Menu Bar (MSAA UI Element Reference)
Note
This topic describes Menu Bar objects for purposes of MSAA UI Element Reference. How to create Menu Bar objects in various UI frameworks is not described here. See the API reference documentation for the UI framework you're using.
A menu bar is the area of a window immediately beneath the title bar that contains menu items such as File, Edit, Window, and Help. Microsoft Active Accessibility also creates a menu bar object for a system menu, which is the menu in the top left corner of the title bar and contains menu items such as Restore, Move, Size, Minimize, and Maximize.
Note
Because menu bar controls do not receive focus, the accSelect and get_accFocus methods are not supported for this control.
IAccessible Methods
Menu bar controls support the following IAccessible methods:
IAccessible Properties
Menu bar controls support the following IAccessible properties:
| Property | Comments |
|---|---|
| get_accChild | Retrieves the IDispatch for the specified menu item. The child IDs for the menu items are numbered sequentially from left to right starting with one. |
| get_accChildCount | The ChildCount property is the number of menu items on the menu bar. The ChildCount property for a system menu is one. |
| get_accDescription | The Description property for a menu bar is "Contains commands to manipulate the current view or document". The Description property for a system menu is "Contains commands to manipulate the window". |
| get_accDefaultAction | |
| get_accFocus | |
| get_accHelp | |
| get_accHelpTopic | |
| get_accKeyboardShortcut | The KeyboardShortcut property for a menu bar beneath the title bar is "Alt". The KeyboardShortcut property for a system menu is "Alt+Space". |
| get_accName | The Name property for a menu bar beneath the title bar is "Application". The Name property for a system menu is "System". |
| get_accParent | |
| get_accRole | The Role property is ROLE_SYSTEM_MENUBAR. |
| get_accState | The State property is a combination of one or more of the following values: STATE_SYSTEM_INVISIBLE | STATE_SYSTEM_FOCUSED | STATE_SYSTEM_FOCUSABLE |
Notes
The system triggers more than one EVENT_SYSTEM_MENUSTART event that does not always have a corresponding EVENT_SYSTEM_MENUEND event. Additionally, the system does not trigger the EVENT_SYSTEM_MENUPOPUPSTART and EVENT_SYSTEM_MENUPOPUPEND events consistently. This is a known issue and is being addressed.