C++ Windows Owner Drawn Main Menu -- itemID

Question

I am attempting to create an owner-drawn main menu, in Windows. I understand setting:

menuiteminfo.ftype = MFT_OWNERDRAW

I also know about handling the WM_MEASUREITEM and WM_DRAWITEM messages.

However, how do I know which main menu item is sending the message? (so that I can fill-in the appropriate box size and text) "itemID" seems to be the only unique identifier. But, how can I associate this pointer/handle to the item in question? I can use "lParam" to determine it is a menu item. But, I can't determine which menu item. "GetMenuItemID" is useless, as it returns "-1" for all main-menu items.

Or, am I going about this all-wrong? I have been searching for answers, for weeks. Really, all I want to do is change the text color of the main menu, from black, to white or light gray, so I can use a dark background.

Answer 1

The itemID field of the MEASUREITEMSTRUCT and DRAWITEMSTRUCT structs tells you exactly which menu item is being measured/drawn. This is the ID that you specify when you create/modify a menu item. That ID is specified via either:

• the uIDNewItem parameter of AppendMenu(), InsertMenu(), or ModifyMenu().
• the item parameter of InsertMenuItem() or SetMenuItemInfo()
• the wID field of the MENUITEMINFO struct that you pass to InsertMenuItem() or SetMenuItemInfo().

Use whatever IDs you want, as long as they are unique for your menus.

You can also use the itemData field of MEASUREITEMSTRUCT and DRAWITEMSTRUCT to receive any custom data you want for owner-drawn menu items, if you so desire (like, for example, a pointer to a buffer that contains a menu item's text string). This custom value can be anything you want that is meaningful for you. You set this value in the dwItemData field of the MENUITEMINFO struct that you pass to InsertMenuItem() or SetMenuItemInfo().

This is all covered in the documentation:

Using Menus: Creating Owner Drawn Menu Items

Answer 2

Thank you Remy. Through the items that you mentioned, and researching the documentation for each, I was able to find a buried secret. For a Main Menu item, the "itemID" in both the MEASUREITEMSTRUCT and DRAWITEMSTRUCT is the handle to the drop-down menu of that item. From that, I added this line of code to WM_CREATE, to associate the itemID with the numerical (zero-based) position:

mItemID[i] = int(GetSubMenu(hMenu, i));

'i' is the numerical position, from left to right. I can then use a comparison statement like this, in WM_MEASUREITEM and WM_DRAWITEM:

lpmis=(LPMEASUREITEMSTRUCT)lParam; if(lpmis->itemID==mItemID[i])