wx.MenuItem¶

A menu item represents an item in a menu.

Note that you usually don’t have to deal with it directly as wx.Menu methods usually construct an object of this class for you.

Also please note that the methods related to fonts and bitmaps are currently only implemented for Windows, Mac and GTK+.

Events Emitted by this Class¶

Handlers bound for the following event types will receive one of the wx.CommandEvent wx.MenuEvent parameters.

EVT_MENU: Process a wxEVT_MENU command, which is generated by a menu item. This type of event is sent as wx.CommandEvent.
EVT_MENU_RANGE: Process a wxEVT_MENU command, which is generated by a range of menu items. This type of event is sent as wx.CommandEvent.
EVT_MENU_OPEN: A menu is about to be opened. On Windows, this is only sent once for each navigation of the menubar (up until all menus have closed). This type of event is sent as wx.MenuEvent.
EVT_MENU_CLOSE: A menu has been just closed. This type of event is sent as wx.MenuEvent.
EVT_MENU_HIGHLIGHT: The menu item with the specified id has been highlighted: used to show help prompts in the status bar by wx.Frame This type of event is sent as wx.MenuEvent.
EVT_MENU_HIGHLIGHT_ALL: A menu item has been highlighted, i.e. the currently selected menu item has changed. This type of event is sent as wx.MenuEvent.

See also

wx.MenuBar, wx.Menu

Class Hierarchy¶

Inheritance diagram for class MenuItem:

Methods Summary¶

`__init__`	Constructs a wx.MenuItem object.
`Check`	Checks or unchecks the menu item.
`Enable`	Enables or disables the menu item.
`GetAccel`	Get our accelerator or `None` (caller must delete the pointer)
`GetBackgroundColour`	Returns the background colour associated with the menu item.
`GetBitmap`	Returns the checked or unchecked bitmap.
`GetDisabledBitmap`	Returns the bitmap to be used for disabled items.
`GetFont`	Returns the font associated with the menu item.
`GetHelp`	Returns the help string associated with the menu item.
`GetId`	Returns the menu item identifier.
`GetItemLabel`	Returns the text associated with the menu item including any accelerator characters that were passed to the constructor or `SetItemLabel` .
`GetItemLabelText`	Returns the text associated with the menu item, without any accelerator characters.
`GetKind`	Returns the item kind, one of `ITEM_SEPARATOR` , `ITEM_NORMAL` , `ITEM_CHECK` or `ITEM_RADIO` .
`GetLabel`	Returns the text associated with the menu item without any accelerator characters it might contain.
`GetLabelFromText`
`GetLabelText`	Strips all accelerator characters and mnemonics from the given text.
`GetMarginWidth`	Gets the width of the menu item checkmark bitmap.
`GetMenu`	Returns the menu this menu item is in, or `None` if this menu item is not attached.
`GetName`	Returns the text associated with the menu item.
`GetSubMenu`	Returns the submenu associated with the menu item, or `None` if there isn’t one.
`GetText`	Returns the text associated with the menu item, such as it was passed to the wx.MenuItem constructor, i.e.
`GetTextColour`	Returns the text colour associated with the menu item.
`IsCheck`	Returns `True` if the item is a check item.
`IsCheckable`	Returns `True` if the item is checkable.
`IsChecked`	Returns `True` if the item is checked.
`IsEnabled`	Returns `True` if the item is enabled.
`IsRadio`	Returns `True` if the item is a radio button.
`IsSeparator`	Returns `True` if the item is a separator.
`IsSubMenu`	Returns `True` if the item is a submenu.
`SetAccel`	Set the accel for this item - this may also be done indirectly with `SetText`
`SetBackgroundColour`	Sets the background colour associated with the menu item.
`SetBitmap`	Sets the bitmap for the menu item.
`SetBitmaps`	Sets the checked/unchecked bitmaps for the menu item.
`SetDisabledBitmap`	Sets the to be used for disabled menu items.
`SetFont`	Sets the font associated with the menu item.
`SetHelp`	Sets the help string.
`SetItemLabel`	Sets the label associated with the menu item.
`SetMarginWidth`	Sets the width of the menu item checkmark bitmap.
`SetMenu`	Sets the parent menu which will contain this menu item.
`SetSubMenu`	Sets the submenu of this menu item.
`SetText`	Sets the text associated with the menu item.
`SetTextColour`	Sets the text colour associated with the menu item.

