<     > 

MenuItem

Object Hierarchy | Related C++ Class: MenuItem

Inheritance

SIObject
  UIObject
    MenuItem

Introduced

4.0

Description

The MenuItem object represents an individual item of a custom Menu. With the MenuItem object you can attach a command or a callback function to a menu item and fire it when you click on the menu item.

Other features of custom menu items include:

- Menu items set with a command are greyed out if the command is disabled.

- Menu items will show the origin of the command or callback ([u] for user, [w] for workgroup).

- Menu items that point to a command will show the hotkey associated with the command.

- Set them with a Filter to validate the menu items against the selected/target object(s) before opening the menu. Custom menus are greyed out or removed if the filter criteria is not satisfied.

- Callback functions are undoable provided that commands or object model methods they used supports undo and redo.

A menu item can be defined as a standard menu item on which you can attach a command or callback function (Note: If for some reasons you assign both a command and a callback to your menu item, the callback will have precedence over the command when the menu item is selected). You can also create a menu item as a separator or as a sub menu. See the Menu object documentation for more details about adding menu items to a custom menu.

Methods

Properties

Examples

JScript Example

// JScript implementation example of a custom menu item 
// This function is required to register the menu in XSI
//
// README: Copy and paste the example into the script editor 
// and run (F5).
//
// The menu will install itself into the main window menu
//-------------------------------------------------------------------
function  XSILoadPlugin( in_reg )
{
   // register plug-in information
   in_reg.Author = "Softimage Co." ;
   in_reg.Name = "MenuItem Example";

   //  the version number of this plug-in
   in_reg.Major = 1;
   in_reg.Minor = 0 ;

   // install a custom menu in the window menu 
   in_reg.RegisterMenu( siMenuMainWindowID, "ExMenuItem", true, true );

   return true;
}

// This is the callback function used for building the menu. Since the menu is
// dynamic, the function is called each time the menu opens.
function  ExMenuItem_Init( in_ctxt )
   {

   // retrieve the menu object to build 
   menu = in_ctxt.Source;

   // attach a menu item to the menu along with its function handler
   menu.AddCallbackItem( "Custom menu item", "OnMenuItem" );

   return true;
}

//This callback function is called by XSI when the menu item is selected
function OnMenuItem( in_ctxt )
{
   var menuitem = in_ctxt.source;
   LogMessage( menuitem.name + ":" + menuitem.callback );
}

//--------------------------------------------------------------------
// Code to bootscrap example into system
//--------------------------------------------------------------------
function ExampleSourceCode()
{
   return "// XSISDK Doc Example\n" +
       ExMenuItem_Init.toString() + "\n" + 
       OnMenuItem.toString() + "\n" + 
       XSILoadPlugin.toString();
}

// if we are running from script editor save code to 
// examples addon folder in the user's directory.
if (GetUserPref("ScriptingSessionActive"))
{
   var ex_name  = "ExMenuItem";
   var ex_subfolder  = "Plugins";
   var ex_folder  = "XSISDKDocExamples";
   var ex_langsuffix = ".js";

   CreateAddonDirectories( InstallationPath(siUserPath), ex_folder );

   var fso = XSIFactory.CreateActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");

   var filename = XSIUtils.BuildPath( 
       InstallationPath(siUserAddonPath), 
       ex_folder,
       "Application",
       ex_subfolder,
       ex_name+ex_langsuffix );

   if (!fso.FileExists(filename))
   {
       var f = fso.CreateTextFile ( filename );
       f.write( ExampleSourceCode() );
       f.close();

       Application.LoadPlugin(filename);
   }
}
// 

See Also

SOFTIMAGE|XSI v6.01     <     >