Workspaces can be used to control which pull-down menus are displayed on the menu bar. However, you can also swap one pull-down menu programmatically for another (for example, when a user loads an application that requires an additional pull-down menu).
Because the program has cascading pull-down menus, there is little need to swap menus. Also, swapping menus can detract from the consistency of the user interface. However, using $ commands, you can swap pull-down menus and submenus. An alternative to menu swapping involves relative (or global) referencing. Using this method, you can insert the new menu in front of a known menu and then remove the known menu.
For menu-swapping purposes, pull-down menus are named P1 through P16. You can change the title that appears on the menu bar by replacing that line of the menu with a $Pn= command. You can use the special command $Pn=* from within any command to force the menu currently assigned to the alias POPn to pull down for greater flexibility in movement of the pointing device.
The following macro example replaces a pull-down menu at position P3 with the menu named new3 in the customization group named MYMENU.
$P3=mymenu.new3
In AutoCAD, the same thing can be done with the AutoLISP menucmd function as follows:
(menucmd "P3=mymenu.new3")
You can use the $Pn=* special command from within any macro to force the menu currently assigned to area POPn to be displayed.
Menu swapping is done by activating one menu directly from another menu. Menu swapping is supported for the following interface elements:
The syntax for the swapping of partial menus is as follows:
$section=customizationgroup.menuname
Valid section names are B1-4, A1-4, P0-16, T1-4
Customization group name in the desired customization (CUIx) file
Main label or alias
You should be aware of the following:
You can use the AutoLISP menucmd function (not available in AutoCAD LT) to insert or remove a pull-down menu. The syntax is similar to that used to swap pull-down menus except that the left side of the assignment is the pull-down menu before which the new menu will be inserted. The right side of the assignment is a plus sign (+) followed by the name of the customization group, a period, and the menu's alias, as shown in the following syntax:
(menucmd "Gcustomizationgroup1.menuname1=+Gcustomizationgroup2.menuname2")
You can also insert a menu with the Pn= syntax. The following macro inserts a menu after the P5 menu:
$P5=+Gmymenu.new3
The same macro can be implemented with AutoLISP using the following:
(menucmd "P5=+Gmymenu.new3")
If you use this method to insert a menu, remember that you cannot rely on it being inserted at the P6 menu location as you might expect. There are two reasons that this may not be the case.
This is the syntax for removing a menu:
Gcustomizationgroup.menuname=-
Removing a menu with AutoLISP would using the following syntax:
(menucmd "Gcustomizationgroup.menuname=-")
The following shows how to remove the menu NEW3 that is a member of the MyMenu group.
$Gmymenu.new3=-"
The previous example would look like the following in AutoLISP:
(menucmd "Gmymenu.new3=-")
As you might expect, the preceding format is preferable to the Pn= format because it removes only the specified menu. The following shows how to remove the menu at the P4 location (whatever it is).
$P4=-
The previous example would look like the following in AutoLISP:
(menucmd "P4=-")
Toolbar are commonly displayed using workspaces. However, you can display a toolbar using the -TOOLBAR command. Use the following syntax at the Enter toolbar name or [ALL]: prompt.
customizationgroup.toolbaralias
This syntax accesses the toolbar identified by customizationgroup.toolbaralias.
If the customization group is left out, the program defaults to the main customization (CUIx) file.