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LMGetTheMenu and LMSetMenuHook

Q: According to Inside Macintosh, LMGetTheMenu should return the menu ID of the currently highlighted menu, but the return value is always zero when I call LMGetTheMenu during the routine whose address I've passed to LMSetMenuHook. What am I missing?

A: Documentation on LMGetTheMenu is unclear. It is supposed to return the ID of the menu whose title is currently highlighted after a call to MenuSelect. However, Menu Manager does not update this variable while the user is selecting from a menu; it is updated only after a selection has been made. The bottom line is that LMGetTheMenu does not work at MenuHook time.

If you need to know when a specific menu is pulled down, you might be able to use a custom menu definition ('MDEF') -- see the latest Tool Chest Edition of the Developer CD Series for sample code. Or, you could use LMSetMBarHook, whose parameter is called only when a menu is about to be drawn. You might then be able to use the passed rectangle to help you discover which menu is pulled down. However, neither of these methods is particularly recommended; it would be better to redesign your program so that it doesn't need to know these things.

Further Reference:

Inside Macintosh: Menu Manager

[Dec 22 1998]

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