From: MacArthur, Ian (Leonardo, UK)
Sent: 15 September 2020 15:35
To: fltkgeneral@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [fltk.general] Making a menu_bar submenu close when the menu_barloses focus - [General Use]

> When I open a top-level sub-menu in my Fl_Menu_Bar I then find that it stays

> dropped down when I move focus away from the menu_bar.

This is pretty normal, though, many (most?) GUI toolkits do that; indeed I think that's the default behaviour for Win10.

However, the Win10 system menus, though they stay dropped down, will not usually block click events *that occur outside the menu area* from propagating to other widgets, whereas FLTK menus typically grab the context and so will prevent clicks from propagating, until the menu is dismissed.

It's a design choice, and it's hard to pick the *right* choice for every case. Remember that FLTK has to strive for some consistency across a range of different Window Manager environments, so it is tricky to please everybody!

Thanks Ian, It was that blocking effect that made me think this was not usual behaviour. I understand now and will live with it I guess, or try and fake it like you say below.

> The only times it doesn't is if

> 1) I pass the mouse over another menu item, in which case the second sub-menu drops down, or

> 2) I click on the menu_bar away from any menu items.

> This has the effect that all other events in my app seem to be blocked, especially the app close event which is the most infuriating.

Yup - see above...

> I presume I need to handle the UNFOCUS event in the menu_bar, but how do I cause the sub-menu to close.

Well... I think in the past I faked this up on Windows by catching the LEAVE event in the menu handle() method, then generated a synthetic click at the mouse position (i.e. outside the menu.) Since the menu is grabbing the context anyway, that click goes nowhere, but does dismiss the menu.

That said, I just looked for a sample of that code and can not find it - it is likely on some machine I do not have access to right now...

OK, but I was clicking outside the menu – on the X at the top right of  the window.

> Alternaively I would like to generate a system noise alert that window close is being ignored.

Phil.