\nMenus aren’t as complicated as dialogs.\nThere are no fonts, no positioning,\nit’s just a list of menu items and flags.\nWell, okay, there’s the recursive part,\nwhen a menu has a submenu.\nBut that’s really the only wrinkle.\nMost of it is pretty boring.\n<\/P>\n
\nThe 16-bit classic menu template begins with the following header:\n<\/P>\n
\nstruct MENUHEADER16 {\n WORD wVersion;\n WORD cbHeaderSize;\n BYTE rgbExtra[cbHeaderSize];\n};\n<\/PRE>\n\nThe version is zero for 16-bit classic menu templates,\nand the cbHeaderSize<\/CODE> is the number of\nextra bytes in the menu header that have to be skipped over\nto find the first actual menu item.\nIn practice, cbHeaderSize<\/CODE> is always zero.\nThis header exists only on the top level menu;\nrecursive submenus do not have a MENUHEADER16<\/CODE>.\n<\/P>\n\nAfter the header (and any extra bytes specified by cbHeaderSize<\/CODE>)\ncomes a packed array of menu item templates.\nThere are two types of menu item templates, normal items and\npop-up submenus.\nFirst, let’s look at the normal items:\n<\/P>\n\nstruct NORMALMENUITEM16 {\n WORD wFlags; \/\/ menu item flags (MFT_*, MFS_*)\n WORD wID; \/\/ menu item ID\n CHAR szText[]; \/\/ null terminated ANSI string\n};\n<\/PRE>\n\nNormal items represent menu items that are not pop-up submenus,\nand they take a pretty straightforward form.\nAll you get are flags, the item ID, and the menu item text.\nThe flags are values such as\nMFT_STRING<\/CODE>,\nMFT_MENUBARBREAK<\/CODE>,\nand MFS_DISABLED<\/CODE>.\nOf course, the MF_POPUP<\/CODE> flag is not allowed,\nsince this is a normal item template.\nThe flag MFS_HILITE<\/CODE> is also not allowed,\nfor reasons we will see later.\n<\/P>\n\nThe other type of menu item template is the pop-up submenu.\n<\/P>\n
\nstruct POPUPMENUITEM16 {\n WORD wFlags; \/\/ menu item flags (MFT_*, MFS_*)\n CHAR szText[]; \/\/ null terminated ANSI string\n};\n<\/PRE>\n\nThe pop-up item template\ndoesn’t have an ID, the MF_POPUP<\/CODE> flag\nmust be set in the flags (naturally),\nthe MFS_HILITE<\/CODE> flag must not be set,\nand it is immediately followed by… another menu resource,\nminus the resource header, which describes the pop-up submenu itself.\n(This is the recursive part.)\n<\/P>\n\nThe end of the list of menu item templates is reached\nwhen an item with the MF_END<\/CODE> flag is set in its flags.\nAnd now you see why MFS_HILITE<\/CODE> is disallowed:\n<\/P>\n\n#define MF_END 0x00000080L\n#define MF_HILITE 0x00000080L\n#define MFS_HILITE MF_HILITE\n<\/PRE>\n\nIf you set the MF_HILITE<\/CODE> flag,\nit would be mistaken for the end of the menu template.\nFortunately, there’s no need to set the MFS_HILITE<\/CODE>\nflag in the menu item template since highlighting happens at runtime\nbased on the user’s mouse and keyboard activity,\nnot at menu creation time.\n<\/P>\n\nTo make all this discussion concrete, let’s convert\nthis rather uninteresting menu resource into a menu template:\n<\/P>\n
\n1 MENU\nBEGIN\n POPUP “&File”\n BEGIN\n MENUITEM “&Open\\tCtrl+O”, 100\n MENUITEM SEPARATOR\n MENUITEM “&Exit\\tAlt+X”, 101\n END\n POPUP “&View”\n BEGIN\n MENUITEM “&Status Bar”, 102, CHECKED\n END\nEND\n<\/PRE>\n\nThe menu template for this classic 16-bit menu would go something\nlike this:\nWe start with the header, which always looks the same.\n<\/P>\n
