Menu item separator without using BeginGroup

I have a proposal for a new feature:

It is very frustrating for me to have the menu/toolbar separator attached to a specific menu item (by setting Control.BeginGroup = True).  There are a number of places in my programs where I change the visibility of individual menu items during runtime and if I hide the first menu item in a group, I have to go through and change the BeginGroup property on the next visible menu item.  This is frustrating and can get complicated when there are lots of menu items that change visibility.

I would love it if you can make it possible to add a separator that floats in a specific spot.  For example, the built-in VB6 menu editor does not attach the separator to any other menu item so I can hide the menu items above and below the separator without effecting the separator itself.  One way this could be done is to set aside a special menu id value that will add a separator in that position:

CommandBar.Controls.Add(xtpControlButton, 1, "Item1", -1, False)
CommandBar.Controls.Add(xtpControlButton, SEPARATOR_ID, "-", -1, False)
CommandBar.Controls.Add(xtpControlButton, 2, "Item2", -1, False)
CommandBar.Controls.Add(xtpControlButton, 3, "Item3", -1, False)

In the above example, I can hide Item2 at runtime and still have the separator dividing Item1 and Item3.

Just a thought.

Unfortunately, a blank label still leaves a space where the caption would normally be displayed.  I don't want any spacing between the stand-alone group separator line and the menu buttons above and below.

I found the following workaround.  Adding a menu item using the following code creates a separator independent of any menu item: 


Dim Control As XtremeCommandBars.CommandBarControl

Set Control = CommandBar.Controls.Add(xtpControlGallery, Id, "")
Control.Height = 0
Control.Width = 0
Control.BeginGroup = True


(This also works for toolbar separators)

The only problem I have encountered is that if there is a situation where a lot of normal menu items are hidden, I can sometimes end up with separators in unwanted spots.  For example, sometimes I can end up with a separator in the very first or last position of a menu.  Also, I can sometimes end up with two separators next to each other.  This doesn't look good so I wrote a function that loops through all the menus and toolbars and hide seperators when  they are show up in these unwanted places.

chrisABC wrote: Your cpu has too much spare time  :-)

I only need to check the controls when the program does something to change one of the visibility settings.  Looping through a few dozen controls on such rare occasions is not a problem.