Getting Started with Command Bar Designer

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   No questions this time, only answers... for other newbies like me.
This post is just to help out anyone else that has been using the Search button on this forum (so much it is catching on fire) while getting started with the Command Bar Designer feature of XTP. This post has a few helpful keywords in it to help the next person that searches for this stuff.
Here are a few little things that I figured out that have made the Command Bar Designer go from neat to indispensable.
1) Add a menu? It would be cool if there was an Add menu button just like the add toolbar, add control, or add icon buttons. If you want to add a menu other than the File, Edit, etc. menus to the menu bar create a new control on the Controls pane and make set its type to xtpControlPopup when entering its name. Then you drag it onto the menu bar when in "design mode" (hammer icon toggles design mode). At the time of this writing, the word "Menu" didn't help when searching the forum or the CHM help file. Same process for adding a sub menu. 
2) Add a separator/spacer to a menu? Again it would be cool if there was simply an Add Spacer button. This one is a little harder to discover. In design mode, you need to select the menu item (on the menu, not in the controls pane) immediately following where you want the separator to show up. Then in the properties pane, under the Behavior group, there is a setting called "Begin Group" which needs to be set to True. The words "separator" and "spacer" are nowhere in the help file so hopefully this post will come up when someone searches for these terms in the forum.
3) ID Definitions: You can easily export all of the associated IDs you create to a header. It would be cool if the Export menu item on the File menu listed Header File in addition to XML. This export is not the same as the export listed on the File menu. Instead you use the Export button on the Resource Symbols dialog accessible from the CommandBars menu.
Its quite possible (and probable) I simply missed this stuff in the documentation, but I spent a lot of time looking and it wasn't indexed anywhere that I could find under these common terms.
Hope this helps others discover the truly powerful time saving features of this tool.

Edited by robosport

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robosport Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 20 June 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 62	Post Options Post Reply Quote robosport Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Getting Started with Command Bar Designer Posted: 04 July 2005 at 10:41pm
	No questions this time, only answers... for other newbies like me. This post is just to help out anyone else that has been using the Search button on this forum (so much it is catching on fire) while getting started with the Command Bar Designer feature of XTP. This post has a few helpful keywords in it to help the next person that searches for this stuff. Here are a few little things that I figured out that have made the Command Bar Designer go from neat to indispensable. 1) Add a menu? It would be cool if there was an Add menu button just like the add toolbar, add control, or add icon buttons. If you want to add a menu other than the File, Edit, etc. menus to the menu bar create a new control on the Controls pane and make set its type to xtpControlPopup when entering its name. Then you drag it onto the menu bar when in "design mode" (hammer icon toggles design mode). At the time of this writing, the word "Menu" didn't help when searching the forum or the CHM help file. Same process for adding a sub menu. 2) Add a separator/spacer to a menu? Again it would be cool if there was simply an Add Spacer button. This one is a little harder to discover. In design mode, you need to select the menu item (on the menu, not in the controls pane) immediately following where you want the separator to show up. Then in the properties pane, under the Behavior group, there is a setting called "Begin Group" which needs to be set to True. The words "separator" and "spacer" are nowhere in the help file so hopefully this post will come up when someone searches for these terms in the forum. 3) ID Definitions: You can easily export all of the associated IDs you create to a header. It would be cool if the Export menu item on the File menu listed Header File in addition to XML. This export is not the same as the export listed on the File menu. Instead you use the Export button on the Resource Symbols dialog accessible from the CommandBars menu. Its quite possible (and probable) I simply missed this stuff in the documentation, but I spent a lot of time looking and it wasn't indexed anywhere that I could find under these common terms. Hope this helps others discover the truly powerful time saving features of this tool. Edited by robosport