\n0000 00 00 \/\/ wVersion = 0\n0002 00 00 \/\/ cbHeaderSize = 0\n<\/PRE>\n\nNext comes the list of menu items.\nOur first is a pop-up submenu,\nso the MF_POPUP<\/CODE> flag is set,\nindicating that we have a POPUPMENUITEM16<\/CODE>:\n\n0004 10 00 \/\/ wFlags = MF_POPUP\n \/\/ no wID\n0006 26 46 69 6C 65 00 \/\/ “&File” + null terminator\n<\/PRE>\n\nSince this is a pop-up menu, the contents of the pop-up menu\nfollow.\nThis is the recursive part of the menu template format:\nwe have a menu template inside the outer one.\nThe first item of the pop-up menu is a string and\ntherefore takes the form of a NORMALMENUITEM16<\/CODE>:\n<\/P>\n\n000C 00 00 \/\/ wFlags = MFT_STRING\n000E 64 00 \/\/ wID = 100\n0010 26 4F 70 65 6E 09 43 74 72 6C 2B 4F 00\n \/\/ “&Open\\tCtrl+O” + null terminator\n<\/PRE>\n\nThe next item of the pop-up menu is a separator.\nIf you have been following the rules strictly,\nyou would generate the separator like this:\n<\/P>\n
\n001D 00 08 \/\/ wFlags = MFT_SEPARATOR\n001F 00 00 \/\/ wID = 0\n0021 00 \/\/ “”\n<\/PRE>\n\nHowever, it turns out that there is an alternate form for\nseparators, namely to pass all zeroes:\n<\/P>\n
\n001D 00 00 \/\/ wFlags = 0\n001F 00 00 \/\/ wID = 0\n0021 00 \/\/ “”\n<\/PRE>\n\nThe existence of this alternate form is actually an artifact\nof history, which we’ll look at next time.\nBut for now, just realize that you can express a separator\nin two different ways, either the official way with MFT_SEPARATOR<\/CODE>\nor the alternate way with wFlags = 0<\/CODE>.\nEither works just fine.\n<\/P>\n\nAnyway, let’s finish up that submenu with the final item,\nwhich is a string.\nWe set the MF_END<\/CODE> flag to indicate that this is\nthe end of the (nested) menu.\n<\/P>\n\n0022 80 00 \/\/ wFlags = MFT_STRING | MF_END\n0024 65 00 \/\/ wID = 101\n0026 26 45 78 69 74 09 41 6C 74 2B 58 00\n \/\/ “&Exit\\tAlt+X” + null terminator\n<\/PRE>\n\nWith the completion of the nested menu, we pop back to the\ntop-level menu.\nNext comes the “View” submenu.\n<\/P>\n
\n0032 90 00 \/\/ wFlags = MF_POPUP | MF_END\n \/\/ no wID\n0034 26 56 69 65 77 00 \/\/ “&View” + null terminator\n<\/PRE>\n\nThe MF_POPUP<\/CODE> flag marks this as a\nPOPUPMENUITEM16<\/CODE>, which means that there is no\nwID<\/CODE>.\nAnd look, the MF_END<\/CODE> flag is set,\nwhich means that this is the last item on the top-level\nmenu.\nBut we’re not finished yet, since we still have to read\nthe nested submenu.\n(Notice that the “end of menu” marker is far away from\nthe actual end of the menu!)\n<\/P>\n\n003A 88 00 \/\/ wFlags = MFT_STRING | MFS_CHECKED | MF_END\n003C 66 00 \/\/ wID = 102\n003E 26 53 74 61 74 75 73 20 42 61 72 00\n \/\/ “&Status Bar” + null terminator\n<\/PRE>\n\nThe submenu consists of a single item,\nso its first item is also its last (MF_END<\/CODE>).\nNow that the submenu is complete, we pop back to the main menu again,\nbut as we saw, the main menu is also complete,\nso that concludes the entire menu template.\n<\/P>\n\nNext time, we’ll look at that strange alternate form for\nseparator items before returning to the history of menu templates.\n<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Menus aren’t as complicated as dialogs. There are no fonts, no positioning, it’s just a list of menu items and flags. Well, okay, there’s the recursive part, when a menu has a submenu. But that’s really the only wrinkle. Most of it is pretty boring. The 16-bit classic menu template begins with the following header: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-21693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-history"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
Menus aren’t as complicated as dialogs. There are no fonts, no positioning, it’s just a list of menu items and flags. Well, okay, there’s the recursive part, when a menu has a submenu. But that’s really the only wrinkle. Most of it is pretty boring. The 16-bit classic menu template begins with the following header: […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}