menu

An element, much like a button, that is placed on a menubar. When the user clicks the menu element, the child menupopup of the menu will be displayed. This element is also used to create submenus.

More information is available in the XUL tutorial.

Attributes
acceltext, accesskey, allowevents, command, crop, disabled, image, label, menuactive, open, sizetopopup, tabindex, value
Properties
accessibleType, accessKey, command, control, crop, disabled, image, itemCount, label, labelElement, menupopup, open, parentContainer, selected, tabIndex, value
Methods
appendItem, getIndexOfItem, getItemAtIndex, insertItemAt, removeItemAt
Style classes
menu-iconic

Example

<menubar id="sample-menubar">
  <menu id="file-menu" label="File">
    <menupopup id="file-popup">
      <menuitem label="New"/>
      <menuitem label="Open"/>
      <menuitem label="Save"/>
      <menuseparator/>
      <menuitem label="Exit"/>
    </menupopup>
  </menu>
  <menu id="edit-menu" label="Edit">
    <menupopup id="edit-popup">
      <menuitem label="Undo"/>
      <menuitem label="Redo"/>
    </menupopup>
  </menu>
</menubar>

Attributes

acceltext
Type: string
Text that appears beside the menu label to indicate the shortcut key (accelerator key) to use to invoke the command. If this value is set, it overrides an assigned key set in the key attribute. This attribute does not apply to menus directly on the menubar.
accesskey
Type: character
This should be set to a character that is used as a shortcut key. This should be one of the characters that appears in the label label for the element.

 

allowevents
Type: boolean
If true, events are passed to children of the element. Otherwise, events are passed to the element only.
crop
Type: one of the values below
If the label of the element is too big to fit in its given space, the text will be cropped on the side specified by the crop attribute. An ellipsis will be used in place of the cropped text. If the box direction is reversed, the cropping is reversed.
start
The text will be cropped on its left side in left-to-right text locales, and the right side in right-to-left locales.
end
The text will be cropped on its right side in left-to-right text locales, and the right side in right-to-left locales.
left
The text will be cropped on its left side.
right
The text will be cropped on its right side.
center
The text will be cropped in the middle, showing both the start and end of the text normally.
none
The text will be not be cropped using an ellipsis. However, the text will simply be cut off if it is too large. The side depends on the CSS text alignment.
Depending on the platform and theme being used, some elements will have set a maximum width so they will always appear cropped. If you wish to use the value none and the displayed text is larger than this maximum width, you may be able to use the max-width CSS property (or the maxwidth attribute) to override this size. For example, for a menuitem in a menu you can add the following CSS rule when you want to use the value none:
menupopup > menuitem, menupopup > menu { max-width: none; }
disabled
Type: boolean
Indicates whether the element is disabled or not. If this element is set to true the element is disabled. Disabled elements are usually drawn with grayed-out text. If the element is disabled, it does not respond to user actions, it cannot be focused, and the command event will not fire.
Visible controls have a disabled property which, except for menus and menuitems, is normally preferred to use of the attribute, as it may need to update additional state.
label
Type: string
The label that will appear on the element. If this is left out, no text appears. For an editable menuitem element the value of this attribute is copied to the menulist.value property upon user selection of the menuitem.

 

menuactive
Type: boolean
This attribute is set on an item in a menu when it is being hovered over. Typcially, the theme will use this to highlight the item. A DOMMenuItemActive event will be sent to the item when the item is hovered over, and a DOMMenuItemInactive event will be sent to the item when the selection moves away.
open
Type: boolean
For the menu type buttons, the open attribute is set to true when the menu is open. The open attribute is not present if the menu is closed.

