloon = self.balloon)
              toplevel.configure(menu = menuBar)
              self.menuBar = menuBar

              # Add some buttons to the MainMenuBar.
              menuBar.addmenu('File', 'Close this window or exit')
              menuBar.addmenuitem('File', 'command', 'Close this window',
                      command = PrintOne('Action: close'),
                      label = 'Close')
              menuBar.addmenuitem('File', 'separator')
              menuBar.addmenuitem('File', 'command', 'Exit the application',
                      command = PrintOne('Action: exit'),
                      label = 'Exit')

              menuBar.addmenu('Edit', 'Cut, copy or paste')
              menuBar.addmenuitem('Edit', 'command', 'Delete the current selection',
                      command = PrintOne('Action: delete'),
                      label = 'Delete')

              menuBar.addmenu('Options', 'Set user preferences')
              menuBar.addmenuitem('Options', 'command', 'Set general preferences',
                      command = PrintOne('Action: general options'),
                      label = 'General...')

              # Create a checkbutton menu item.
              self.toggleVar = tkinter.IntVar()
              # Initialise the checkbutton to 1:
              self.toggleVar.set(1)
              menuBar.addmenuitem('Options', 'checkbutton', 'Toggle me on/off',
                      label = 'Toggle',
                      command = self._toggleMe,
                      variable = self.toggleVar)
              self._toggleMe()

              menuBar.addcascademenu('Options', 'Size',
                      'Set some other preferences', traverseSpec = 'z', tearoff = 1)
              for size in ('tiny', 'small', 'average', 'big', 'huge'):
                  menuBar.addmenuitem('Size', 'command', 'Set size to ' + size,
                          command = PrintOne('Action: size ' + size),
                          label = size)

              menuBar.addmenu('Help', 'User manuals', name = 'help')
              menuBar.addmenuitem('Help', 'command', 'About this application',
                      command = PrintOne('Action: about'),
                      label = 'About...')

              # Create and pack the main part of the window.
              self.mainPart = tkinter.Label(toplevel,
                      text = 'This is the\nmain part of\nthe window',
                      background = 'black',
                      foreground = 'white',
                      padx = 30,
                      pady = 30)
              self.mainPart.pack(fill = 'both', expand = 1)

              # Create and pack the MessageBar.
              self.messageBar = Pmw.MessageBar(toplevel,
                      entry_width = 40,
                      entry_relief='groove',
                      labelpos = 'w',
                      label_text = 'Status:')
              self.messageBar.pack(fill = 'x', padx = 10, pady = 10)
              self.messageBar.message('state',
                  'Balloon/status help not working properly - Tk menubar bug')

              buttonBox = Pmw.ButtonBox(toplevel)
              buttonBox.pack(fill = 'x')
              buttonBox.add('Disable\nall', command = menuBar.disableall)
              buttonBox.add('Enable\nall', command = menuBar.enableall)
              buttonBox.add('Create\nmenu', command = self.add)
              buttonBox.add('Delete\nmenu', command = self.delete)
              buttonBox.add('Create\nitem', command = self.additem)
              buttonBox.add('Delete\nitem', command = self.deleteitem)

              # Configure the balloon to displays its status messages in the
              # message bar.
              self.balloon.configure(statuscommand = self.messageBar.helpmessage)

              self.testMenuList = []

          def _toggleMe(self):
              print(('Toggle value:', self.toggleVar.get()))

          def add(self):
              if len(self.testMenuList) == 0:
                  num = 0
              else:
                  num = self.testMenuList[-1]
              num = num + 1
              name = 'Menu%d' % num
              self.testMenuList.append(num)

              self.menuBar.addmenu(name, 'This is ' + name)

          def delete(self):
              if len(self.testMenuList) == 0:
                  self.menuBar.bell()
              else:
                  num = self.testMenuList[0]
                  name = 'Menu%d' % num
                  del self.testMenuList[0]
                  self.menuBar.deletemenu(name)

          def additem(self):
              if len(self.testMenuList) == 0:
                  self.menuBar.bell()
              else:
                  num = self.testMenuList[-1]
                  menuName = 'Menu%d' % num
                  menu = self.menuBar.component(menuName)
                  if menu.index('end') is None:
                      label = 'item X'
                  else:
                      label = menu.entrycget('end', 'label') + 'X'
                  self.menuBar.addmenuitem(menuName, 'command', 'Help for ' + label,
                          command = PrintOne('Action: ' + menuName + ': ' + label),
                          label = label)

          def deleteitem(self):
              if len(self.testMenuList) == 0:
                  self.menuBar.bell()
              else:
                  num = self.testMenuList[-1]
                  menuName = 'Menu%d' % num
                  menu = self.menuBar.component(menuName)
                  if menu.index('end') is None:
                      self.menuBar.bell()
                  else:
                      self.menuBar.deletemenuitems(menuName, 0)

      class PrintOne:
          def __init__(self, text):
              self.text = text

          def __call__(self):
              print((self.text))

Pmw 2.0.0 - 29 Mar 2014 - Home
Manual page last reviewed: 22 April 2000