NOTE: some content in this wiki applies only to 0.12 and earlier versions. For official documentation on 0.13 and later, see http://docs.nwjs.io

MenuItem API requires node-webkit >= 0.3.0

MenuItem represents an item in a menu. A MenuItem can be a separator or a normal item which has label and icon. MenuItem is usually used with Menu together.

// Load native UI library
var gui = require('nw.gui');
var item;

// Create a separator
item = new gui.MenuItem({ type: 'separator' });

// Create a normal item with label and icon
item = new gui.MenuItem({
  type: "normal", 
  label: "I'm a menu item",
  icon: "img/icon.png"
});

// Or you can omit the 'type' field for normal items
item = new gui.MenuItem({ label: 'Simple item' });

// Bind a callback to item
item = new gui.MenuItem({
  label: "Click me",
  click: function() {
    console.log("I'm clicked");
  },
  key: "s",
  modifiers: "ctrl-alt",
});

// You can have submenu!
var submenu = new gui.Menu();
submenu.append(new gui.MenuItem({ label: 'Item 1' }));
submenu.append(new gui.MenuItem({ label: 'Item 2' }));
submenu.append(new gui.MenuItem({ label: 'Item 3' }));
item.submenu = submenu;

// And everything can be changed at runtime
item.label = 'New label';
item.click = function() { console.log('New click callback'); };

Create new MenuItem, option is an object contains initial settings for the MenuItem. option can have following fields: label, icon, tooltip, type, click, checked, enabled, submenu, key and modifiers.

Every field has its own property in the MenuItem, see documentation of each property for details.

Get the type of a MenuItem, it can be separator, checkbox and normal for now.

A MenuItem's type can be set only when you create it, it cannot be changed at runtime.

Get or Set the label of a MenuItem, it can only be plain text for now.

Get or Set the icon of a MenuItem, it must a path to your icon file. It can be a relative path which points to an icon in your app, or an absolute path pointing to a file in user's system.

It has no effect on setting icon of a separator item.

since v0.11.3

Mac OS X Only. Get or Set whether icon image is treated as "template" (true by default). When the property is set to true the image is treated as "template" and the system automatically ensures proper styling according to the various states of the status item (e.g. dark menu, light menu, etc.). Template images should consist only of black and clear colours and can use the alpha channel in the image to adjust the opacity of black content. It has no effects on Linux and Windows. For further information see #2775.

Get or Set the tooltip of a MenuItem, it can only be plain text. A tooltip is short string that describes the menu item, it will show when you hover your mouse on the item.

Get or Set whether the MenuItem is checked. Usually if a MenuItem is checked, there will be a mark on the left side of it. It's used mostly to indicate whether an option is on.

Get or Set whether the MenuItem is enabled. An disabled MenuItem will be greyed out and you will not be able to click on it.

Get or Set the submenu of a MenuItem, the submenu must be a Menu object. Developers had better set submenu in the option when creating the MenuItem, changing it at runtime is slow on some platforms.

Get or Set the click callback of a MenuItem, the click must be a valid function, it will be called when users activate the item.

since v0.10.0-rc1
A single character string to specify the shortcut key for the menu item.

A valid key can be any digit (0-9), alphabet (a-z) and other useful keys, such as [, ', ,, Tab, Esc, Down etc.

On Mac OS X, you can use followings special keys as shortcut key:

key = String.fromCharCode(28); // arrow left
key = String.fromCharCode(29); // arrow right
key = String.fromCharCode(30); // arrow up
key = String.fromCharCode(31); // arrow down
key = String.fromCharCode(27); // escape
key = String.fromCharCode(11); // Page up
key = String.fromCharCode(12); // Page down

For full list of special keys supported on Mac, see NSMenuItem.keyEquivalent and NSEvent: Function-Key Unicodes.

Since 0.13.0, you can use key names defined in W3C DOM Level 3 KeyboardEvent Key Values, such as KeyA (same as A), Escape (same as Esc), F1, ArrowDown (same as Down), MediaPlayPause etc.

since v0.10.0-rc1
A string to specify the modifier keys for the shortcut of the menu item. e.g. "cmd+shift". It should be the concatenation of the following strings: cmd, super, shift, ctrl, alt.

For NW.js older than 0.13.0, cmd is only valid for Mac OS X which represents ⌘. super is only valid for Windows, which represents Windows.

Since 0.13.0, cmd represents different keys on all platforms: Windows for Windows and Linux, ⌘ for Mac OS X. super and command are aliases of cmd.

Following events can be listened by using MenuItem.on() function, for more information on how to receive events, you can visit EventEmitter.

Emitted when user activates the menu item.

• Menu