NGDesktop UI plugin

Welcome to the ngdesktopui wiki! This wiki provides comprehensive documentation to using the ngdesktopui web service. This service works with the NGDesktop Client as a bridge to execute client side calls dealing with UI from Servoy.

Getting Started

First import the service using one of the release binaries or via Servoy's Web Package Manager.

Example Usage

The following code snippet is create a sample menu for NGDesktop:

function createTestMenu(event) {

var isMac = application.getOSName().toUpperCase().indexOf('MAC')>=0;
var menu = plugins.ngdesktopui;
menu.removeAllMenus();
var ngdesktopIndex = menu.addMenu("Servoy NGDesktop"); //on MacOS this name is hidden
menu.addMenuItem(ngdesktopIndex,"About Servoy NGDesktop...",callback);
menu.addSeparator(ngdesktopIndex);
menu.addRoleItem(ngdesktopIndex,"services");
menu.addSeparator(ngdesktopIndex);
if (isMac) {
	menu.addRoleItem(ngdesktopIndex,"hide", "Hide this application");
	menu.addRoleItem(ngdesktopIndex,"hideOthers");
	menu.addSeparator(ngdesktopIndex);
}
menu.addRoleItem(ngdesktopIndex,"quit");

//add file menu
var fileIndex = menu.addMenu("File");
menu.addMenuItem(fileIndex,"New",callback);
menu.addMenuItem(fileIndex,"Open...",callback);

//insert menuitem example
//since this will be a submenu the callback is set to null
recentIndex = menu.addMenuItem(fileIndex,"Open recent", null, 1);
addRecentFiles(fileIndex, recentIndex);

//add edit menu
var editIndex = menu.addMenu("Edit");
menu.addRoleItem(editIndex,"undo");
menu.addRoleItem(editIndex,"redo");
menu.addSeparator(editIndex);
menu.addRoleItem(editIndex,"cut");
menu.addRoleItem(editIndex,"copy");
menu.addRoleItem(editIndex,"paste");

//add help menu
var helpIndex = menu.addMenu("Help");
menu.addMenuItem(helpIndex,"Search...",callback);
menu.addMenuItem(helpIndex,"Servoy NGDesktop help",callback)

}

function addRecentFiles(menuIndex, submenuIndex) {

var menu = plugins.ngdesktopui;
var position = menu.addMenuItem(menuIndex,"Bureau.pdf",callback, 0, submenuIndex);
position = menu.addMenuItem(menuIndex,"Advertising.pdf",callback, position + 1, submenuIndex);
position = menu.addSeparator(menuIndex,position + 1, submenuIndex);
position = menu.addRoleItem(menuIndex,"clearRecentDocuments", null, position + 1,submenuIndex);

}

The following issues has been discovered so far:

• setMenuBarVisibility has no effect on MacOS. You can't hide a MacOS menu
• removeAllMenus - for MacOS is display a minimal menu having the app name as Menu name and Quit option as menuItem
• on macOS - the first menuName is always the app name: first addMenu(menuName) will not display the "menuName" but the app name. The name behind (which you will work with), still remain "menuName"
• on MacOS - the checkboxes and radio buttons in menus are not correctly rendered. This seems to be a Chromium issue. Further investigation needed for this
• When clicking on a radio button - it will be selected, and the previous radio buttons (from the adiacent radio items) will be deselected. However, calling multiple times addRadioButton(menuName, menuitemName, true) will add multiple selected radio buttons (they will unselect automatically when one radio button is selected). It is your responsability to call addRadioButton() with "selected" parameter set to true - only once. The same issue is true also for insertRadioButton

API Documentation

Callback function

The callback function is receiving the following parameters:

Params

Type	Name	Summary
string	text	clicked item name
string	type	clicked item type ("normal", "checkbox", "radio")
boolean	checked	check state (true or false for checkboxes, true for radio buttons and undefined for the other types)

Method Summary

addMenu

Add new menu to existing menubar

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
string	text	Menu label	Required
index	int	Insert position	Optional

removeMenu

Remove specified menu

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
index	int	Menu index (zero based)	Required

getMenuIndexByText

Return the index order of the menu (zero based index)

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
string	text	Menu label to query	Required

getMenuText

Return the menu label

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
int	index	Index to query	Required

getMenuCount

Count menus from the menubar

removeAllMenus

Cleanup the menubar. For Mac OS this means to display a minimal menu.

