implement a global menubar

[Misko-2083]

The Menubar in YAD option lets you create pretty sophisticated menu systems right from a single string in your script. It's super useful for building dynamic, interactive dialogs without needing a full-blown GUI toolkit. Here's what it can do:
Deep nesting: You can have as many submenu levels as you want, no practical limits.
Stateful toggles: Checkboxes that actually remember their state and show checked/unchecked icons.
Action binding: Items can run shell commands directly.
Visual stuff: It pulls in theme icons where possible, or you can embed custom ones.

How It's Built (The Parsing Logic)Under the hood, YAD uses a straightforward stack-based parser to handle the menu string. It's linear, it just goes left to right through the comma-separated items without any fancy recursion. They use a parent stack to keep track of the current menu level.
Here's roughly how it works:
The input string: Everything's separated by commas, and each item is typically in the format Label|Command|Type (or variations with icons, etc.).
The stack: Starts with the main menubar as the only parent. This tracks the current container you're adding items to.
Opening a submenu: If a label ends with ;; (or whatever marker they're using internally), it creates a new GtkMenu, attaches it as a submenu to the current parent, and pushes it onto the stack. From then on, new items go into that submenu.
Closing a submenu: An empty entry (like a double comma ,,) pops the top off the stack, so you're back to adding to the previous level.
Label part: A proper GTK label that supports mnemonics (like _File for Alt+F shortcuts).

Example:

yad --menubar="_File;;_New|notify-send 'New'|document-new,_Open|notify-send 'Open'|document-open,,_Quit|quit|application-exit,_Settings;;_Network|_Ethernet|notify-send 'Eth'|network-wired,_Wifi|notify-send 'Wifi'|network-wireless,,_Display|notify-send 'Display'|video-display,_Sound|notify-send 'Sound'|audio-volume-high,_Advanced|Hardw_are|notify-send 'HW'|check,Software|notify-send 'SW'|check" --text-info

[Misko-2083]

yad --menubar="File;; \
    New|item-new|document-new, \
    Open|item-open|document-open, \
    Save|item-save|document-save, \
    , \
    Exit|echo $YAD_PID|application-exit, \
Edit;; \
    Cut|item-cut|edit-cut, \
    Copy|item-copy|edit-copy, \
    Advanced|, \
    Clean Buffers|item-clean|edit-clear, \
    Optimize|item-opt|system-run, \
       , \
     View;; \
    Status Bar|item-stat|check, \
    Tool Bar|item-tool|check, \
Help;; \
    Docs|xdg-open https://github.com/v1cont/yad|help-browser, \
    About|yad --about|help-about" --scale

[cou645]

Hi Misko, it's a useful addition. So, this would be used in 'yad --paned ' as one of the two plugs, right? Or standalone operating on another focused yad widget, right?

…

On Sat, 20 Dec 2025, 09:15 Милош Павловић, ***@***.***> wrote: *Misko-2083* left a comment (v1cont/yad#325) <#325 (comment)> yad --menubar="File;;, \ New|item-new|document-new, \ Open|item-open|document-open, \ Save|item-save|document-save, \ , \ Exit|echo $YAD_PID|application-exit, \Edit;;, \ Cut|item-cut|edit-cut, \ Copy|item-copy|edit-copy, \ Advanced|, \ Clean Buffers|item-clean|edit-clear, \ Optimize|item-opt|system-run, \ , \ View;;, \ Status Bar|item-stat|check, \ Tool Bar|item-tool|check, \Help;;, \ Docs|xdg-open https://github.com/v1cont/yad|help-browser, \ About|yad --about|help-about" --scale yad-menubar-file.png (view on web) <https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/53be1d64-4860-462e-8f25-8d4831b7533b> yad-menubar-scale.png (view on web) <https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/8a43c189-274f-4ea3-8517-d967c46a9a2a> — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#325 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/APRODEUV6QF5JEJE3IFLQS34CSPKPAVCNFSM6AAAAACPS7BSX6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTMNZXGE2TQNBSG4> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[cou645]

yad --form --field="Menu":mb ...