Properties Summary¶

`Accel`	See `GetAccel` and `SetAccel`
`BackgroundColour`	See `GetBackgroundColour` and `SetBackgroundColour`
`Bitmap`	See `GetBitmap` and `SetBitmap`
`DisabledBitmap`	See `GetDisabledBitmap` and `SetDisabledBitmap`
`Enabled`	See `IsEnabled` and `Enable`
`Font`	See `GetFont` and `SetFont`
`Help`	See `GetHelp` and `SetHelp`
`Id`	See `GetId`
`ItemLabel`	See `GetItemLabel` and `SetItemLabel`
`ItemLabelText`	See `GetItemLabelText`
`Kind`	See `GetKind`
`Label`	See `GetLabel`
`MarginWidth`	See `GetMarginWidth` and `SetMarginWidth`
`Menu`	See `GetMenu` and `SetMenu`
`Name`	See `GetName`
`SubMenu`	See `GetSubMenu` and `SetSubMenu`
`Text`	See `GetText` and `SetText`
`TextColour`	See `GetTextColour` and `SetTextColour`

Class API¶

class wx.MenuItem(Object)¶

Possible constructors:

MenuItem(parentMenu=None, id=ID_SEPARATOR, text="",
         helpString="", kind=ITEM_NORMAL, subMenu=None)

A menu item represents an item in a menu.

Methods¶

__init__(self, parentMenu=None, id=ID_SEPARATOR, text="", helpString="", kind=ITEM_NORMAL, subMenu=None)¶

Constructs a wx.MenuItem object.

Menu items can be standard, or “stock menu items”, or custom. For the standard menu items (such as commands to open a file, exit the program and so on, see Stock Items for the full list) it is enough to specify just the stock ID and leave text and helpString empty. Some platforms (currently wxGTK only, and see the remark in SetBitmap documentation) will also show standard bitmaps for stock menu items.

Leaving at least text empty for the stock menu items is actually strongly recommended as they will have appearance and keyboard interface (including standard accelerators) familiar to the user.

For the custom (non-stock) menu items, text must be specified and while helpString may be left empty, it’s recommended to pass the item description (which is automatically shown by the library in the status bar when the menu item is selected) in this parameter.

Finally note that you can e.g. use a stock menu label without using its stock help string:

# use all stock properties:
helpMenu.Append(wx.ID_ABOUT)

# use the stock label and the stock accelerator but not the stock help string:
helpMenu.Append(wx.ID_ABOUT, "", "My custom help string")

# use all stock properties except for the bitmap:
mymenu = wx.MenuItem(helpMenu, wx.ID_ABOUT)
mymenu.SetBitmap(wx.ArtProvider.GetBitmap(wx.ART_WARNING))
helpMenu.Append(mymenu)

that is, stock properties are set independently one from the other.

Parameters

parentMenu (wx.Menu) – Menu that the menu item belongs to. Can be None if the item is going to be added to the menu later.
id (int) – Identifier for this menu item. May be ID_SEPARATOR , in which case the given kind is ignored and taken to be ITEM_SEPARATOR instead.
text (string) – Text for the menu item, as shown on the menu. See SetItemLabel for more info.
helpString (string) – Optional help string that will be shown on the status bar.
kind (ItemKind) – May be ITEM_SEPARATOR , ITEM_NORMAL , ITEM_CHECK or ITEM_RADIO .
subMenu (wx.Menu) – If not None, indicates that the menu item is a submenu.

Check(self, check=True)¶

Checks or unchecks the menu item.

Note that this only works when the item is already appended to a menu.

Parameters: check (bool) –

Enable(self, enable=True)¶

Enables or disables the menu item.

