Is it possible to change the location of the main top-level menu in an MFC MDI app?

Question

I have an app with a customized frame (i.e., caption/titlebar, borders). I customized the frame by removing the WS_CAPTION style, and overriding OnNcCalcSize to reserve a custom-sized area for the caption, which the app paints in OnNcPaint.

A side effect is that the menu bar no longer displays, which is OK because I want to customize the appearance & location of the main menu. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do that. I would like the "File" menu to be further from the left edge than it is with the standard menu bar.

An acceptable alternative would be to remove the menu entirely, and use OnNcHitTest, OnNcPaint and OnNcMouseMove to manage a hand-coded replacement for the top-level menu.

Answer 1

I've never seen a way to modify the looks of the standard menu. You can remove it (remove the creation code from your InitInstance) and then code a replacement. I wouldn't do that in OnNcXXX though, rather make a new custom control that you position at the top. Or you could have a look at the MFC Next themed menus and write a custom UI renderer. It may be enough to override a few functions left and ride to set the alignment of the menu.

Answer 2

It's an MFC MDI app -- InitInstance is not where the menu is being created. I have tried to get rid of the menu (and succeeded, temporarily) but the MFC framework seems to be "putting it back" -- I think the MDI model has the child windows modify the menu, but the code that does that seems to be buried in the framework somewhere (or else I just haven't been able to find exactly where it happens in the application's code, but I suspect it's happening inside the MFC framework code). If I knew where, I might be able to override the methods(s) and take control... I think.

What would be the reason to write a custom control vs. handling OnNcMouseMove & OnNcLeftButtonDown, e.g.? I don't expect to need the functionality in any other app (a new app would be coded in C#, probably), so I'm looking for ease of implementation, not code reuse.