Represents a menu.

For every menu in the menu bar (such as Application, File, Edit, and so on) there is a menu object. For every menu item in a menu (such as New or Open), there is a menu item object.

Figure 8-1 shows the default menus for an AppleScript Studio application (when you create the project by choosing either the AppleScript or the AppleScript Document-based application template in Xcode). The menus are shown in an Interface Builder nib window, with the File menu open.

You can add a menu in Interface Builder by dragging a Submenu item from the Cocoa-Menus pane of the Palette window to the main menu. You can set various attributes for menu in Interface Builder’s Info window.

It is possible to change a menu dynamically by adding and deleting items. You can also dynamically populate the menu for a popup button, as shown in the Examples section for the popup button class.

Starting in AppleScript Studio version 1.3, you can create menus and menu items using make new, and you can assign a script to the items you create. For a sample script, see the Examples section below.

Figure 8-1  The File menu in Interface Builder

For more information on menus, see the document Application Menu and Pop-up List Programming Topics for Cocoa.

Properties of menu objects

A menu object has these properties:

Elements of menu objects

A menu object can contain the elements listed below. Your script can access most elements with any of the key forms described in “Standard Key Forms.”

Events supported by menu objects

A menu object supports handlers that can respond to the following events:

Examples

The following script statements, taken from a script running in the Script Editor application, target the menus of a simple AppleScript Studio application. You can use similar statements within an AppleScript Studio application script, though you won’t need the tell application statement.

tell application "TestApp"

    first menu -- result: main menu of application "TestApp"

    title of main menu -- result: "MainMenu"

    menu items of main menu -- result: a list of menu items

    title of menu items of main menu

    -- result: {"", "File", "Edit",  "Window", "Help"}

    menus of main menu -- result: long list

    -- {sub menu of menu item id 1 of main menu of application

         "TestApp", etc. }

    menu items of sub menu of menu item id 1 of main menu

        -- result: a long list

end tell

The following example shows how to create a script object, create a new menu, add a menu item to the menu, and assign the script to the new menu item.

-- Create a script object

    script displayScript

        on choose menu item theItem

            display dialog "Testing"

        end choose menu item

    end script

-- Make a new menu

    set testMenu to make new menu at end of menus of main menu with  properties  {title:"Testing"}

-- Make a new menu item in the menu

    set displayMenuItem to make new menu item at end of menu items  of testMenu with  properties {title:"Display Test", name:"display"}

-- Assign the script to the menu item

    set script of displayMenuItem to displayScript

The Examples section for the menu item class shows how to access additional properties of menu items.

Represents an item in a menu.

Every menu item is associated with a menu object. Figure 8-2 shows the New menu item in the File menu in an Interface Builder nib window.

Figure 8-2  The New menu item in the File menu in Interface Builder

You can add a menu item to a menu in Interface Builder by dragging an Item from the Cocoa-Menus pane of the Palette window to the menu. You can set various attributes for menu items in Interface Builder’s Info window. Starting in AppleScript Studio version 1.3, you can also use make new to create new menu items in scripts, as noted in the description for the menu class.

For information on working with pop-up menus, including inserting and deleting menu items and getting and setting the current menu item, see the Examples section for the popup button class.

For more information on menus, see the document Application Menu and Pop-up List Programming Topics for Cocoa.

Properties of menu item objects

A menu item object has these properties:

Commands supported by menu item objects

Your script can send the following commands to a menu item object:

Events supported by menu item objects

A menu item object supports handlers that can respond to the following events:

Examples

The following script statements, taken from a script running in the Script Editor application, show how to access properties of the “New” menu item in the “File” menu of a simple AppleScript Studio application. You can use similar statements within an AppleScript Studio application script, though you won’t need the tell application statement.

tell application "TestApp"

    set menuItem to second menu item of main menu

    title of menuItem -- result: "File"

    set item1 to first menu item of sub menu of menuItem

    title of item1 -- result: "New"

    key equivalent of item1 -- result: "n"

end tell

For an example that shows how to add a script to a menu item, see the Examples section for the menu class.

Version Notes

The action method and target properties were added in AppleScript Studio version 1.4. As a result, you can dynamically change the target of an action in your application or change the Cocoa method that is executed when the action is triggered. For an example of how to do this, see the toolbar item class.

The key equivalent modifier property in this class is not supported, through AppleScript Studio version 1.4.