Parameters: enable (bool) –

GetAccel(self)¶

Get our accelerator or None (caller must delete the pointer)

Return type: wx.AcceleratorEntry

GetBackgroundColour(self)¶

Returns the background colour associated with the menu item.

Return type: wx.Colour

Availability

Only available for MSW.

GetBitmap(self, checked=True)¶

Returns the checked or unchecked bitmap.

Parameters: checked (bool) –
Return type: wx.Bitmap

Availability

Only available for MSW.

GetDisabledBitmap(self)¶

Returns the bitmap to be used for disabled items.

Return type: wx.Bitmap

Availability

Only available for MSW.

GetFont(self)¶

Returns the font associated with the menu item.

Return type: wx.Font

Availability

Only available for MSW.

GetHelp(self)¶

Returns the help string associated with the menu item.

Return type: string

GetId(self)¶

Returns the menu item identifier.

Return type: int

GetItemLabel(self)¶

Returns the text associated with the menu item including any accelerator characters that were passed to the constructor or SetItemLabel .

Return type: string

See also

GetItemLabelText , GetLabelText

GetItemLabelText(self)¶

Returns the text associated with the menu item, without any accelerator characters.

Return type: string

See also

GetItemLabel , GetLabelText

GetKind(self)¶

Returns the item kind, one of ITEM_SEPARATOR , ITEM_NORMAL , ITEM_CHECK or ITEM_RADIO .

Return type: wx.ItemKind

GetLabel(self)¶

Returns the text associated with the menu item without any accelerator characters it might contain.

Return type: string

Deprecated

This function is deprecated in favour of GetItemLabelText .

See also

GetItemLabelText

static GetLabelFromText(text)¶

Parameters: text (string) –
Return type: string

Deprecated

This function is deprecated; please use GetLabelText instead.

See also

GetLabelText

static GetLabelText(text)¶

Strips all accelerator characters and mnemonics from the given text.

For example:

wx.MenuItem.GetLabelfromText("&Hello\tCtrl-h")

will return just "Hello" .

Parameters: text (string) –
Return type: string

See also

GetItemLabelText , GetItemLabel

GetMarginWidth(self)¶

Gets the width of the menu item checkmark bitmap.

Return type: int

Availability

Only available for MSW.

GetMenu(self)¶

Returns the menu this menu item is in, or None if this menu item is not attached.

Return type: wx.Menu

GetName(self)¶

Returns the text associated with the menu item.

Return type: string

Deprecated

This function is deprecated. Please use GetItemLabel or GetItemLabelText instead.

See also

GetItemLabel , GetItemLabelText

GetSubMenu(self)¶

Returns the submenu associated with the menu item, or None if there isn’t one.

Return type: wx.Menu

GetText(self)¶

Returns the text associated with the menu item, such as it was passed to the wx.MenuItem constructor, i.e.

with any accelerator characters it may contain.

Return type: string

Deprecated

This function is deprecated in favour of GetItemLabel .

See also

GetLabelFromText

GetTextColour(self)¶

Returns the text colour associated with the menu item.

Return type: wx.Colour

Availability

Only available for MSW.

IsCheck(self)¶

Returns True if the item is a check item.

Unlike IsCheckable this doesn’t return True for the radio buttons.

Return type: bool

New in version 2.9.5.

IsCheckable(self)¶

Returns True if the item is checkable.

Notice that the radio buttons are considered to be checkable as well, so this method returns True for them too. Use IsCheck if you want to test for the check items only.

Return type: bool

IsChecked(self)¶

Returns True if the item is checked.

Return type: bool

IsEnabled(self)¶

Returns True if the item is enabled.

Return type: bool

IsRadio(self)¶

Returns True if the item is a radio button.

Return type: bool

New in version 2.9.5.

IsSeparator(self)¶

Returns True if the item is a separator.

Return type: bool

IsSubMenu(self)¶

Returns True if the item is a submenu.

Return type: bool

SetAccel(self, accel)¶

Set the accel for this item - this may also be done indirectly with SetText

Parameters: accel (wx.AcceleratorEntry) –

SetBackgroundColour(self, colour)¶

Sets the background colour associated with the menu item.

