Menubar

The MenuBar is a custom control node which serves to provide useful encapsulation for multiple MenuButtons, mainly for creating a menu bar.

As icing on the cake, it also makes setting shortcuts for items in these menus not a painful experience.

Installation

Out of the zipped contents, move the addons folder to your project folder, and enable the plugin. An example scene is included if you'd like to see it in action first.

Usage

1. Create a MenuBar node. Upon creation it will do two things automatically:

   • Place itself at the top of the parent control with the top-wide preset.
   • Create a HBoxContainer child which will serve as the parent for all MenuButtons

2. Add desired MenuButtons as children of the HBoxContainer.

   • Note: The node names do not matter and can be anything. What the MenuBar node cares about is the button's text property.

3. Add desired items to each individual MenuButton with their built in items array property.

   • You may also enable the switch_on_hover property. It is not required, but most menu bars function like this.
   • Note: The system functions using the ID property of each item. As such, they cannot be assumed to keep the value each had in the editor, as they are replaced at runtime. This is automatic, you do not need to set them yourself.

   If you don't wish to set any hotkeys, you may skip to step 7.

4. To initialize hotkey setup, click the scan_menus ""button"" in the MenuBar properties. The shortcut_dictionary property will be updated to match the menus you have placed.

5. To set a shortcut, open shortcut_dictionary, and find the menu which contains the item. Open that dictionary, and locate the item to recieve the shortcut. A InputEventKey object has been placed for you, simply open it and use the built in [Configure] button to set the key combination.

6. If you wish to remove a hotkey, simply reset the keycode property of the InputEventKey to 0.

7. Connect the "item_pressed" signal of the MenuBar to the node script you wish to process the item presses. Your root note is a good choice.

8. Use match(path) to redirect program flow to functions for each^** menu item^*

^{*Included is an example scene with this implementation. It's reccomended you take a look to see it in action, as well as how to edit item properties in response to action. Your implementation can be anything, I've just found this method to be simple and straightforward.}

^{**The example scene also shows how one function can service multiple menu items, so you may not need a function for every item individually if you use this method.}

9. Done! Enjoy your menu bar. Add theme to taste.

Addendum: Using Radio Buttons

When using radio buttons, the section_indices argument is key.

When a MenuButton option is interacted with, both a seperator before and after the option is searched for. Once both are found, the range of values between them becomes section_indices. If a seperator is not found, the menu start and end are treated as seperators. A menu with no seperators results an array of every index.

In the case of radio buttons, this array must be utilized to disable the menu items to be de-selected.

Plan

• Fix the radio button issue. I already know how to, I just need to do it. Done!
• The above involves including Seperator items in the path. But should it be done always? What if theres no seperators at all? Only for radio buttons? I'll have to think about it. Always, unless theres no preceding seperator.
• Consider the ramifications of MenuBar extending HBoxContainer instead of Panel. This removes the need for the weird HBoxContainer child, and (I think?) has no negative impact on functionality whatsoever.