Thread: Text box default contextmenu

You know that default context (right-click) menu that comes with text boxes? The one that has Cut, Copy, Paste, and Select All? How can I add that same menu to my window's main menu bar without having to implement all the menu enables/disables myself? Is there a standard method?

Not that I know of. You will most likely just have to add it yourself, which you can also do on the fly using CreateMenu(), AppendMenu(), etc. functions. Do a search on MSDN in order to see how to do this.

Alright. Shouldn't be too difficult to do myself. I'm planning on just making a menu that's part of the parent's class, then when a right-click happens, I'll test the parent for a selection. Based on whether anything is selected, or if anything is in the clipboard, I'll enable/disable the menu items.

If anybody knows of a better way, you best speak up.

I coded a simple text editor as one of my first C Windows programs. I found some code that could help you. Sorry for the wide post, poor formatting, etc:

This is the code to handle WM_MENUSELECT:

Code:

	case WM_MENUSELECT:
		//A menu has been selected but not clicked
		//Make sure menuitems are enabled or not as needed
		if (lParam != 0)  //a menu has been selected.
			MenuSelect( LOWORD(wParam), lParam);

		return TRUE;

This is the MenuSelect function:

Code:

void MenuSelect(INT menu, LPARAM lParam) {
//menu will be id of selected menu
//lParam is handle to main menu.

INT selection;
BOOL noValidSelection;


	switch ( menu ) {

		case M_EDIT:

			EnableMenuItem( (HMENU) lParam,M_EDIT_UNDO, !SendMessage(hEdit,EM_CANUNDO,0,0) );
			EnableMenuItem( (HMENU) lParam,M_EDIT_PASTE, !IsClipboardFormatAvailable(CF_TEXT) );

			//check if a valid selection is highlighted
			selection = SendMessage(hEdit,EM_GETSEL,0,0);
			noValidSelection = LOWORD(selection) == HIWORD(selection);

			EnableMenuItem( (HMENU) lParam,M_EDIT_CUT, noValidSelection );
			EnableMenuItem( (HMENU) lParam,M_EDIT_COPY, noValidSelection );
			EnableMenuItem( (HMENU) lParam,M_EDIT_DEL, noValidSelection );

			break;

	} //end switch
return;
}

This was how I implemented the standard edit menu commands:

Code:

	case M_EDIT_UNDO:
		SendMessage(hEdit,EM_UNDO,0,0);
		break;

	case M_EDIT_CUT:
		SendMessage(hEdit,WM_CUT,0,0);
		break;

	case M_EDIT_COPY:
		SendMessage(hEdit,WM_COPY,0,0);
		break;

	case M_EDIT_PASTE:
		SendMessage(hEdit,WM_PASTE,0,0);
		break;

	case M_EDIT_DEL:
		SendMessage(hEdit,WM_CLEAR,0,0);
		break;

	case M_EDIT_SELALL:
		SendMessage(hEdit,EM_SETSEL,0,-1);
		break;

Finally, this was the resource script for the menu and accelerators:

Code:

M_MAIN MENU
BEGIN
    POPUP "&File"
        BEGIN
	POPUP "&New"
		BEGIN
		MENUITEM "&Document", M_FILE_NEW
        	MENUITEM "&Window", M_FILE_WIN
		END
	MENUITEM "&Open", M_FILE_OPEN
        MENUITEM "&Save", M_FILE_SAVE
        MENUITEM "Save &As", M_FILE_SAVEAS
        MENUITEM SEPARATOR
        MENUITEM "&Refresh",  M_FILE_REFRESH
        MENUITEM SEPARATOR
        MENUITEM "E&xit", M_FILE_EXIT
        END
    POPUP "&Edit"
        BEGIN
        MENUITEM "&Undo", M_EDIT_UNDO
        MENUITEM SEPARATOR
        MENUITEM "Cu&t", M_EDIT_CUT
        MENUITEM "&Copy", M_EDIT_COPY
        MENUITEM "&Paste", M_EDIT_PASTE
        MENUITEM "De&lete", M_EDIT_DEL
        MENUITEM SEPARATOR
        MENUITEM "Select A&ll", M_EDIT_SELALL
        MENUITEM "Time/&Date   F5", M_EDIT_TIME
        MENUITEM SEPARATOR
        MENUITEM "&Word Wrap", M_EDIT_WORD
        MENUITEM "Change &Font", M_EDIT_FONT
	END
    POPUP "&Search"
        BEGIN
        MENUITEM "&Find", M_SRCH_FND
        MENUITEM "Find &Next   F3", M_SRCH_FNDNXT
        MENUITEM SEPARATOR
        MENUITEM "&Replace", M_SRCH_RPLC
        END
END
ID_ACCEL ACCELERATORS
BEGIN
    VK_F5, M_EDIT_TIME, VIRTKEY,
    VK_F3, M_SRCH_FNDNXT, VIRTKEY,
    83, M_FILE_SAVE, VIRTKEY, CONTROL
    78, M_FILE_NEW, VIRTKEY, CONTROL
    65, M_EDIT_SELALL, VIRTKEY, CONTROL
    79, M_FILE_OPEN, VIRTKEY, CONTROL
    70, M_SRCH_FND, VIRTKEY, CONTROL
END

hey cool thanks. Yea that will help. I never thought of using a switch statement instead of separate functions either.

One thing - what do those SendMessage statements do exactly?

They add a message to the message queue of the target HWND...

are you asking what WM_COPY and WM_PASTE, etc.. do? or what SendMessage(...) does?

both