Framework/Tutorial/Popup Menu Controller

This tutorial will give you a detailed step-by-step insight into a very flexible way to add dynamic popup menus into the OpenOffice.org menu bar. Dynamic popup menus are implemented via UNO using the popup menu controller service. This tutorial will be split into small chapters which describe different aspects of popup menu controllers. The prerequisites

The outcome of this tutorial will be an add-on which exchanges the default recent file list with an enhanced version. Hopefully some people will find it useful and may be encourage other developers to extend it.

Popup menu controller

A popup menu controller is a UNO based implementation which supports the service com.sun.star.frame.PopupMenuController. Popup menu controllers are supported since OpenOffice.org 2.0 and

[cpp] module com { module sun { module star { module frame {

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/** provides access to a popup menu controller.

   A popup menu controller is used to make special functions available to 
   users, which depend on runtime or context specific conditions.

   A typical example for a popup menu controller can be a recent file list 
   implementation which provides a list of latest files that a user has 
   worked on. This list gets changes consistently during a work session.

   @since OOo 2.0.0

• /

service PopupMenuController {

   //-------------------------------------------------------------------------
   /** supports functions to initialize and update a popup menu controller
       implementation.

       A popup menu controller implementation gets initialized with a 
       com::sun::star::awt::XPopupMenu object. This assures that a 
       popup menu controller can be implemented with any UNO based
       language.
   */
   interface com::sun::star::frame::XPopupMenuController;
   
   //-------------------------------------------------------------------------
   /** provides functions to initialize a popup menu controller with 
       specific data which are needed. 
       
       This interface should not directly used. A factory service is responsible to 
       initialize every controller correctly.

       A popup menu controller needs at least two additional arguments
       provided as com::sun::star::beans::PropertyValue:
       
       Frame  specifies the com::sun::star::frame::XFrame
              instance to which the popup menu controller belongs to.
       CommandURL specifies which popup menu controller should be created.

       @see PopupMenuControllerFactory
   */
   interface com::sun::star::lang::XInitialization;

   //-------------------------------------------------------------------------
   /** used to brief the popup menu controller with new status information.

       A popup menu controller makes special functions available to users which normally 
       depend on the state of other data. This interface is used to send this data
       to a controller implementation.
   */
   interface com::sun::star::frame::XStatusListener;

};

}; }; }; };

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