How to find a MenuItem's name, or, there's no more Tag property

[Jeff Mason]

I have an application where I need to set certain menu items invisible based on a
user privilege.

We did a sinmlar thing in VB6 and used the menu item's tag property to assign an
identifier to each menu entry, then used that identifier as an index into a
collection populated at user login in order to determine the item's visibility.

Now, for some reason there's no tag property for .NET MenuItems, so I'm looking for
some way to accomplish what I was able to do in VB6. If I could get access to the
menu name assigned at design time that could work, but I can't see how to do that.
It's not available at run time via the menu item's type.

The sample code in help has hideous If/Then/ElseIf structures like:

If menuitem is mnuFile Then
...
elseif menuitem is mnuEdit then
...
elseif...

But there has to be a better way to uniquely identify a menuitem at run time.

I suppose I could derive a class from MenuItem and define my own tag or other
identifier property, but then I wouldn't be able to use that class in the menu
designer.

Is it possible to discover the specific instance of the menuitem via reflection
somehow?

[Ken Tucker [MVP]]

Jeff,

The hashtable creates a table you can look up values based on a key.
The key is an object. Store the value in a hashtable with the key being the
menuitem.

Ken
--------------
"Jeff Mason" <je******@comca st.net> wrote in message
news:57******** *************** *********@4ax.c om...

I have an application where I need to set certain menu items invisible
based on a
user privilege.

We did a sinmlar thing in VB6 and used the menu item's tag property to
assign an
identifier to each menu entry, then used that identifier as an index into
a
collection populated at user login in order to determine the item's
visibility.

Now, for some reason there's no tag property for .NET MenuItems, so I'm
looking for
some way to accomplish what I was able to do in VB6. If I could get
access to the
menu name assigned at design time that could work, but I can't see how to
do that.
It's not available at run time via the menu item's type.

The sample code in help has hideous If/Then/ElseIf structures like:

If menuitem is mnuFile Then
...
elseif menuitem is mnuEdit then
...
elseif...

But there has to be a better way to uniquely identify a menuitem at run
time.

I suppose I could derive a class from MenuItem and define my own tag or
other
identifier property, but then I wouldn't be able to use that class in the
menu
designer.

Is it possible to discover the specific instance of the menuitem via
reflection
somehow?

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

* Jeff Mason <je******@comca st.net> scripsit:

I have an application where I need to set certain menu items invisible based on a
user privilege.

We did a sinmlar thing in VB6 and used the menu item's tag property to assign an
identifier to each menu entry, then used that identifier as an index into a
collection populated at user login in order to determine the item's visibility.

Now, for some reason there's no tag property for .NET MenuItems, so I'm looking for
some way to accomplish what I was able to do in VB6. If I could get access to the
menu name assigned at design time that could work, but I can't see how to do that.
It's not available at run time via the menu item's type.

<URL:http://groups.google.d e/groups?selm=u0x LOsDCDHA.2316%4 0TK2MSFTNGP10.p hx.gbl>

--
Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]
<URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/>

[Jeff Mason]

On 30 May 2004 01:32:36 +0200, hi************* **@gmx.at (Herfried K. Wagner [MVP])
wrote:

<URL:http://groups.google.d e/groups?selm=u0x LOsDCDHA.2316%4 0TK2MSFTNGP10.p hx.gbl>
Thank you for your response. Your link suggests I derive a class from MenuItem to
add a property to handle this. But, as I said in my original post:
I suppose I could derive a class from MenuItem and define my own tag or other
identifier property, but then I wouldn't be able to use that class in the menu
designer.

This is a large project with many many menu entries yet to be developed, so the menu
designer is pretty important to me.

Is there another way to identify the menu items in a form?

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

* Jeff Mason <je******@comca st.net> scripsit:

<URL:http://groups.google.d e/groups?selm=u0x LOsDCDHA.2316%4 0TK2MSFTNGP10.p hx.gbl>

Thank you for your response. Your link suggests I derive a class from MenuItem to
add a property to handle this. But, as I said in my original post:

I suppose I could derive a class from MenuItem and define my own tag or other
identifier property, but then I wouldn't be able to use that class in the menu
designer.

This is a large project with many many menu entries yet to be developed, so the menu
designer is pretty important to me.

Is there another way to identify the menu items in a form?

Well, I don't know about an easy way to do that...

--
Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]
<URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/>

[Jeff Mason]

On Sat, 29 May 2004 19:32:52 -0400, "Ken Tucker [MVP]" <vb***@bellsout h.net> wrote:

Jeff,

The hashtable creates a table you can look up values based on a key.
The key is an object. Store the value in a hashtable with the key being the
menuitem.

