# Menu Bar

Menu Link |

The Menu Link feature is used to incorporate an existing menu as part of another menu bar or popup menu, which provides several advantages:

- A set of standard menus could be stored (and maintained) together in a library of their own for reusability - deploy these on your menu via Menu Link.
- If you implement NOMADS Security, you can simply omit the menu from the library where a user should be restricted from viewing it - a link to a menu that does not exist on the system does not error.
- You may want to reuse menus that appear in another library.

The link can be to a Popup Menu or to a panel containing a Menu Bar definition.

## Menu Link Definition

In the Menu Bar Definition dialogue, click the Menu Link button to invoke Menu Link Definition.

This dialogue is divided into two tabbed panels for defining the properties of a menu link: Details and Attributes.

Details
Menu Link |
Item | Item name. A prefixed ampersand is mandatory.
Item State | Initial state of the menu item at run time. Click the drop-down arrow for a list of selections:
Show Item | Displays the item text as listed.
Suppress Item | Removes the item from the menu bar.
Disable Item | Displays the item but functionality is disabled.
Fixed or Expression |
Fixed | Apply Library, Panel values listed in fields below.
Expression | Apply string variable or expression.
Library | If Fixed is selected, this field shows the current library. Click the Browse button to change libraries. #### Note: The Library name may be a specific or generic reference. See Cascading Language Suffixes.
Panel | Click the drop-down arrow to select a popup menu or panel object from the list.
Override Menu Options |
Function | Override logic to be executed on menu build. Click the drop-down arrow for a list of selections:
Ignore | No logic to be performed. (Default)
Perform | Perform a program.
Execute | Execute a series of statements separated by semi-colons.
See Menu Override Variables.
Click the Program Logic button beside the Perform action to launch the default program editor, which is typically the *IT - Integrated Toolkit. To make Ed+ the default program editor, change the setting for the %NOMADS'Program_Editor property to Ed+. (The ability to set Ed+ as the default program editor was added in PxPlus 2023.)
Attributes
Bitmaps |
Normal | Assign a bitmap that will appear to the left of the text when the menu is drawn. Can be a Fixed value or string Expression. Click the Bitmap Library button to select a bitmap. If specifying an external image, see Note below.
Checked | Assign a bitmap that will appear to the left of the text when the menu is drawn. Can be a Fixed value or string Expression. Click the Bitmap Library button to select a bitmap. If specifying an external image, see Note below.
Bitmap/Image transparency options can also be applied to internal and external images:
| T | Use upper leftmost pixel color.
| G | Use Light Gray color RGB: 192,192,192.
| N | No transparency. (Allows override for "!" bitmaps, which always imply Light Gray transparency.)
#### Note: If specifying an external image, set the background color of the image to use the Light Gray color RGB 192,192,192 with the G transparency option; otherwise, the background color will be visible. (The ability to enter an expression for a bitmap was added in PxPlus 2019.)
Text Background Color | Assign a text background color. Click the drop-down arrow for a list of selections:
Menu Default | Indicates use of the default color settings for the entire menu.
System Default | Windows system color.
Specify Color | Click the Query button to access Color Selections.
See Menu Colors. (The Color Selections Query button and dialog were added in PxPlus 2020.)