menulist

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An element that can be used for drop-down choice lists. The user may select one of the elements displayed in the menulist. The currently selected choice is displayed on the menulist element. To create the drop-down, put a menupopup inside the menulist containing the choices as menuitem elements. The command event may be used to execute code when the menulist selection changes.

More information is available in the XUL tutorial.

Attributes: accesskey, crop, disableautoselect, disabled, editable, focused, image, label, oncommand, open, preference, readonly, sizetopopup, tabindex, value

Properties: accessibleType, crop, description, disableautoselect, disabled, editable, editor, image, inputField, itemCount, label, menuBoxObject, menupopup, open, selectedIndex, selectedItem, tabIndex, value

Methods: appendItem, contains, getIndexOfItem, getItemAtIndex, insertItemAt, removeAllItems, removeItemAt, select

Examples

<menulist>
  <menupopup>
    <menuitem label="option 1" value="1"/>
    <menuitem label="option 2" value="2"/>
    <menuitem label="option 3" value="3"/>
    <menuitem label="option 4" value="4"/>
  </menupopup>
</menulist>

Attributes

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 attribute for the element.

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; }

disableautoselect: Type: boolean; If this attribute is true or omitted, the selected item on the menu will update to match what the user entered in the textbox. If the text does not match any of the items in the list, the menu selection is cleared. If this attribute is false, the selection is never updated to match the text box. This attribute applies only to editable menulists.

disabled: Type: boolean; Indicates whether the element is disabled or not. If this attribute is set, 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. In the case of form elements, it will not be submitted. Do not set the attribute to true, as this will suggest you can set it to false to enable the element again, which is not the case.
The disabled attribute is allowed only for form controls. Using it with an anchor tag (an <a> link) will have no effect.

The element will, however, still respond to mouse events. To enable the element, leave this attribute out entirely.; 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.

editable: Type: boolean; Indicates that the value of the menulist can be modified by typing directly into the value field. This is rendered as a textbox with a drop-down arrow beside it. The user may enter text into the textbox or select one of the choices by clicking from the drop-down.

focused: Type: boolean; This attribute is true if the element is focused.

image: Type: URI; The URI of the image to appear on the element. If this attribute is empty or left out, no image appears. The position of the image is determined by the dir and orient attributes.

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.

oncommand: Type: script code; This event handler is called when the command is activated. This occurs when a user selects a menu item or presses a keyboard shortcut attached to the command.

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.

preference: Type: id; Connects the element to a corresponding preference. This attribute only has any effect when used inside a prefwindow. More information is available in the Preferences System article.

readonly: Type: boolean; If set to true, then the user cannot change the value of the element. However, the value may still be modified by a script.

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.

tabindex: Type: integer; The tab order of the element. The tab order is the order in which the focus is moved when the user presses the "tab" key. Elements with a higher tabindex are later in the tab sequence.

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.

crop: Type: string; Gets and sets the value of the crop attribute.

description: Type: string; Set to the description of the currently selected menuitem.

disableautoselect: Type: boolean; Gets and sets the value of the disableautoselect attribute.

disabled: Type: boolean; Gets and sets the value of the disabled attribute.

editable: Type: boolean; Returns true if the element is editable. Autocomplete fields are editable so this property always returns true for those.

editor: Type: nsIEditor; A reference to the nsIEditor for editable text. This property is read only.

image: Type: image URL; The image associated with the currently selected item.

inputField: Type: textbox element; A reference to the textbox element used for editable menu lists. This property is read only and applies to editable menulists only.

itemCount: Type: integer; Read only property holding the number of child items.

label: Type: string; Gets and sets the value of the label attribute.

menuBoxObject: Type: nsIMenuBoxObject; A reference to the nsIMenuBoxObject which implements the menu.

menupopup: Type: menupopup element; A reference to the menupopup used by the menu or menulist. This property is read-only.

open: Type: boolean; Gets and sets the value of the open attribute.

selectedIndex: Type: integer; Returns the index of the currently selected item. You may select an item by assigning its index to this property. By assigning -1 to this property, all items will be deselected. Returns -1 if no items are selected

selectedItem: Type: element; Holds the currently selected item. If no item is currently selected, this value will be null. You can select an item by setting this value. A select event will be sent to the controlling container (i.e. the listbox, richlistbox, radiogroup, etc., not the list item that was selected) when it is changed either via this property, the selectedIndex property, or changed by the user.

tabIndex: Type: integer; Gets and sets the value of the tabindex attribute.

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, description ): Return type: element; Creates a new menuitem element and adds it to the end of the menulist. You may optionally set a value and description. The function returns the new item.

contains( item ): Return type: boolean; Returns true if the menulist contains the specified menuitem as one of its items.

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.

removeAllItems(): Return type: no return value; Removes all of the items in the menu.

removeItemAt( index ): Return type: element; Removes the child item in the element at the specified index. The method returns the removed item.

select(): Return type: no return value; Select all the text in the menulist's textbox. This method applies to editable menulists only.

Elements: menu, menubar, menuitem, menupopup, menuseparator

Interfaces: nsIAccessibleProvider, nsIDOMXULMenuListElement