Ken

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the response.

Your suggestion implies that the association of "tag" information by menuitem can be
set up only at run time. Since I must be able to persist menu access privilege
information by user in a database, I'm not sure how your technique would apply. Each
user would have access defined for each menu entry, so I'm envisioning a database
table storing {User, <somekindofMenu Identifier>, AccessRights}. At app
startup/logon, then, when I identify the User, I would retrieve his menu access
rights and modify the menu accordingly, i.e. set a given MenuItem visible/invisible
based on the rights. So the problem is in persisting <somekindofMenu Identifier> and
then relating that back to the corresponding MenuItem object.

In VB6 we defined an arbitrary ID value as <somekindofMenu Identifier> and stored it
in the menu's Tag property at design time. At run time, then, it was easy to
identify the particular menu entry by searching for this tag value.

But I see no good way to do the equivalent in .NET :-(

Is there any way to obtain the MenuItem's name by say, reflection?

[Jeff Mason]

On 30 May 2004 01:32:36 +0200, hi************* **@gmx.at (Herfried K. Wagner [MVP])
wrote:

<URL:http://groups.google.d e/groups?selm=u0x LOsDCDHA.2316%4 0TK2MSFTNGP10.p hx.gbl>
Thank you for your response. Your link suggests I derive a class from MenuItem to
add a property to handle this. But, as I said in my original post:
I suppose I could derive a class from MenuItem and define my own tag or other
identifier property, but then I wouldn't be able to use that class in the menu
designer.

This is a large project with many many menu entries yet to be developed, so the menu
designer is pretty important to me.

Is there another way to identify the menu items in a form?

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

* Jeff Mason <je******@comca st.net> scripsit:

<URL:http://groups.google.d e/groups?selm=u0x LOsDCDHA.2316%4 0TK2MSFTNGP10.p hx.gbl>

Thank you for your response. Your link suggests I derive a class from MenuItem to
add a property to handle this. But, as I said in my original post:

I suppose I could derive a class from MenuItem and define my own tag or other
identifier property, but then I wouldn't be able to use that class in the menu
designer.

This is a large project with many many menu entries yet to be developed, so the menu
designer is pretty important to me.

Is there another way to identify the menu items in a form?

Well, I don't know about an easy way to do that...

--
Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]
<URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/>

[Jeff Mason]

On Sat, 29 May 2004 19:32:52 -0400, "Ken Tucker [MVP]" <vb***@bellsout h.net> wrote:

Jeff,

The hashtable creates a table you can look up values based on a key.
The key is an object. Store the value in a hashtable with the key being the
menuitem.

Ken

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the response.

Your suggestion implies that the association of "tag" information by menuitem can be
set up only at run time. Since I must be able to persist menu access privilege
information by user in a database, I'm not sure how your technique would apply. Each
user would have access defined for each menu entry, so I'm envisioning a database
table storing {User, <somekindofMenu Identifier>, AccessRights}. At app
startup/logon, then, when I identify the User, I would retrieve his menu access
rights and modify the menu accordingly, i.e. set a given MenuItem visible/invisible
based on the rights. So the problem is in persisting <somekindofMenu Identifier> and
then relating that back to the corresponding MenuItem object.

In VB6 we defined an arbitrary ID value as <somekindofMenu Identifier> and stored it
in the menu's Tag property at design time. At run time, then, it was easy to
identify the particular menu entry by searching for this tag value.

But I see no good way to do the equivalent in .NET :-(

Is there any way to obtain the MenuItem's name by say, reflection?

[Mick Doherty]

How about creating an extender to add an Identifier property to a menu item?
You'll get the extra property and will still be able to use standard
MenuItems.
I'll just write one now and add it to the Menus section on my website.

--
Mick Doherty
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mdaudi100/index.html
"Jeff Mason" <je******@comca st.net> wrote in message
news:39******** *************** *********@4ax.c om...

On 30 May 2004 01:32:36 +0200, hi************* **@gmx.at (Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]) wrote:
<URL:http://groups.google.de/groups?selm=...K2MSFTNGP10.ph x.gbl>
Thank you for your response. Your link suggests I derive a class from MenuItem to add a property to handle this. But, as I said in my original post:

I suppose I could derive a class from MenuItem and define my own tag or otheridentifier property, but then I wouldn't be able to use that class in the menudesigner.
This is a large project with many many menu entries yet to be developed,

so the menu designer is pretty important to me.

Is there another way to identify the menu items in a form?

---
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