setMenuBarVisibility

Show/Hide menu bar. On MacOS this method has no effect

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
boolean	visibility	true - show menubar, false - hide menubar	Required

removeAllMenuItems

Cleanup the specified menu

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
int	index	Menu index to cleanup	Required

addSeparator

Add a separator line

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
int	index	Menu index	Required
int	position	Insert position	Optional
int	itemIndex	Submenu index	Optional

addMenuItem

Add an item to the specified menu

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
int	index	Menu index	Required
string	text	Menu label	Required
function	callback	Callback function	Required (may be null)
int	position	Insert position	Optional
int	itemIndex Submenu index	Optional

removeMenuItem

Delete an item

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
int	index	Menu index	Required
int	position	Insert position	Required
int	itemIndex Submenu index	Optional

getMenuItemsCount

Count items

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
int	index	Menu index	Required
int	itemIndex	Submenu index	Optional

addCheckBox

Add a checkbox to the specified menu

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
int	index	Menu index	Required
string	text	Menu label	Required
function	callback	Callback function	Required (may be null)
boolean	checked	initial checkbox status (default is false)	Optional
int	position	Insert position	Optional
int	itemIndex Submenu index	Optional

addRadioButton

Add a radio button to the specified menu. Note that the first added radio button in the group is alwasy selected regardless the 'selected' value There are no group creation method. A group consist from all adiacent radio buttons in a menu

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
int	index	Menu index	Required
string	text	Menu label	Required
function	callback	Callback function	Required (may be null)
boolean	selected	select radio button (default is false)	Optional
int	position	Insert position	Optional
int	itemIndex Submenu index	Optional

getMenuItemIndexByText

Get menuitem index from the specified menu

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
int	index	Menu index	Required
string	text	Item label to query for	Required

getMenuItemText

Get menuitem label

Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
int	index	Menu index	Required
int	itemIndex	Menuitem index	Required

AddRoleItem

Roles allow menu items to have predefined behaviors. Params

Type	Name	Summary	Required
int	index	Menu index	Required
string	role	The item role (see below)	Required
string	text	The item label	Optional
int	position	Insert position	Optional
int	itemIndex	Submenu index	Optional

It is best to specify role for any menu item that matches a standard role, rather than trying to manually implement the behavior using a callback function. The built-in role behavior will give the best native experience.

The role property can have following values:

• undo
• about - Trigger a native about panel (custom message box on Window, which does not provide its own).
• redo
• cut
• copy
• paste
• pasteAndMatchStyle
• selectAll
• delete
• minimize - Minimize current window.
• close - Close current window.
• quit - Quit the application.
• reload - Reload the current window.
• forceReload - Reload the current window ignoring the cache.
• toggleDevTools - Toggle developer tools in the current window.
• togglefullscreen - Toggle full screen mode on the current window.
• resetZoom - Reset the focused page's zoom level to the original size.
• zoomIn - Zoom in the focused page by 10%.
• zoomOut - Zoom out the focused page by 10%.
• fileMenu - Whole default "File" menu (Close / Quit)
• editMenu - Whole default "Edit" menu (Undo, Copy, etc.).
• viewMenu - Whole default "View" menu (Reload, Toggle Developer Tools, etc.)
• windowMenu - Whole default "Window" menu (Minimize, Zoom, etc.).

The following additional roles are available on macOS:

• appMenu - Whole default "App" menu (About, Services, etc.)
• hide - Map to the hide action.
• hideOthers - Map to the hideOtherApplications action.
• unhide - Map to the unhideAllApplications action.
• startSpeaking - Map to the startSpeaking action.
• stopSpeaking - Map to the stopSpeaking action.
• front - Map to the arrangeInFront action.
• zoom - Map to the performZoom action.
• toggleTabBar - Map to the toggleTabBar action.
• selectNextTab - Map to the selectNextTab action.
• selectPreviousTab - Map to the selectPreviousTab action.
• mergeAllWindows - Map to the mergeAllWindows action.
• moveTabToNewWindow - Map to the moveTabToNewWindow action.
• window - The submenu is a "Window" menu.
• help - The submenu is a "Help" menu.
• services - The submenu is a "Services" menu. This is only intended for use in the Application Menu and is not the same as the "Services" submenu used in context menus in macOS apps, which is not implemented in Electron.
• recentDocuments - The submenu is an "Open Recent" menu.
• clearRecentDocuments - Map to the clearRecentDocuments action.