Electron Documentation

Docs / API / MenuItem v2.0.2

Class: MenuItem

Add items to native application menus and context menus.

Process: Main

See Menu for examples.

new MenuItem(options)

  • options Object

    • click Function (optional) - Will be called with click(menuItem, browserWindow, event) when the menu item is clicked.

    • role String (optional) - Define the action of the menu item, when specified the click property will be ignored. See roles.
    • type String (optional) - Can be normal, separator, submenu, checkbox or radio.
    • label String (optional)
    • sublabel String (optional)
    • accelerator Accelerator (optional)
    • icon (NativeImage | String) (optional)
    • enabled Boolean (optional) - If false, the menu item will be greyed out and unclickable.
    • visible Boolean (optional) - If false, the menu item will be entirely hidden.
    • checked Boolean (optional) - Should only be specified for checkbox or radio type menu items.
    • submenu (MenuItemConstructorOptions[] | Menu) (optional) - Should be specified for submenu type menu items. If submenu is specified, the type: 'submenu' can be omitted. If the value is not a Menu then it will be automatically converted to one using Menu.buildFromTemplate.
    • id String (optional) - Unique within a single menu. If defined then it can be used as a reference to this item by the position attribute.
    • position String (optional) - This field allows fine-grained definition of the specific location within a given menu.

Roles

Roles allow menu items to have predefined behaviors.

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

The label and accelerator values are optional when using a role and will default to appropriate values for each platform.

The role property can have following values:

  • undo
  • 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%.
  • editMenu - Whole default "Edit" menu (Undo, Copy, etc.).
  • windowMenu - Whole default "Window" menu (Minimize, Close, etc.).

The following additional roles are available on macOS:

  • about - Map to the orderFrontStandardAboutPanel action.
  • 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.
  • recentDocuments - The submenu is an "Open Recent" menu.
  • clearRecentDocuments - Map to the clearRecentDocuments action.

When specifying a role on macOS, label and accelerator are the only options that will affect the menu item. All other options will be ignored. Lowercase role, e.g. toggledevtools, is still supported.

Instance Properties

The following properties are available on instances of MenuItem:

A Boolean indicating whether the item is enabled, this property can be dynamically changed.

A Boolean indicating whether the item is visible, this property can be dynamically changed.

A Boolean indicating whether the item is checked, this property can be dynamically changed.

A checkbox menu item will toggle the checked property on and off when selected.

A radio menu item will turn on its checked property when clicked, and will turn off that property for all adjacent items in the same menu.

You can add a click function for additional behavior.

A String representing the menu items visible label.

A Function that is fired when the MenuItem receives a click event.