Would like to put a dropdown menu

[bntheman]

Hi,
I usaully do not come here to post often, because I usually find what I am looking for just by searching. However, this one, I am having a hard time with. Maybe it is because Mel does not support it, but who knows why. However, if there is such a thing, here is my question.

I am looking to design a low poly tree generator. The basic concept is for the user to draw the nurbs curve path of the trunk, a root branch, a child branch, and optionally a twigs path. Then the user will model a leaf, or I might include premade leaves to choose from. Once all that is done, there will be an option to choose from a list of nurb curves the user has designed, specifying which curve belongs to who. I thought I come up with a method for the user to select from a dropdown list to which curve stands for the trunk, the branches etc. However, I have searched and searced for a few hours and I cannot seem to find a mel script that will do the following example.....

Unfortunately, I am still running Maya 6.01, so I think a few things in mel has changed since then. If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated.

[joojaa]

your not the first one to not find it.

I think a few things in mel has changed since then. If anyone can help

Well no it actually i don't think it has, not that much. The thing is its named a bit weird, but classified even weirder. Or in fact a drop down box seems to be named differently between EACH and every gui vendor in existence it seems. Anyway its so hard to remeber that i have been known stare at the manuals for hours at end trying to find the damn thing*, because its filed in place i dont look into.

its called a:

optionMenuGrp

example from the manual:

string $window = `window -title "Example 1"`;
columnLayout;
 
//    Create a option menu group.
//
string $colors = `optionMenuGrp -label "Colors"`;
menuItem -label "Red";
menuItem -label "Green";
 
//    Now add an additional item to the first option menu.
//
menuItem -parent ($colors + "|OptionMenu") -label "Blue";
showWindow $window;

• Its even worse when you KNOW it there but fail to find it

[bntheman]

Or in fact a drop down box seems to be named differently between EACH and every gui vendor in existence it seems

Much agreed upon.

optionMenu? I wouldn't even  of thought of that,  but the weirder part is the fact that if you think about the name optionMenu, it does kind of make sense. The word "option" which means a choice to choose from, and "menu" because it is a menu. I think if more vendeors would stick with this, things would make more sense.

Thanks for the help

[joojaa]

Thing is gui building has become easy lately. Altough with advent of major screwup in gui design in maya 2011 means i have to start over. Oh well no problem, its not like i released the tool or anything.

IN any case its fairly straight forward to do a tool that can help you with heese kinds of problems (I have but am reluctant to share the tool i use, because its made for me and nobody else and works as i expect but not as others may not so ifd have to massage a LOT of corners to release it, and make 30 template guis... not really interested). But this si how you do one:

Make a for loops that iterates torugh every GUI item in existence (see lsUI)
hook up a fuction to a shift ctrl alt rmb that invokes a command that displays info about the gui item.

This makes things wonderfully easy, spot a gui item you dont know what it is. No problem click on it and lest see what it really ate. Makes life MUCH easier.

[sbugsy]

Thank you sooo much!! You have no idea of the pain caused trying to find this bloody UI menu!! Surely it should be in the controls section!? Wish i'd found this post earlier! :-S