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In previous versions of FileMaker, it was fairly difficult to change the behaviour of the default FileMaker Menus. You could restrict access to some menu functions using passwords, but to make any other changes, you needed to rely on third party solutions. With FileMaker 8, however, we now have the option to create custom menus.

Creating Custom Menus

In order to create Custom Menus for a solution, you need to use FileMaker 8 Advanced. In the File menu, go to Define and select Custom Menus. This Brings up the Custom Menu dialog, which consists of 2 tabs: Custom Menus and Menu Sets. Custom Menus contains the individual menus – such as the File Menu and the Record Menu – while the Menu Set tab contains collections of Menus.

Custom Menus

The custom Menu List comes with a number of menus predefined – for the most part, these are copies of the standard FileMaker Menus. You can Edit, Duplicate or Delete any of the menus in this list, or create your own.

Clicking on the create button brings up a dialog which gives you the choice of starting with an existing FileMaker menu, or starting with a blank menu. Starting with an existing menu is best if you just want to modify one of the FileMaker menus – adding or deleting some of the items in the menu. Starting with a blank menu works best if the menu is entirely unique – if, for example, you want to have a menu which points to scripts that you have created for your solution.

Once you select one option or the other, you are brought to the Edit Custom Menu screen, which allows you to set the name of the menu, the name that appears in the menu bar (which can be a calculation), the platform the menu is available on (Mac or Windows), the mode that the Menu appears in (Browse, Find, and/or Preview), and the items that appear in the menu.

Menu Items

Below the list of menu items are 3 buttons: Command, Sub Menu and Separator. Clicking on Sub-Menu brings up a list of all custom menus you have entered; you just need to select one and it will be added to the current menu. Clicking on separator adds a separator to the current menu.

Clicking on Command brings up a list of all commands native to FileMaker, or you can choose ‘No Command Assigned’ to build one from the ground up. In either case, the command is added to the menu, and the properties for the command appear to the right of the list. You can specify the platform that the item appears on (Mac or Windows), the title that appears in the menu (this can be a calculation), the keyboard shortcut for the command and the action attached to the command. You can choose a script that you have created or a script step for this. You can include script parameters if you decide to run a script. FileMaker commands already have a title, shortcut and action attached to them, but you can choose to override them if you wish (e.g. using your own Find script in place of FileMaker’s default Find action).

Menu Sets

Once you’ve defined all your menus, you can create a Menu Set. Clicking on the Menu Set tab in the Custom Menu dialog brings you to the Menu Set List. Every file comes with two menu sets already defined: the Standard FileMaker Menu Set (which can not be modified or deleted) and Custom Menu Set 1 (which is essentially a copy of the Standard FileMaker Menu Set).

Clicking on the Create button brings you to the Edit Menu Set Dialog. On the left is a list of all Custom Menus created for that file. You can move menus in to the menu set by double clicking on them or clicking the Move button. You can even create, edit and delete menus by clicking on the buttons at the bottom of the list of Custom Menus.

Using Custom Menus in Solutions

There are a few ways that you can use custom menus in a solution. The easiest way is to set the Default menu set for the file (this is a popup at the bottom of the Custom Menu dialog). You can also set the menu for a specific layout in the Layout Properties Dialog. Alternatively, you can also change the menu in a script by using the Install Menu Set script step.
Alan Bruce

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