XML Menus

The menus in the main window of the application are now stored as XML within the jar bundle. It's done using a very simple package I created a couple of years ago called "Interfaces iN Xml" (INX). Here's the menu:

<menubar>
<menu textname="file">
<item textname="new" action="newDocument" key="N">
<item textname="-">
<item textname="open" action="openDocument" key="O">
<item textname="save" action="saveDocument" key="S">
<item textname="saveAs" action="saveAsDocument">
</menu>
<menu textname="edit">
<item textname="insertChild" action="insertChild">
<item textname="insertSibling" action="insertSibling">
</menu>
<menu textname="view">
<item textname="zoomIn" action="zoomIn" key="PLUS">
<item textname="zoomOut" action="zoomOut" key="MINUS">
</menu>
<menu textname="help">
</menu>
</menubar>

The text-names refer to strings in a specified resources file (that'll help with internationalization), the action is a method in some underlying Java class and the key will be comined with whatever the platform-specific menu key is ([CTRL] on Windows [Command] on the Mac).

Here's the code in Mainframe that calls it up:

XMLMenuBar menuMgr = new XMLMenuBar(this,
"/dg/hipster/view/mainframeMenu.xml", resBundle);

If somebody clicks on the "view/zoomIn" item, the Mainframe.zoomIn() method will be called.

I hope to migrate more and more of the interface to XML. It should make it easier for non-Java people to modify the code.