Robert, I had jumped to the XML solution before I got to the end of your query. It is ideal for tree structured data. I've just completed a user interface editor (for embedded software using a touch screen interface) where the menu structures (menus, groups, buttons, handlers, positions) are all stored as XML. The code to load and store the structures from XML is very straightforward, and the "X" nature makes it easy to build up progressively as you develop the requiremetns and application. I've just had to add unique ids to the positions to allow them to be activated programmatically, and I could do it without breaking any of the existing data files.
This approach allwows the look and feel of our application to be changed with no changes to the software. Regards, Ken -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Meek Sent: 26 December 2005 14:16 To: [email protected] Subject: Storing dynamically built menus I'm trying something new in my interfaces. I have a kind of control bar with individual buttons having both text and a glyph on each one and set up to form a vertical toolbar. Each button when clicked opens up a dropdown list which is basically a popup menu control. The user can then add items by name to each dropdown list which the application automatically assigns a common event to. The common event reads the menu item's name to distinguish how and what it accomplishes. This much is quite easy and I've done it before storing the item list as a dat file and loading it into a TStringList which the application reads at startup to re-build the dropdown list as it last was. But now I want to allow the user to add submenu items to any dropdown item, and in turn add third level submenu items to any of them, and then forth level submenu items to any of them, and so on building a kind of tree view arrangement a lot like window's own Programs menu. So what I'm looking for is a way to best store this menu structure so that it can easily be reloaded, edited, and saved when ever necessary. I've used a dB table hooked up to a dBTreeview to handle this type of storage before, but for this I was thinking of xml. Has anyone else written a structure like this to an xml file? from Robert Meek dba Tangentals Design _______________________________________________ Delphi mailing list -> [email protected] http://www.elists.org/mailman/listinfo/delphi _______________________________________________ Delphi mailing list -> [email protected] http://www.elists.org/mailman/listinfo/delphi
