How to prevent MenuButton from closing when clicking on the CheckMenuItem (JavaFX)

Question

I'm new with Java, I would like to know how to prevent MenuButton popup from closing when I click on the item, I tried the following function, which I found on this site, but does not seem to do anything. I need this in order to make a clone of my C# application whit the purpose of learning Java.

@FXML
private MenuButton menuButton;

@FXML
    void initialize() {
        CheckMenuItem menuButtonItem1 = new CheckMenuItem("Item 1");
        CheckMenuItem menuButtonItem2 = new CheckMenuItem("Item 2");
        CheckMenuItem menuButtonItem3 = new CheckMenuItem("Item 3");
        menuButtonItem1.setOnAction(new EventHandler<ActionEvent>() {
        public void handle(ActionEvent e) {
           e.consume();
    }
});
        menuButtonItem2.setOnAction(new EventHandler<ActionEvent>() {
        public void handle(ActionEvent e) {
           e.consume();
    }
});
        menuButtonItem3.setOnAction(new EventHandler<ActionEvent>() {
        public void handle(ActionEvent e) {
           e.consume();
    }
});
}

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 05 '19 at 13:16

The CustomMenuItem class provides a setHideOnClick() method that will handle this. In order to use it, you'll wrap a standard Node in this CustomMenuItem:

CheckBox checkBox = new CheckBox("Item 1");
CustomMenuItem customMenuItem = new CustomMenuItem(checkBox);
customMenuItem.setHideOnClick(false);

Below is a full example for you to try:

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.geometry.Insets;
import javafx.geometry.Pos;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.CheckBox;
import javafx.scene.control.CustomMenuItem;
import javafx.scene.control.MenuButton;
import javafx.scene.layout.VBox;
import javafx.stage.Stage;

public class CheckMenuKeepOpen extends Application {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        launch(args);
    }

    @Override
    public void start(Stage primaryStage) {

        // Simple Interface
        VBox root = new VBox(10);
        root.setAlignment(Pos.CENTER);
        root.setPadding(new Insets(10));

        // Create the MenuButton
        MenuButton menuButton = new MenuButton("Click Me");

        for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {

            // In order to keep the menu open when selecting a CheckBox, we need to wrap it in a CustomMenuItem
            CustomMenuItem menuItem = new CustomMenuItem(new CheckBox("Item #" + i));

            // This method is pretty obvious; it keeps the menu open when selecting this item.
            menuItem.setHideOnClick(false);
            menuButton.getItems().add(menuItem);
        }

        root.getChildren().add(menuButton);

        // Show the stage
        primaryStage.setScene(new Scene(root));
        primaryStage.setTitle("Sample");
        primaryStage.show();
    }
}

I wish to thank you for your quick help.And wish you also a good day. — Toody, Mar 05 '19 at 18:35

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 30 '22 at 13:42

We found using custom menu item would lose the styling of normal menu items. Instead we solved by using a Menu (i.e. a sub menu) with no items in which other than arrows to the right looks identical to a normal menu item but does not close when clicked. Then finally used css to remove the arrow to the right.

How to prevent MenuButton from closing when clicking on the CheckMenuItem (JavaFX)

2 Answers2