Parameters: colour (wx.Colour) –

Availability

Only available for MSW.

SetBitmap(self, bmp, checked=True)¶

Sets the bitmap for the menu item.

It is equivalent to MenuItem.SetBitmaps(bmp, NullBitmap) if checked is True (default value) or SetBitmaps(wxNullBitmap, bmp) otherwise.

SetBitmap must be called before the item is appended to the menu, i.e. appending the item without a bitmap and setting one later is not guaranteed to work. But the bitmap can be changed or reset later if it had been set up initially.

Notice that GTK+ uses a global setting called gtk-menu-images to determine if the images should be shown in the menus at all. If it is off (which is the case in e.g. Gnome 2.28 by default), no images will be shown, consistently with the native behaviour.

Parameters

bmp (wx.Bitmap) –
checked (bool) –

Availability

Only available for MSW, OSX, GTK.

SetBitmaps(self, checked, unchecked=NullBitmap)¶

Sets the checked/unchecked bitmaps for the menu item.

The first bitmap is also used as the single bitmap for uncheckable menu items.

Parameters

checked (wx.Bitmap) –
unchecked (wx.Bitmap) –

Availability

Only available for MSW.

SetDisabledBitmap(self, disabled)¶

Sets the to be used for disabled menu items.

Parameters: disabled (wx.Bitmap) –

Availability

Only available for MSW.

SetFont(self, font)¶

Sets the font associated with the menu item.

Parameters: font (wx.Font) –

Availability

Only available for MSW.

SetHelp(self, helpString)¶

Sets the help string.

Parameters: helpString (string) –

SetItemLabel(self, label)¶

Sets the label associated with the menu item.

Note that if the ID of this menu item corresponds to a stock ID, then it is not necessary to specify a label: wxWidgets will automatically use the stock item label associated with that ID. See the constructor for more info.

The label string for the normal menu items (not separators) may include the accelerator which can be used to activate the menu item from keyboard. An accelerator key can be specified using the ampersand & character. In order to embed an ampersand character in the menu item text, the ampersand must be doubled.

Optionally you can specify also an accelerator string appending a tab character \t followed by a valid key combination (e.g. CTRL+V ). Its general syntax is any combination of "CTRL" , "RAWCTRL" , "ALT" and "SHIFT" strings (case doesn’t matter) separated by either '-' or '+' characters and followed by the accelerator itself. Notice that CTRL corresponds to the “Ctrl” key on most platforms but not under Mac OS where it is mapped to “Cmd” key on Mac keyboard. Usually this is exactly what you want in portable code but if you really need to use the (rarely used for this purpose) “Ctrl” key even under Mac, you may use RAWCTRL to prevent this mapping. Under the other platforms RAWCTRL is the same as plain CTRL .

The accelerator may be any alphanumeric character, any function key (from F1 to F12) or one of the special characters listed in the table below (again, case doesn’t matter):

DEL or DELETE: Delete key
BACK : Backspace key
INS or INSERT: Insert key
ENTER or RETURN: Enter key
PGUP: PageUp key
PGDN: PageDown key
LEFT: Left cursor arrow key
RIGHT: Right cursor arrow key
UP: Up cursor arrow key
DOWN: Down cursor arrow key
HOME: Home key
END: End key
SPACE: Space
TAB: Tab key
ESC or ESCAPE: Escape key (Windows only)

Examples:

self.myMenuItem.SetItemLabel("My &item\tCTRL+I")
self.myMenuItem2.SetItemLabel("Clean and build\tF7")
self.myMenuItem3.SetItemLabel("Simple item")
self.myMenuItem4.SetItemLabel("Item with &accelerator")

Parameters: label (string) –

Note

In wxGTK using "SHIFT" with non-alphabetic characters currently doesn’t work, even in combination with other modifiers, due to GTK+ limitation. E.g. Shift+Ctrl+A works but Shift+Ctrl+1 or Shift+/ do not, so avoid using accelerators of this form in portable code.

See also

GetItemLabel , GetItemLabelText

SetMarginWidth(self, width)¶

Sets the width of the menu item checkmark bitmap.