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Old 10-29-2011, 02:12 PM   #1
CEW4
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Menus

Hi,

what I've always been dearly missing in Calibre is the lack of menus. The focus on toolbar icons just doesn't do it for me.

So I looked into the help files on plugin development. From what I've read, it should be a simple matter of creating a menu, then calling the corresponding function. Is this correct, or am I overlooking some complication?

Furthermore, if such a plugin is indeed possible - has anyone else ever worked on such? I presume that this is not exactly a new idea. Is it?

Regards,
CEW4
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Old 10-29-2011, 03:32 PM   #2
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Are you referring to a menu bar like the standard File, Edit...? Calibre already has this functionality. It is only default enabled on OS X. You can customize it and make it appear by adding items to it in Preferences, Toolbars. Look for the menubar and device menubar entries.
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Old 10-29-2011, 03:50 PM   #3
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That's exactly what I mean. And I'm aware of the options in Preferences, yet I've not been able to use them: I'm successful in adding a command to the menu bar, but not a menu.

Can you help me on this?
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Old 10-29-2011, 11:30 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CEW4 View Post
That's exactly what I mean. And I'm aware of the options in Preferences, yet I've not been able to use them: I'm successful in adding a command to the menu bar, but not a menu.

Can you help me on this?
There is nothing to help, you've figured it all out and it doesn't do what you expect. However there are right click context menus that you can access via the main library view or the browser view.
Moderator Notice
Thread moved, read this Development forum sticky post, PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING - The purpose of this subforum, before posting again in the development sub-forum.

Last edited by DoctorOhh; 10-30-2011 at 01:34 AM.
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Old 10-29-2011, 11:52 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by dwanthny View Post
There is nothing to help, you've figured it all out and it doesn't do what you expect. However there are right click context menus that you can access via the main library view or the browser view.


Thread moved, read this Development forum sticky post, PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING - The purpose of this subforum, before posting again in the development sub-forum.
Normally I accept your moves; however the original post DID MEET THE CRITERIA; the author was asking about writing a PLUGIN to support menus...

And why you move this to a LIBRARY MANAGEMENT sub-forum is totally beyond me.
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Old 10-30-2011, 12:17 AM   #6
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Normally I accept your moves; however the original post DID MEET THE CRITERIA; the author was asking about writing a PLUGIN to support menus...
He wasn't at all clear that he is interested in writing a plugin or code to support his inquiry. The sticky post states:

Quote:
Originally Posted by chaley View Post
This subforum is not the place for bug reports, enhancement proposals unless you make clear in your post that you are prepared to develop the enhancements yourself, discussions about how to use calibre, regular expressions, how to import and export, or other general questions.
His post seemed more like an enhancement request or "how to" question.

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And why you move this to a LIBRARY MANAGEMENT sub-forum is totally beyond me.
Since he was asking about using existing features of the calibre library GUI it seemed appropriate, but placing it in the general calibre forum might be better.

Karma your way for adding clarity.

I moved it back to the development forum. I still don't think this is appropriate for the development forum, but I'll leave it in development to give the OP a chance to expresses his interest in developing code to add the menu structure he desires.

Last edited by DoctorOhh; 10-30-2011 at 02:06 AM.
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Old 10-30-2011, 06:05 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterT View Post
Normally I accept your moves; however the original post DID MEET THE CRITERIA; the author was asking about writing a PLUGIN to support menus...

And why you move this to a LIBRARY MANAGEMENT sub-forum is totally beyond me.
I am going to back Walt's initial Call(s).
This did not appear to be a development question (other than possibly a personal hack,which the rules are not clear on, to me.).
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Old 10-30-2011, 06:38 AM   #8
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The way I understand the situation from the replys, Calibre's built in options do not provide menus. They may start to implement such, but not to the extent that they would be usable as one would expect.

And indeed my intent is to create a plugin that does provide full "classic" menus. The purpose of my post was to find out

a) if there already is such an effort and

b) if I overlooked some technical issue that would make this goal impractical to realize.

So far, I think the answers to this are No and No. Right? ;-)
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Old 10-30-2011, 06:48 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CEW4 View Post
The way I understand the situation from the replys, Calibre's built in options do not provide menus.
Just what you see when you go to Preferences - Toolbars and click the dropdown arow to see what menus you can modify.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CEW4 View Post
And indeed my intent is to create a plugin that does provide full "classic" menus. The purpose of my post was to find out

a) if there already is such an effort and

b) if I overlooked some technical issue that would make this goal impractical to realize.

So far, I think the answers to this are No and No. Right? ;-)
No and I have no idea. Looking forward to seeing what you might come up with.

Welcome Aboard.
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Old 10-30-2011, 06:50 AM   #10
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Good enough. I'll give it a try.

Thanks!
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Old 10-30-2011, 06:55 AM   #11
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If by 'classic' menus you mean a menu bar as opposed to the toolbar used by default then can already have this. By default the menu bar is empty and thus not displayed. As was mentioned in an earlier reply you can populate a menu under Preferences->Interface->Toolbar and select the Menubar (one for normal case and another for when device connected) and then customise it by adding the entries you want on it.

If you want additional functionality on this menu bar customisation then enhancing the current functionality is the way to proceed.
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Old 10-30-2011, 07:00 AM   #12
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Thanks for your comment. With the built-in functionality I was only able to put a command to the menu bar, but not to create a real menu (like "File", "About" etc.) that itself contains commands.

A previous reply stated that this is the way it's supposed to work. To me, that's no solution at all.

Last edited by CEW4; 10-30-2011 at 07:09 AM.
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Old 10-30-2011, 07:08 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CEW4 View Post
Thanks for your comment. With the build-in functionality I was only able to put a command to the menu bar, but not to create a real menu (like "File", "About" etc.) that itself contains commands.

A previous reply stated that this is the way it's supposed to work. To me, that's no solution at all.
That was why I said that you may want to look at how the current menubar functionality works. It should be possible to enhance it I would have thought to give the sort of functionality that you are talking about. That would certainly be the right way forward so that it was properly integrated into Calibre. However I would see it as being a non-trivial task.

It could also be worth looking at how on a Mac entries are added to the standard Mac menubar in case that is something that can be built on.
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Old 10-30-2011, 07:12 AM   #14
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That was why I said that you may want to look at how the current menubar functionality works. It should be possible to enhance it I would have thought to give the sort of functionality that you are talking about.
Yes, I see. But you are right - I feel that this kind of modification would be beyond me. The API interface looks somewhat clear to me, but I haven't dipped into the main Calibre code and don't feel confident enough to do it yet either.
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Old 10-30-2011, 07:18 AM   #15
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Originally Posted by CEW4 View Post
Yes, I see. But you are right - I feel that this kind of modification would be beyond me. The API interface looks somewhat clear to me, but I haven't dipped into the main Calibre code and don't feel confident enough to do it yet either.
So it looks like creating a plugin with the items you think are missing might be the way to go. Every plugin I have has an extensive menu attached to it.
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