[Tkinter-discuss] a couple of mac menu problems

[Kevin Walzer]

Hi Mark,

Please see my answers below:


> Here's a bit of code used to create the Help menu:
>
>      if MAC:
> 	self.master.createcommand("tkAboutDialog", self.about_action)
> 	self.master.createcommand("::tk::mac::ShowHelp",
> 		self.help_action)
>      helpMenu = tk.Menu(self.menubar, name="help")
>      helpMenu.add_command(label="Help", underline=0,
> 	    command=self.help_action)
>      if not MAC:
> 	helpMenu.add_command(label="About", underline=0,
> 		command=self.about_action)
>      self.menubar.add_cascade(label="Help", underline=0,
> 	    menu=helpMenu)

There's some magic in the Tk-Cocoa help menu--if you define the 
tk::mac::showHelp command and map it to your function that calls user 
help, you don't need to add a separate entry for help. (There's already 
an entry hard-coded for help, along with the search field.) So the 
helpMenu.add_Command(label="Help")... stuff is redundant.

> I end up with these menus:
>
>      ActivePython3.2
> 	About ActivePython3.2 # correctly invokes my about action

If you're just running the app from Python and not wrapping it with a 
tool such as py2app, this is the expected behavior.  The "about" menu 
picks up the name of the executable from its info.plist file, which in 
this case is Python.

>
>      Help
> 	Search # some apple-specific thing that just appears
> 	ActivePython3.2 Help # invokes my help action
> 	Help                 # invokes my help action

>
> Problems:
>
> (1) I don't know how to rename the "ActivePython3.2" menu to "My App".
> (2) I don't know how to rename the "About ActivePython3.2" menu option
>      to "About" or "About My App".

See above--you need to wrap this as a standalone app using py2app or 
cx_freeze.

> (3) I don't know how to eliminate the "ActivePython3.2 Help" menu option.
>      If I don't do helpMenu.add_command() on the Mac that menu has no
>      items ('cos the About is in the ActivePython3.2 menu) and so the
>      Help menu doesn't appear at all.

If you don't add any items to the help menu but just define it, I would 
expect to see an entry called "ActivePython 3.2 Help" that calls up a 
dialog which says, "Help isn't available for ActivePython 3.2."

This is how I set up my help menu is one of my Python apps:

	        self.createcommand('::tk::mac::ShowHelp', self.runHelp)

        self.helpmenu = Menu(self.mb, name='_help')
         self.mb.add_cascade(label='Help', menu=self.helpmenu)
         self.helpmenu.add_command(label='Phynchronicity Help', 
command=self.runHelp)
         self.helpmenu.add_command(label='Contact Code by Kevin', 
command=self.getHelp)
         self.helpmenu.add_command(label='Web Site', 
command=self.getWebSite)
         self.helpmenu.add_command(label='User Forum', 
command=self.getUserForum)
         self.helpmenu.add_command(label='Newsletter', 
command=self.getNewsletter)

Hope this helps,
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Walzer
Code by Kevin
http://www.codebykevin.com