Tutorial 8: Menu
In this tutorial, we will learn how to incorporate a menu into our window.
Download the example 1 and example 2.
Theory:
Menu is one of the most important component in your window. Menu presents a list of services a program offers to the user. The user doesn't have to read the manual included with the program to be able to use it, he can peruse the menu to get an overview of the capability of a particular program and start playing with it immediately. Since a menu is a tool to get the user up and running quickly, you should follow the standard. Succintly put, the first two menu items should be File and Edit and the last should be Help. You can insert your own menu items between Edit and Help. If a menu item invokes a dialog box, you should append an ellipsis (...) to the menu string.Menu is a kind of resource. There are several kinds of resources such as dialog box, string table, icon, bitmap, menu etc. Resources are described in a separated file called a resource file which normally has .rc extension. You then combine the resources with the source code during the link stage. The final product is an executable file which contains both instructions and resources.
You can write resource scripts using any text editor. They're composed of phrases which describe the appearances and other attributes of the resources used in a particular program Although you can write resource scripts with a text editor, it's rather cumbersome. A better alternative is to use a resource editor which lets you visually design resources with ease. Resource editors are usually included in compiler packages such as Visual C++, Borland C++, etc.
You describe a menu resource like this:
- MyMenu MENU
{
[menu list here]
}
Menu list can be either MENUITEM or POPUP statement.
MENUITEM statement defines a menu bar which doesn't invoke a popup menu when selected.The syntax is as follows:
- MENUITEM "&text", ID [,options]
Options are optional. Available options are as follows:
- GRAYED The menu item is inactive, and it does not generate a WM_COMMAND message. The text is grayed.
- INACTIVE The menu item is inactive, and it does not generate a WM_COMMAND message. The text is displayed normally.
- MENUBREAK This item and the following items appear on a new line of the menu.
- HELP This item and the following items are right-justified.
- In lpszMenuName member of WNDCLASSEX structure. Say, if you have a menu named "FirstMenu", you can assigned the menu to your window like this:
- .DATA
- MenuName db "FirstMenu",0
...........................
.CODE- ...........................
mov wc.lpszMenuName, OFFSET MenuName
...........................
- .DATA
- In menu handle parameter of CreateWindowEx like this:
- .DATA
- MenuName db "FirstMenu",0
hMenu HMENU ?
...........................
.CODE- ...........................
invoke LoadMenu, hInst, OFFSET MenuName
mov hMenu, eax
invoke CreateWindowEx,NULL,OFFSET ClsName,/
OFFSET Caption, WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,/
CW_USEDEFAULT,CW_USEDEFAULT,/
CW_USEDEFAULT,CW_USEDEFAULT,/
NULL,/
hMenu,/
hInst,/
NULL/
...........................
- MenuName db "FirstMenu",0
- .DATA
POPUP statement has the following syntax:
-
POPUP "&text" [,options]
{
[menu list]
}
The next step after you are finished with the menu resource script is to reference it in your program.
You can do this in two different places in your program.
When you reference the menu in the WNDCLASSEX structure, the menu becomes the "default" menu for the window class. Every window of that class will have the same menu.
If you want each window created from the same class to have different menus, you must choose the second form. In this case, any window that is passed a menu handle in its CreateWindowEx function will have a menu that "overrides" the default menu defined in the WNDCLASSEX structure.
Next we will examine how a menu notifies the window procedure when the user selects a menu item.
When the user selects a menu item, the window procedure will receive a WM_COMMAND message. The low word of wParam contains the menu ID of the selected menu item.
Now we have sufficient information to create and use a menu. Let's do it.
Example:
The first example shows how to create and use a menu by specifying the menu name in the window class..386
.model flat,stdcall
option casemap:none
WinMain proto :DWORD,:DWORD,:DWORD,:DWORD
include /masm32/include/windows.inc
include /masm32/include/user32.inc
include /masm32/include/kernel32.inc
includelib /masm32/lib/user32.lib
includelib /masm32/lib/kernel32.lib
.data
ClassName db "SimpleWinClass",0
AppName db "Our First Window",0
MenuName db "FirstMenu",0 ; The name of our menu in the resource file.
Test_string db "You selected Test menu item",0
Hello_string db "Hello, my friend",0
Goodbye_string db "See you again, bye",0
.data?
hInstance HINSTANCE ?
CommandLine LPSTR ?
