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Menu

A Menu displays a list of available options, suggestions, or actions. It expands from a control (e.g. a button, selector or input) after it is activated by a user.

NameValue
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Overview

When to use Menu

The Menu component is intended to be used within other components such as Select, Lookup, or MenuButton. The Menu is displayed when the user interacts with the corresponding trigger element.

About Menu

Menu includes the following elements.

One or more menu items will appear within the Menu. Menu items can include selectable options or trigger actions and can be customized with different text or media elements. Refer to MenuItem to learn more about available display options.

  • Set a visible item limit when there are many menu items to enable scrolling.
  • Don't combine menu items that use both Icons and Thumbnails within the same Menu.
  • Organize menu items logically or alphabetically. Clear & Translatable

An optional interactive footer can appear at the end of the menu items to display extra information or provide access to further results. This footer can optionally include a start icon.

When scrolling is enabled, the footer is "sticky" to the end of the Menu so it is always visible.

Examples

Basic usage

This example has a TextInput as the trigger element. The menuItems use the default display, where each item's label is displayed if one exists, otherwise its value is shown.

You can customize the content of menuItems. In this example, the content is customized to show both the item's label and value.

Developer notes

Use the default slot, which has a binding for menuItem data, to customize the output of each MenuItem. Note that doing so overrides all markup inside the MenuItem component, so you may need to recreate interactive styles (like the colors used for the selected menuItem).

You can add an interactive footer to the end of the Menu. When scrolling is enabled, the footer item is pinned to the bottom of the Menu.

Refer to the TypeaheadSearch demos for a real-world example.

Developer notes

Use the footer prop to add a special menu item that will appear at the end of the Menu. The footer item can be customized via the default slot, just like regular menuItems.

With scrolling enabled

All menuItems will be shown by default and the height of the Menu will grow to accommodate the items. To limit the number of menuItems shown at once and enable scrolling within the Menu, set a visibleItemLimit.

This example includes a footer item, which is "sticky" to the bottom of the Menu.

Developer notes

Set the visibleItemLimit prop to the number of menuItems that should be visible at a time.

No results message

For Menus where results are fetched and may vary, a "no results" message can be added. It can then be displayed under certain circumstances, such as when the user has entered text in a Lookup but there are no matching menuItems to show.

In this simplified example, the "no results" message displays when you focus on the input.

Developer notes

If the no-results slot is populated, the Menu component will automatically display it when there are zero menu items. Further customization of this behavior should happen in the component using Menu.

Menu items can be grouped together to make it easier to scan the contents of the Menu. Menu groups can have a title, a description, and icon.

  • Keep menu group titles concise.
  • Avoid mixing menu groups with individual menu items.

Developer notes

You can group menu items together by adding menu group definitions via the menuItems prop. Refer to the MenuGroupData type to learn about other menu group features.

A menu group should always have a title, but the title can be visually-hidden if it's obvious from context what the group represents. In such cases, dividers will separate the groups of menu items.

  • Avoid mixing menu groups with visible titles and menu groups with visually-hidden titles.

Pending state

You can display an inline ProgressBar and a "pending" message when the Menu is in a pending state, such as when menuItems are being fetched. In the simplified example below, the pending state always displays when you focus on the input.

See TypeaheadSearch for a real-world implementation of this.

Developer notes

Set the pending prop to true to show the inline ProgressBar and "pending" message, which can be populated via the pending slot.

When there are menuItems to show, only the inline ProgressBar will display.

Multiselect

All of the examples above show Menus that allow a single selection at a time. The Menu component also supports multiple selections, or multiselect.

Developer notes

To enable multiple selections, set the selected prop to an array: an empty array when there are no selections, and an array of the selected menu items' values when there are selections.

Technical implementation

Vue usage

WARNING

This is not a standalone component. It's intended for use inside other components, mainly within Codex. For example, the Select, Lookup and MenuButton components use this component internally.

Designed for use in components, like Select, Lookup and MenuButton, that display a Menu below another element (for example, a TextInput). This component renders a list of items, manages which item is selected, highlighted, and active, and handles keyboard navigation. It does not display the selected item or manage an input; the parent component needs to do that.

Components using a Menu should use the useFloatingMenu composable to ensure the Menu is positioned correctly relative to the input (or other triggering element). The useFloatingMenu composable also manages the rounded corners on the Menu; if you are not using the useFloatingMenu composable, you will have to do this yourself, by setting border-top-left-radius and border-top-right-radius to the border-radius-sharp token.

The selected and expanded props must be bound with v-model, even if the parent component doesn't use them. Without these v-model bindings, the Menu won't function correctly.

