Question

I’m looking for a library to manage menus. I’m looking for something which is based on configuration files. It doesn’t have to manage keyboard input or display, just the menu logic. What I have in mind something like:

//menu.xml
<menu>
    <Start />
    <Stop />
    <Configuration displayname="Configure System">
        <Sound type="toggle" />
        <Speed display="Speed related settings">
           <Speedy type="toggle" default="on" />
           <Optimizations type="toggle" />
        </Speed>
    </Configuration>
    <Filesystem>
         <SaveSnapshot />
         <LoadSnapshot />
    </Filesystem>
</menu>

In the code we would have:

//menu.cpp
Menu menu("menu.xml");
menu.bind("SaveSnapshot",saveSnapshotPressed);
menu.bind("LoadSnapshot",loadSnapshotPressed);
menu.bind("Sound",soundSetTo);
...
void onKeyPressed(key_t key) {
...
    switch (key) {
    case KEY_UP:
        menu.goUp();
        break;
    case KEY_DOWN:
        menu.goDown();
        break;
    case KEY_ENTER:
        menu.action();
        break;
    }
// display.cpp
void render(...) {
    for (int i=0;i<menu.items().size();++i) {
        renderText(getMenuCoord(i),menu.items()[i].c_str());
    }
    ...
}

Such a library could be very useful to display menus in embedded device.

I’ll be glad to hear if such library exists, or is there a better idea for this library.

Answer 1

There are things like Kaleido: http://www.digitalairways.com/kaleido-engine.htm
which are very nice, but pricey.

Emwin is simpler and cheaper but nothing like as rich in terms of functionality:
http://www.segger.com/cms/emwin.html