How to Highlight a Menu Option or Menu Item Programmatically

• Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, versions 3.0 and 3.0b

SUMMARY

Upon startup of an application, you may want to have a specific menu or menu option highlighted by default so that the user need only press the ENTER key to carry out the associated command. This article presents a simple way to do it.

MORE INFORMATION

This method, which depends on the KEYBOARD command, can be used with either FoxPro for Windows or Visual FoxPro.

1. Create a program, name it MAINMENU, and put the following code in it:

   SET SYSMENU OFF DO testmenu.mpr READ EVENTS SET SYSMENU TO DEFAULT

2. Create another program, name it CALLMENU, and put the following code in it:

   Keyboard "{F10}" Keyboard "{Rightarrow}" Keyboard "{Enter}" Keyboard "{dnarrow}" Keyboard "{dnarrow}" Keyboard "{dnarrow}"

3. Create a new menu named testmenu, and give it the following structure and prompts:

      Prompt         Command
      -----------------------------------
      QUIT           CLEAR EVENTS
      FORMS          Submenu
        |
        +---Form 1   Wait Window "Form 1"
        +---Form 2   DO FORM FORM2
   
   

4. In Visual FoxPro, on the View menu, choose General Options, and select Cleanup. In FoxPro for Windows, on the Menu menu, choose General options, and select Cleanup.

5. In the Cleanup code, type:

   DO CALLMENU

6. Save and generate the menu.

7. Create a new form, name it FORM2, and place a command button on it. Put the following code in the command button's Click event:

   THISFORM.RELEASE DO CALLMENU

8. Run the MAINMENU program.

This method can be called an unlimited number of times without running into the 'Do nesting too deep' error message you may encounter if you use the ACTIVATE MENU command. The other significant advantage is that the use of the KEYBOARD command allows you to drill down to a specific menu option (in this case, Form 2). The disadvantage to this method is that there is a flicker as the keyboard commands are executed.

For information about how to do this with FoxPro 2.x, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q110909
   TITLE     : How to Highlight a Menu Bar and Popup Programmatically