Specifications

CHAPTER 7

Menu Commands

Menu commands make menus more flexible and dynamic. As with regular commands, menu

commands can be used to perform almost any kind of edit to the current document, other open

documents, or any HTML document on a local drive. The Menu Commands API expands the

regular command API to accomplish several tasks that are related to displaying and calling the

command from the menu system.

Note: Because menu commands are directly related to the menu system in Dreamweaver, you should read

“Customizing Dreamweaver,” in Using Dreamweaver before continuing in this chapter.

Menu commands are HTML files that are referenced in the file attribute of a menuitem tag in

the

menus.xml file. The BODY of a Menu Commands file can contain an HTML form that

accepts options for the command (for example, how a table should be sorted and by which

column). The

HEAD of a Menu Commands file contains JavaScript functions that process form

input from the

BODY and control the edits that are made to the user’s document.

Menu commands are stored in the Configuration/Menus folder inside the Dreamweaver

application folder.

Note: If you add custom menu commands to Dreamweaver, add them at the top level of the Menus folder or create

a subfolder. The MM folder is reserved for the menu commands that come with Dreamweaver.

How menu commands work

When the user clicks a menu with a menu item that contains a menu command, the following

events occur:

1 If any menuitem tag in the menu contains the dynamic attribute, Dreamweaver calls the

getDynamicContent() function in the associated Menu Commands file to populate the menu.

2 Dreamweaver calls the canAcceptCommand() function in each Menu Commands file that is

referenced in the menu to check whether the command is appropriate for the selection.

• If canAcceptCommand() returns false, the menu item is dimmed.

• If canAcceptCommand() returns true or is not defined, Dreamweaver calls the

isCommandChecked() function to determine whether to display a check mark next to the

menu item. If

isCommandChecked() is not defined, no check mark appears.

3 Dreamweaver calls the setMenuText() function to determine the text that should appear in

the menu.

setMenuText() is not defined, Dreamweaver uses the text that is specified in the menuitem

tag.

4 The user selects an item from the menu.