…

On Sat, 20 Dec 2025, 13:03 MC MC, ***@***.***> wrote: Hi Misko, it's a useful addition. So, this would be used in 'yad --paned ' as one of the two plugs, right? Or standalone operating on another focused yad widget, right? On Sat, 20 Dec 2025, 09:15 Милош Павловић, ***@***.***> wrote: > *Misko-2083* left a comment (v1cont/yad#325) > <#325 (comment)> > > yad --menubar="File;;, \ New|item-new|document-new, \ Open|item-open|document-open, \ Save|item-save|document-save, \ , \ Exit|echo $YAD_PID|application-exit, \Edit;;, \ Cut|item-cut|edit-cut, \ Copy|item-copy|edit-copy, \ Advanced|, \ Clean Buffers|item-clean|edit-clear, \ Optimize|item-opt|system-run, \ , \ View;;, \ Status Bar|item-stat|check, \ Tool Bar|item-tool|check, \Help;;, \ Docs|xdg-open https://github.com/v1cont/yad|help-browser, \ About|yad --about|help-about" --scale > > yad-menubar-file.png (view on web) > <https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/53be1d64-4860-462e-8f25-8d4831b7533b> yad-menubar-scale.png > (view on web) > <https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/8a43c189-274f-4ea3-8517-d967c46a9a2a> > > — > Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub > <#325 (comment)>, or > unsubscribe > <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/APRODEUV6QF5JEJE3IFLQS34CSPKPAVCNFSM6AAAAACPS7BSX6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTMNZXGE2TQNBSG4> > . > You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message > ID: ***@***.***> >

[Misko-2083]

No, menubar will be added only on the main notebook/paned window.

#!/bin/bash

KEY=$RANDOM

       yad --plug=$KEY --tabnum=1 --text="first tab with text" &
       yad --plug=$KEY --tabnum=2 --text="second tab" --entry  &
       yad --paned  --key=$KEY --tab="Tab 1" --tab="Tab 2" \
                    --menubar="_File;;_New|touch n.txt|document-new,  \
                    _Quit|exit|gtk-quit, _Edit;;_Undo|undo-cmd|edit-undo"

KEY=$RANDOM
       yad --plug=$KEY --tabnum=1 --text="first tab with text" &
       yad --plug=$KEY --tabnum=2 --text="second tab" --entry  &
       yad --notebook  --key=$KEY --tab="Tab 1" --tab="Tab 2" \
                    --menubar="_File;;_New|touch n.txt|document-new, \
                                        _Quit|exit|gtk-quit, _Edit;;_Undo|undo-cmd|edit-undo"

yad --form --field="Menu":mb ...

It's not a form field.

It works as a general option:

yad  --menubar="Menu;;_Quit|exit|gtk-quit"  --form --field="Menu":TXT

Like --text or image: yad --text="$TXT" --image="$IMAGE" --menubar="$MENU" --text-info

[step-]

Nice.

Quickly looking at the code it appears:

• A menu item runs its command in the background without blocking YAD
• Command output cannot feed back to YAD (which --form can do)
• Menu bar is a "secondary" main widget, e.g. --menubar + --scale coexist in the same YAD instance
• Implementation will need changes to work with GTK4 (so will other YAD widgets).

None of the above is meant to criticize @Misko-208's proposal. It's just a list of the features I noticed.

Therefore yad --menubar="_File;;_New|notify-send 'New'|document-new would execute like
yad --button="_File!document-new!sh -c \"notify-send 'New' &\"". Is this accurate? Of course, an advantage of --menubar vs --button is one can organize items hierarchically, without taking up all the space that many buttons will take.

[Misko-2083]

Now it only needs a way to set initial check boxes.

[Misko-2083]

Therefore yad --menubar="_File;;_New|notify-send 'New'|document-new would execute like yad --button="_File!document-new!sh -c \"notify-send 'New' &\"". Is this accurate? Of course, an advantage of --menubar vs --button is one can organize items hierarchically, without taking up all the space that many buttons will take.

Yes it's the same as button yad --menubar="_File;;_New|sh -c \"notify-send 'New' &\""|document-new except they are hidden in menu and out of the way. And there is also a checkbox.

View;; \
    Status Bar|echo status|check, \
    Tool Bar|echo tool|check,

Currently it’s just a visual on/off switch that runs a command.
Indeed @step- a lot of thing are changed and deprecated in GTK4.