The Menu Bar

The Windows version of Epsilon provides a customizable menu bar and tool bar. To modify the menu bar, edit the file gui.mnu. Comments in the file describe its format. To modify the tool bar, you can redefine the EEL command standard-toolbar in the file menu.e.

Most of the customization variables described below only apply to the DOS, OS/2 and Unix versions of Epsilon, not the Windows version.

When you move the mouse to the very top of the screen, Epsilon displays a pop-up menu bar. Press and hold down the left mouse button and highlight one of the listed commands. Release the mouse button and Epsilon will execute the command. When you invoke some commands that read additional input via the menu bar, Epsilon automatically brings up a list of options (as if you typed "?") so that you can select one without using the keyboard. If you don't want the menu bar to appear when you move the mouse to the top of the screen, set the auto-menu-bar variable to zero. (You can still bring up the menu bar from the keyboard; see below.) You can change the contents of the menu bar by editing the file epsilon.mnu. Comments in the file describe its format. (Epsilon stores the name of its menu file in the variable menu-file . Set this variable to make Epsilon use a different menu file. During Brief emulation, Epsilon uses the menu file brief.mnu. Epsilon for Windows uses the variable gui-menu-file instead.)

When you select an item on the menu bar, Epsilon flashes the selected item. The menu-bar-flashes variable holds the number of flashes (default two). (DOS, OS/2, Unix only.) You can make the menu bar permanent via the toggle-menu-bar command. It toggles whether the menu bar always occupies an extra screen line at the top.

If you hold down the Shift or Ctrl keys while selecting a menu bar command, Epsilon will run the command with a numeric argument of 1. This is handy for commands that behave differently when given a numeric argument.

You can also access the menu from the keyboard. The command show-menu on Alt-F2 brings up a menu. Use arrow keys to move around in it. Press a letter to move to the next item in the menu that begins with that letter. Press <Enter> to execute the highlighted item, or click on it with the mouse. Press Ctrl-G or <Esc> to cancel.

By default, Epsilon displays key bindings for menu items. Set the variable menu-bindings to zero to disable this feature. Epsilon computes bindings dynamically the first time it displays a particular menu column. (For several commands with multiple bindings, the epsilon.mnu file selects a particular binding to display.) The rebuild-menu command makes Epsilon reconstruct its menus: use this command after setting menu-bindings.

By default, when you click on the menu bar but release the mouse without selecting a command, Epsilon leaves the menu displayed until you click again. Set the menu-stays-after-click variable to zero if you want Epsilon to remove the menu when this happens.

Previous Up Next
Mouse Support General Concepts Commands by Topic