.const
IDM_TEST equ 1 ; Menu IDs
IDM_HELLO equ 2
IDM_GOODBYE equ 3
IDM_EXIT equ 4
.code
start:
invoke GetModuleHandle, NULL
mov hInstance,eax
invoke GetCommandLine
mov CommandLine,eax
invoke WinMain, hInstance,NULL,CommandLine, SW_SHOWDEFAULT
invoke ExitProcess,eax
WinMain proc hInst:HINSTANCE,hPrevInst:HINSTANCE,CmdLine:LPSTR,CmdShow:DWORD
LOCAL wc:WNDCLASSEX
LOCAL msg:MSG
LOCAL hwnd:HWND
mov wc.cbSize,SIZEOF WNDCLASSEX
mov wc.style, CS_HREDRAW or CS_VREDRAW
mov wc.lpfnWndProc, OFFSET WndProc
mov wc.cbClsExtra,NULL
mov wc.cbWndExtra,NULL
push hInst
pop wc.hInstance
mov wc.hbrBackground,COLOR_WINDOW+1
mov wc.lpszMenuName,OFFSET MenuName ; Put our menu name here
mov wc.lpszClassName,OFFSET ClassName
invoke LoadIcon,NULL,IDI_APPLICATION
mov wc.hIcon,eax
mov wc.hIconSm,eax
invoke LoadCursor,NULL,IDC_ARROW
mov wc.hCursor,eax
invoke RegisterClassEx, addr wc
invoke CreateWindowEx,NULL,ADDR ClassName,ADDR AppName,/
WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,CW_USEDEFAULT,/
CW_USEDEFAULT,CW_USEDEFAULT,CW_USEDEFAULT,NULL,NULL,/
hInst,NULL
mov hwnd,eax
invoke ShowWindow, hwnd,SW_SHOWNORMAL
invoke UpdateWindow, hwnd
.WHILE TRUE
invoke GetMessage, ADDR msg,NULL,0,0
.BREAK .IF (!eax)
invoke DispatchMessage, ADDR msg
.ENDW
mov eax,msg.wParam
ret
WinMain endp
WndProc proc hWnd:HWND, uMsg:UINT, wParam:WPARAM, lParam:LPARAM
.IF uMsg==WM_DESTROY
invoke PostQuitMessage,NULL
.ELSEIF uMsg==WM_COMMAND
mov eax,wParam
.IF ax==IDM_TEST
invoke MessageBox,NULL,ADDR Test_string,OFFSET AppName,MB_OK
.ELSEIF ax==IDM_HELLO
invoke MessageBox, NULL,ADDR Hello_string, OFFSET AppName,MB_OK
.ELSEIF ax==IDM_GOODBYE
invoke MessageBox,NULL,ADDR Goodbye_string, OFFSET AppName, MB_OK
.ELSE
invoke DestroyWindow,hWnd
.ENDIF
.ELSE
invoke DefWindowProc,hWnd,uMsg,wParam,lParam
ret
.ENDIF
xor eax,eax
ret
WndProc endp
end start
**************************************************************************************************************************
#define IDM_TEST 1
#define IDM_HELLO 2
#define IDM_GOODBYE 3
#define IDM_EXIT 4
FirstMenu MENU
{
POPUP "&PopUp"
{
MENUITEM "&Say Hello",IDM_HELLO
MENUITEM "Say &GoodBye", IDM_GOODBYE
MENUITEM SEPARATOR
MENUITEM "E&xit",IDM_EXIT
}
MENUITEM "&Test", IDM_TEST
}
Analysis:
Let's analyze the resource file first.-
#define IDM_TEST 1 /* equal to IDM_TEST equ 1*/
#define IDM_HELLO 2
#define IDM_GOODBYE 3
#define IDM_EXIT 4
FirstMenu MENU
Declare your menu with MENU keyword.
POPUP "&PopUp"
{
MENUITEM "&Say Hello",IDM_HELLO
MENUITEM "Say &GoodBye", IDM_GOODBYE
MENUITEM SEPARATOR
MENUITEM "E&xit",IDM_EXIT
}
Define a popup menu with four menu items, the third one is a menu separator.
MENUITEM "&Test", IDM_TEST
Define a menu bar in the main menu.
Next we will examine the source code.
-
MenuName db "FirstMenu",0 ; The name of our menu in the resource file.
Test_string db "You selected Test menu item",0
Hello_string db "Hello, my friend",0
Goodbye_string db "See you again, bye",0
-
IDM_TEST equ 1 ; Menu IDs
IDM_HELLO equ 2
IDM_GOODBYE equ 3
IDM_EXIT equ 4
.ELSEIF uMsg==WM_COMMAND
mov eax,wParam
.IF ax==IDM_TEST
invoke MessageBox,NULL,ADDR Test_string,OFFSET AppName,MB_OK
.ELSEIF ax==IDM_HELLO
invoke MessageBox, NULL,ADDR Hello_string, OFFSET AppName,MB_OK
.ELSEIF ax==IDM_GOODBYE
invoke MessageBox,NULL,ADDR Goodbye_string, OFFSET AppName, MB_OK
.ELSE
invoke DestroyWindow,hWnd
.ENDIF
In the window procedure, we process WM_COMMAND messages. When the user selects a menu item, the menu ID of that menu item is sended to the window procedure in the low word of wParam along with the WM_COMMAND message. So when we store the value of wParam in eax, we compare the value in ax to the menu IDs we defined previously and act accordingly. In the first three cases, when the user selects Test, Say Hello, and Say GoodBye menu items, we just display a text string in a message box.
If the user selects Exit menu item, we call DestroyWindow with the handle of our window as its parameter which will close our window.
As you can see, specifying menu name in a window class is quite easy and straightforward. However you can also use an alternate method to load a menu in your window. I won't show the entire source code here. The resource file is the same in both methods. There are some minor changes in the source file which I 'll show below.
-
.data?
hInstance HINSTANCE ?
CommandLine LPSTR ?
hMenu HMENU ? ; handle of our menu
invoke LoadMenu, hInst, OFFSET MenuName
mov hMenu,eax
INVOKE CreateWindowEx,NULL,ADDR ClassName,ADDR AppName,/
WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,CW_USEDEFAULT,/
CW_USEDEFAULT,CW_USEDEFAULT,CW_USEDEFAULT,NULL,hMenu,/
hInst,NULL
Before calling CreateWindowEx, we call LoadMenu with the instance handle and a pointer to the name of our menu. LoadMenu returns the handle of our menu in the resource file which we pass to CreateWindowEx