Menu Customization
Is there any info out there on the format and syntax for menu file commands? CC3 has a very powerful menu system and I was hoping to locate some documentation on exactly what all it can do. I looked at the CSUAC menu and learned enough to make my own SMAC menu. I've gone through the other menu files and figured out how to rearrange icons on the core menu bars and can make a lot of guesses on syntax. But I was hoping there was an actual write-up somewhere that might contain more details.
Comments
Hope that helps.
Sorry, I really should have looked in the help file first. That covers it pretty well.
One thing I can't figure out how to do though (probably because it isn't an option) is to create multi-layer menus. For instance, in the CSUAC menu bar that Monsen created, if you click on vegetation you get a long list that you have to scroll to see all of the items. That list contains a number of various tree entries. With another level of menus, I could replace those with a single entry for "tree" and when you click on that, a list of the different tree categories could come up. Is there a way to do something like that? I played around trying to develop something but everything I tried either didn't work or generated an error.
Currently I just split the vegetation list in half and have two buttons but I thought it would be convenient to have another menu level if that's possible.
Hope that all made sense.
Structures:|CMENU #menu\csuac_structures.mnc;
The example above will add a menu item called "Structures" to the chosen menu, and when clicked, the specified menu will pop up. (Note there is no visual indication that this will produce a new menu until you click it).
I believe the ">" submenu trick doesn't work with menus loaded with CMENU in the first place (like the ones on buttons)
Another option is to use symbol catalog settings. Instead of loading a new menu file, you can set the active filters, and CC3 will pop up the "choose catalog" dialog (Which you probably have seen many times when clicking a symbol catalog button that had many related catalogs). In this case use SYMICONFLOAD to load a masterfilter set, and and SYMICONM to set a catalog filter. This required that you have defined catalog settings for all the CSUAC catalogs though. I elected to not do this, as this works best when the symbols form their own complete style, while I usually use the CSUAC for just a few extra symbols in other styles. Hmm. Never thought about that. The entire menu fits perfectly on my screen, so I completely forgot to think about people running other resolutions.
The scrolling isn't a big issue. I suspect most people don't even think about it. But I was once banned from the computer for months due to tendonitis (now referred to as the mouse disease) so I do what I can to limit repetitive small muscle movements like that. By splitting vegetation (and one other), I eliminated having to scroll and only added two buttons. SMAC is far larger though, both in overall number of symbols and in categories, so multi-level menus could be far more helpful there.
Thanks again for the suggestions. I'm excited to go try them out!
That worked perfectly! Exactly what I wanted. Thank you.