How To - Add a context menu item

This section describes how you customize an existing context menu by adding a new menu item

The example is using the steps described in A Simple Client Customization as base, followed by additional steps for adding the column.

Pre-Requirements

A Simple Client Customization getting a customized form window named tbwCustomerInfoOverview_Cust.

Note: Customize the tbwCustomerInfoOverview table window instead of frmPersonInfo form window which is used for example above

Add a context menu item

• Open tbwCustomerInfoOverview_Cust in Designer mode.
• Open the Designer for the commandManager
• In the Available Commands panel, create a new command named cmdShow with the Caption set to Show
• Press on the Events button listing the connected event handlers (Misc panel).
• Double click the Execute attribute to generate a new event handler named cmdShow_Execute. Inside the handler, write code that calls FndMessageBox.Show with a message of your choice.
   

  private void cmd_Execute(object sender, Fnd.Windows.Forms.FndCommandExecuteEventArgs e)
  {
     e.Handled = true;
     FndMessageBox.Show("Started cmd_Execute!", "My Customization");
  }

• In the Action Tree panel, create a new Context Menu by selecting the Context menues folder and pressing on the Add new item in tree button. Name it menuTbwMethods_Cust
• Add a menu item to menuTbwMethods_Cust by selecting it and pressing on the Add new item in tree button. Name the menu item menuItem_Show
• Connect the command for menuItem_Show to cmdShow_Execute
  
• Close the Designer dialog
• Run IEE
• Open the customized Customers window (Application Base Setup\Enterprise\Customers)
• RMB click on the table window and click the Show menu item
  

Example: Shows how the customized menu item is appended to the bottom of the core context menu (after the Details menu item)

Result

Your menu item named Show should be listed at the bottom of the context menu.

Comments

Customized menu items can only only be appended to existing context menus by being created as items in a new context using the same name as the original menu + the layer name
<MenuName>_<LayerName>

Example:
The core form have a menu named menuFrmMethods with three menu items: Open, Release & Close You want to customize it by adding a fourth menu item named Cancel.
In the customized form, do the following:

• Create a new context menu named menuFrmMethods_Cust
• Add menu item named Cancel to it.

The framework will "merge" all the context menus in runtime, using the layer order (First Core, then Ext, last Cust)

Repositioning of Menu Items

The design time support in Visual Studio don't allow repositioning of menu items that are partly designed in the Core form and partly designed in the Cust/Ext form. The framework will automatically merge  these partly defined menus, showing their items starting with the Core menu items, followed by the Ext menu items and finally the Cust menu items.

Situations where you need to rearrange menu items and have your Cust/Ext items placed in locations before/after items hosted inside the Core menu, can be solved by using a suite of dedicated methods introduced in the framework.

Example:
Core form: holds the menu menuFrmMethods containing five menu items: menuItemValid, menuItemInvalid, menuSeparator1, menuItemUsedByGroups & menuItemCopyFormula
Cust form: holds the menu menuFrmMethods_Cust containing three menu items: menuItemCustom1, menuItemCustom2 & menuItemCustom3
Example:
The Command Manager designer showing both menus

By default, both menus will be merged by the framework just before they are shown, with following result:

To change an item location, override the method OnRearrangeMergedMenuItems and call one of the FndContextMenuStrip methods:

protected override void OnRearrangeMergedMenuItems(FndContextMenuStrip contextMenu)
{
   base.OnRearrangeMergedMenuItems(contextMenu);

   // Move the second menu item "menuItemCustom2" defined in menu "menuFrmMethods_Cust"
   // to the location just after the menu item "menuItemValid" which is defined in menu "menuFrmMethods".
   contextMenu.MoveItemAfter(this.menuItemCustom2, this.menuItemValid);
}

Result

The example above will result in a menu having its menu item Custom 2 moved to the location just after the menu item Valid.