 

sizetopopup
Type: one of the values below
Indicates how the menu width and the menupopup width are determined. If the sizetopopup attribute is left out or set to none, the menu will be its preferred width and the popup may extend outside of this width, unaffected by the maximum width of the menu itself. Otherwise, the menu will size itself to at least the size of the popup. If the menu has a maximum width, the popup will also be this width.
none
The width of the popup will not be constrained to the size of the menu.
pref
The preferred width of the menu label or button will be the size needed for the popup contents. This is the default value for menulists.
always
Both the preferred and minimum width of the menu label or button will be the same as that necessary for the menupopup.
value
Type: string
The string attribute allows you to associate a data value with an element. It is not used for any specific purpose, but you can access it with a script for your own use. Be aware, however, that some elements, such as textbox will display the value visually, so in order to merely associate data with an element, you could 1) Use another attribute like "value2" or "data-myAtt" (as in the HTML5 draft), as XUL does not require validation (less future-proof); 2) Use setAttributeNS() to put custom attributes in a non-XUL namespace (serializable and future-proof); 3) Use setUserData() (future-proof and clean, but not easily serializable). For user editable menulist elements, the contents, as visible to the user, are read and set using the Menulist.value syntax. For those elements, setAttribute("value", myValue) and getAttribute("value") do not access or affect the contents displayed to the user.

 

Properties

accessibleType
Type: integer
A value indicating the type of accessibility object for the element.
control
Type: menu element
Returns the enclosing menu that the item is inside, if any, or null if there is no enclosing menu.
itemCount
Type: integer
Read only property holding the number of child items.
menupopup
Type: menupopup element
A reference to the menupopup used by the menu or menulist. This property is read-only.
open
Type: boolean
This property will be set to true when the menu is open. The menu may be opened by setting the open property to true and closed by setting it to false.
parentContainer
Type: menu element
Read only property that returns the containing menu element, or null if there isn't a containing menu.
selected
Type: boolean
This property's value is true if this element is selected, or false if it is not. This property is read only. This property is available for menuitem and menuseparator elements in Firefox 3.
value
Type: string
Gets and sets the value of the value attribute. For textbox and user editable menulist elements, the contents, as visible to the user, are read and set using the Textbox.value and Menulist.value syntax.

 

Methods

Inherited Methods
addEventListener(), appendChild(), blur, click, cloneNode(), compareDocumentPosition, dispatchEvent(), doCommand, focus, getAttribute(), getAttributeNode(), getAttributeNodeNS(), getAttributeNS(), getBoundingClientRect(), getClientRects(), getElementsByAttribute, getElementsByAttributeNS, getElementsByClassName(), getElementsByTagName(), getElementsByTagNameNS(), getFeature(), getUserData, hasAttribute(), hasAttributeNS(), hasAttributes(), hasChildNodes(), insertBefore(), isDefaultNamespace(), isEqualNode, isSameNode, isSupported(), lookupNamespaceURI, lookupPrefix, normalize(), querySelector(), querySelectorAll(), removeAttribute(), removeAttributeNode(), removeAttributeNS(), removeChild(), removeEventListener(), replaceChild(), setAttribute(), setAttributeNode(), setAttributeNodeNS(), setAttributeNS(), setUserData

appendItem( label, value )
Return type: element
Creates a new item and adds it to the end of the existing list of items. You may optionally set a value. The function returns the newly created element.
getIndexOfItem( item )
Return type: integer
Returns the zero-based position of the specified item. Items are numbered starting at the first item displayed in the list.
getItemAtIndex( index )
Return type: element
Returns the element that is at the specified index.
insertItemAt( index, label, value )
Return type: element
This method creates a new item and inserts it at the specified position. You may optionally set a value. The new item element is returned.
removeItemAt( index )
Return type: element
Removes the child item in the element at the specified index. The method returns the removed item.

Style classes

menu-iconic
Use this class to have an image appear on the menu. Specify the image using the image attribute.

Elements
menubar, menuitem, menulist, menupopup, menuseparator
Interfaces
nsIAccessibleProvider, nsIDOMXULContainerElement, nsIDOMXULContainerItemElement, nsIDOMXULSelectControlItemElement

Document Tags and Contributors

 Contributors to this page: Sheppy, Allasso, pippijn, trevorh, gilesburdett, Brettz9, Mgjbot, Marsf, Enn, Pmash, Ptak82, Dria, Callek
 Last updated by: Sheppy,