ETI menus

Fetching and changing a menu's display attributes

Menu display attributes are visible menu characteristics that distinguish classes of menu items from each other. Low-level ETI (curses) video attributes are used to differentiate the menu display attributes. These menu display attributes include

foreground attribute: distinguishes the current item, if selectable, on all menus and selected items on multi-valued menus
background attribute: distinguishes selectable, but unselected, items on all menus
grey attribute: distinguishes unselectable items on multi-valued menus
pad character: the character that fills (pads) the space between a menu item's name and description

The following functions enable you to set and read these attributes.

SYNOPSIS

   int set_menu_fore (menu, attr)
   MENU  menu;
   chtype attr;
   
   chtype menu_fore (menu)
   MENU  menu;
   

   int set_menu_back (menu, attr)
   MENU  menu;
   chtype attr;
   

   chtype menu_back (menu)
   MENU  menu;
   

   int set_menu_grey (menu, attr)
   MENU  menu;
   chtype attr;
   

   chtype menu_grey (menu)
   MENU  menu;
   

   int set_menu_pad (menu, pad)
   MENU  menu;
   int pad;
   

   int menu_pad (menu)
   MENU  menu;

In general, to establish uniformity throughout your program, you should set the menu display attributes with these functions at the start of the program.

Function set_menu_fore sets the curses foreground attribute. The default is A_STANDOUT.

Function set_menu_back sets the curses background attribute. The default is A_NORMAL.

Function set_menu_grey sets the curses attribute used to display nonselectable items in multi-valued menus. The default is A_UNDERLINE.

To set the foreground attribute of menu m to A_BOLD and its background attribute to A_DIM, you write

   MENU *m;
   
   set_menu_fore(m,A_BOLD);
   set_menu_back(m,A_DIM);

All these functions can change or fetch the current default if passed a NULL menu pointer. As an example, to set the default grey attribute to A_NORMAL, you write

   set_menu_grey((MENU *)0, A_NORMAL);

If functions set_menu_fore, set_menu_back, and set_menu_grey encounter an error, they return one of the following:

E_SYSTEM_ERROR: system error
E_BAD_ARGUMENT: bad curses attribute

Function set_menu_pad sets the pad character for a menu. The initial default pad character is a blank. The pad character must be a printable ASCII character.

To change the pad character for menu m to a dot (.), you write

   MENU * m;
   
   set_menu_pad(m,'.');

If function set_menu_pad encounters an error, it returns one of the following:

E_SYSTEM_ERROR: system error
E_BAD_ARGUMENT: non-printable pad character