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