Making the menu invisible

[nvinoth123]

Hi,
Can someone help me in making the menus of the given window(for example on screen keyboard) invisible by any programming language. Is there any API that does this. Please help me out in this.Thanks in advance.

Vinoth

[Shuja Ali]

You can use the combination of GetMenu and ShowWindow APIs to hide or show a menu. Lookup on MSDN for the documentation related to these APIs.

[HanneSThEGreaT]

Sorry to revive this thread....

I tried this :

Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" (ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Long
Private Declare Function GetMenu Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function ShowWindow Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal nCmdShow As Long) As Long

Private Const SW_HIDE = 0
Private Const SW_SHOW = 5

Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim retval As Long
Dim hwnd As Long, hSysMenu As Long, count As Long
hwnd = FindWindow(vbNullString, "Untitled - Notepad")
hSysMenu = GetMenu(hwnd)

retval = ShowWindow(hSysMenu, SW_HIDE)
End Sub

But my Notepad's menu doesn't disappear, in fact, nothing happens with Notepad. Am I doing something dumb again ¿

[Shuja Ali]

Well it doesn't work for me either. Let me do some research. I guess ShowWindow doesn't work with menus.

[ChaosTheEternal]

I couldn't get that method to work either (LastDLLError was "Invalid window handle."), but I did find a way to remove a menu (not hide it).

Option Explicit

Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" (ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Long
Private Declare Function GetMenu Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetMenuItemCount Lib "user32" (ByVal hMenu As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function RemoveMenu Lib "user32" (ByVal hMenu As Long, ByVal nPosition As Long, ByVal wFlags As Long) As Long
Const MF_BYPOSITION = &H400&
Const MF_REMOVE = &H1000&

Private Sub Command1_Click()
    Dim retval As Long, i As Long
    Dim hwnd As Long, hSysMenu As Long, count As Long
    hwnd = FindWindow(vbNullString, "Untitled - Notepad")
    hSysMenu = GetMenu(hwnd)
    If hSysMenu Then
        count = GetMenuItemCount(hSysMenu)
        For i = 0 To count
            'Removing an item from the menu repositions
            'the menu items, so we always remove the first position
            RemoveMenu hSysMenu, 0, MF_BYPOSITION Or MF_REMOVE
        Next
    End If
End Sub

Of course, if you actually need the menu at some time (e.g. make it visible again), this method wouldn't work.

[HanneSThEGreaT]

I think the whole problem ( I may be wrong) is that the GetMenu API doesn't return the "whole menu object" ie. the MenuBar itself. Do you guys agree ¿ I've dabbed around a bit with FindWindowEx, but I don't know how to reference the MenuBar object.
I thought of RemoveMenu too, but it removes it, then what if we want it back ¿

Guys, sorry to have put everyone in a flat spin, it was just something I've also wanted to do too....

I love these threads

[ChaosTheEternal]

You, unfortunately, can't check if the handle returned by GetMenu is the right window handle, as Spy++ can't highlight or find the menu on Notepad (or other programs with standard menus).

Of course, if we looked at GetMenu's brother API function, SetMenu, we can see how to show and hide menus.

Option Explicit

Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" (ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Long
Private Declare Function GetMenu Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function SetMenu Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal hMenu As Long) As Long

Dim nhwnd As Long, nhSysMenu As Long

Private Sub Command1_Click()
    SetMenu nhwnd, 0
End Sub

Private Sub Command2_Click()
    SetMenu nhwnd, nhSysMenu
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Load()
    nhwnd = FindWindow(vbNullString, "Untitled - Notepad")
    nhSysMenu = GetMenu(nhwnd)
End Sub

Note that this doesn't actually "hide" the menu, it will remove it as well, but since you're storing the handle to the menu (which does stay in memory), you can restore it.

[HanneSThEGreaT]

Nice! Good stuff! Thanx Chaos!! Yeah, SetMenu never even crossed my mind! LOL!

[Shuja Ali]

Well I was wrong with the ShowWindow API. It is probably because of the evident reasons cited by Chaos. SetMenu is right.

That was a good one Chaos