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Mac OS 8 Menu Manager Reference

DISCUSSION

In addition to creating a menu, the GetMenu function also creates a menu structure for the menu. GetMenu reads the menu definition function into memory (if not already present) and stores a handle to the menu definition function in the menu structure. GetMenu does not insert the newly created menu into the current menu list.

Note

You typically use the GetMenu function only when you create submenus; you can create all your pull-down menus at once using the function GetNewMBar , and you can create pop-up menus using the standard pop-up menu button control definition function.

After reading the 'MENU' resource 'MENU' , GetMenu searches for an extended menu resource and an 'mctb' resource with the same resource ID as the 'MENU' resource. If the specified 'mctb' resource exists, GetMenu uses SetMCEntries to add the entries defined by the resource to the application's menu color information table. If the 'mctb' resource does not exist, GetMenu uses the default colors specified in the menu bar entry of the application's menu color information. If neither a menu bar entry nor a 'mctb' resource exists, GetMenu uses the standard colors for the menu.

Storing the definitions of your menus in resources (especially menu titles and menu items) makes your application easier to localize.

WARNING

Menus in a resource must not be purgeable nor should the resource lock bit be set. Do not define a "circular" hierarchical menu--that is, a hierarchical menu in which a submenu has a submenu whose submenu is a hierarchical menu higher in the chain.