How to return to 'main menu' after multi-level SelectionPrompt

[alexjamesbrown]

I'm trying to create a multi-level menu with Spectre.Console that returns to the 'main menu' after completion

Menu 1

> Option 1
  Option 2

When I go into Option 1, I get the 'sub menu'

Sub menu for Option 1

> A
  B
  < Back

I'm trying to get it to go back to the main menu if I select < Back - but also after the work in A is complete.

My code so far (feels quite clumsy with these nested switch statements)

var mainMenuResult = AnsiConsole.Prompt
(
    new SelectionPrompt<string>()
        .Title("Menu 1")
        .AddChoices
        (
            "Option 1",
            "Option 2"
        )
);

switch (mainMenuResult)
{
    case "Option 1":
        var option1MenuResult = AnsiConsole.Prompt
        (
            new SelectionPrompt<string>()
                .Title("Sub menu for Option 1")
                .AddChoices
                (
                    "A",
                    "B",
                    "< Back"
                )
        );

        switch (option1MenuResult)
        {
            case "A":
                Console.WriteLine("You selected A");
                // doing some work
                // + go back to the main menu when complete
                break;

            case "B":
                Console.WriteLine("You selected B");
                // doing some work
                // + go back to the main menu when complete
                break;

            case "< Back":
                break;
        }

        break;

    case "Option 2":
    case "Option 3":
        // omitted for brevity
        break;
}

[phil-scott-78]

This has come up before in another issue. There isn't any built in support for this, and I think people have been looking for work arounds to get the selection prompt to kinda work.

I think if I had the need I'd look at the source of the selection prompt as the basis of a new control designed specifically to do this rather than trying to get the selection prompt to do something it wasn't designed for.

Lots more features could be baked in for a consistent API to be reused too

[MrHinsh]

Any updates on a "menu" prompt?

[patriksvensson]

No updates

[MelGrubb]

Resurrecting this thread since this is where my search brought me. I created multiple different "Menu" classes with .Show methods on them. Each one looks basically like this.

internal class MainMenu
{
    public static int? Show()
    {
        int? result = null;

        while (result == null)
        {
            AnsiConsole.Clear();
            AnsiConsole.Write(new FigletText("Main Menu").Centered());
            AnsiConsole.Write(new Rule());

            var prompt = AnsiConsole.Prompt(
                new SelectionPrompt<string>()
                    .Title("Choose a function")
                    .AddChoices("Foo", "Bar", "Exit"));

            switch (prompt)
            {
                case "Foo":
                    result = FooMenu.Show();
                    break;
                case "Bar":
                    result = BarMenu.Show();
                    break;
                default:
                    result = 0;
                    break;
            }
        }

        return result;
    }
}

Each sub-menu has a "Return" option, which returns null from the method, and an "Exit" option, which returns 0. So, if I go to the "Bar" menu, and then select "Return", Bar.Show returns null, and the loop in MainMenu simply displays again. If some option I selected from BarMenu had returned a non-null value, then the main menu loop would exit. This is just a basic proof of concept at this point, but maybe it will help someone else.

tl;dr - Put your menu in a loop and call some separate sub-menu method in the same class or some other. Look for meaningful return values and loop the menu until you see them.