Unable to make menuitem bitmaps visible

[Robert Tausworthe]

I am having trouble putting a bitmap image on a menuitem directly. I notice that those menuitems that also have a toolbar item with a bitmap image (e.g., IDM_FILE_NEW) have that image automatically inserted in their MENUITEMs. But when I try to add a bitmap to a MENUITEM that does not, I fail to make one appear. The code below shows how I tried to do it, pretty much the same as in the article

CMenu::SetMenuItemBitmaps
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/a17fx6as.aspx

In resource.rc I correspond a bitmap ID with the file in which it appears

IDM_COLOR_CHOICE BITMAP DISCARDABLE "res/crayon13.bmp"

The file contains a 13 x 13 bitmap, as required by querying the GetMenuCheckMarkDimensions() function. The IDW_MAIN_MENU contains a view menu popup (I am modifying your FormDocView sample), to which I have added a MENUITEM to bring up a color choice dialog to set the background color.

POPUP "&View"
{
    ...
    MENUITEM "&Tool Bar",           IDW_VIEW_TOOLBAR, CHECKED
    MENUITEM "&Status Bar",           IDW_VIEW_STATUSBAR, CHECKED
    MENUITEM SEPARATOR
    MENUITEM "&Background Color",     IDM_COLOR_CHOICE
    ...
}

I've tried both blank and CHECKED versions. The bitmap does not overwrite the image area in either case. In the CHECKED case, the check mark appears.

In the CMainFrame.h declaration file, I define

CBitmap m_colorbmp;

In the CMainFrame.cpp implementation file, in OnCreate(), as in the MSDN Library example, I enter

CMenu   *mainmenu = GetFrameMenu(),
    *submenu = mainmenu->GetSubMenu(2);
assert(m_colorbmp.LoadBitmap(IDM_COLOR_CHOICE));
assert(submenu->SetMenuItemBitmaps(IDM_COLOR_CHOICE, MF_BYCOMMAND,
    &m_colorbmp, &m_colorbmp));

On execution, no assert activates, so the file is loading and setting ok, I suppose. But when the mouse selects the view submenu on the menu bar, the Background Color MENUITEMshows a blank grey image only (not CHECKED) or a check mark (CHECKED).

What am I doing wrong?

Thank you for any help you have time to provide. It is much appreciated.

[David]

Hi Robert,

For some unknown reason, your message was held up in pending. I'm not sure why. Anyway, moving on ...

The menu items for frames use owner drawing by default. As a result, any changes attempted with SetMenuItemBitmaps will be ignored. The SetMenuItemBitmaps function is only intended to replace the image displayed for checkmarks in menu items which is why it is 13x13. I expect this is not what you intend.

The two functions used by Win32++ to associate images with menu items are CFrame::AddMenuIcons and CFrame::AddMenuIcon. The AddMenuIcon function can be used to associate a 16x16 icon resource to the menu item. The AddMenuIcons function is used to associate a bitmap containing several images to menu items.

AddMenuIcons is demonstrated in the Browser sample.
AddMenuIcon is demonstrated in the DockTabbedMDI, MDIFrameDemo and TabDemo samples.

Best regards,
David

[Robert Tausworthe]

That worked! Thank you very much. I spent several days trying everything but that. Interesting that the MSDN description is so misleading. Even when I made the bmp a 13x13 black/white image, as a check mark replacement, it ignored it. BTW: I also found that the menuitem must be unchecked for the AddMenuItem() function to work.

[Daniel Pantea]

Hi David,
thank your for this information, I was also looking for a way to add icons in a context menu.

I have one question though as I looked on other examples how it's done and then in DockTabbedMDI I noticed:

inline HICON CWinApp::LoadIcon(int nIDIcon) const
// Loads the icon resource whose size conforms to the SM_CXICON and SM_CYICON system metric values
{
    return ::LoadIcon(GetApp()->GetResourceHandle(), MAKEINTRESOURCE (nIDIcon));
}

Is this "GetApp()->" needed here? I think not, as we should use already the correct CWinApp object, right?
Best regards,
Daniel