The Menu itself is not focusable; for keyboard navigation to work, the parent component needs to provide a focusable element, listen for keydown events on that element, and pass those events to the Menu by calling the delegateKeyNavigation method.

For accessibility support, the parent component must set the following attributes on the focusable element:

  • role="combobox"
  • aria-controls, set to the ID of the Menu's ul
  • aria-expanded, set to "true" when the Menu is expanded and to "false" when it's closed (Vue's useId function can be used to assign an ID to the Menu)
  • aria-activedescendant, set to the ID of the highlighted menu item (use the .id property of the object returned by the getHighlightedMenuItem method)
  • If the menuItems change in response to the user typing in a text input, aria-autocomplete should be set to the appropriate value. Visit MDN for documentation on which value to set for this attribute.

Props

Prop nameDescriptionTypeDefault
menuItems(required)Menu items and menu group definitions.

Menu groups and individual menu items will be output in the order they appear here.
(MenuItemData|MenuGroupData)[]
footerInteractive footer item.

This is a special menu item which is pinned to the bottom of the menu. When scrolling is enabled within the menu, the footer item will always be visible at the bottom of the menu. When scrolling is not enabled, the footer item will simply appear as the last menu item.

The footer item is selectable, like other menu items.
MenuItemDatanull
selected(required)Value(s) of the selected menu item(s). A single value for single-select, or an array of values for multi-select.

Must be bound with v-model:selected.

The property should be initialized to null (for single-select) or an empty array (for multi-select) rather than using a falsy value.
MenuItemValue|MenuItemValue[]|null
expanded(required)Whether the menu is expanded. Must be bound with v-model:expanded.boolean
showPendingWhether to display pending state indicators. Meant to indicate that new menu items are being fetched or computed.

When true, the menu will expand if not already expanded, and an inline progress bar will display. If there are no menu items yet, a message can be displayed in the pending slot, e.g. "Loading results".
booleanfalse
visibleItemLimitLimit the number of menu items to display before scrolling.

Setting this prop to anything falsy will show all menu items.

By default, all menu items are shown.
number|nullnull
showThumbnailWhether menu item thumbnails (or a placeholder icon) should be displayed.booleanfalse
boldLabelWhether to bold menu item labels.booleanfalse
hideDescriptionOverflowWhether to hide description text overflow via an ellipsis.booleanfalse
searchQueryThe search query to be highlighted within the menu items' titles.string''
showNoResultsSlotWhether to show the no-results slot content.

The Menu component automatically shows this slot when there is content in the no-results slot and there are zero menu items. However, some components may need to customize this behavior, e.g. to show the slot even when there is at least one menu item. This prop can be used to override the default Menu behavior.

Possible values: null (default): the no-results slot will display only if there are zero menu items. true: the no-results slot will display, regardless of number of menu items. false: the no-results slot will not display, regardless of number of menu items.
boolean|nullnull

Methods

Method nameDescriptionSignature
getHighlightedMenuItemGet the highlighted menu item, if any.

The parent component should set aria-activedescendant to the .id property of the object returned by this method. If this method returns null, aria-activedescendant should not be set.
Returns: MenuItemDataWithId|null The highlighted menu item, or null if no item is highlighted or if the menu is closed.
getHighlightedViaKeyboardGet whether the last highlighted item was highlighted via the keyboard.Returns: boolean Whether the last highlighted menu item was highlighted via keyboard.
getComputedMenuItemsGet the computed menu items with IDs (without menu groups).Returns: MenuItemDataWithId[] List of current menu items without menu groups.
clearActiveEnsure no menu item is active. This unsets the active item if there is one.Returns: void
delegateKeyNavigationHandles all necessary keyboard navigation.

The parent component should listen for keydown events on its focusable element, and pass those events to this method. Events for arrow keys, tab and enter are handled by this method. If a different key was pressed, this method will return false to indicate that it didn't handle the event.
Params:
  • event KeyboardEvent - Keydown event object
Returns: boolean Whether the event was handled

Events

Event namePropertiesDescription
update:selectedselectedValue MenuItemValue|MenuItemValue[]|null - selected value or valuesWhen the selected menu item changes.

Property will be a single value or null in single-select mode, or an array of values or an empty array in multiselect mode.
update:expandednewValue boolean - The new expanded state (true for open, false for closed)When the menu opens or closes.
menu-item-clickmenuItem MenuItemDataWithId - The menu item that was clickedWhen a menu item is clicked.

Typically, components with menus will respond to the selected value change, but occasionally, a component might want to react specifically when a menu item is clicked.
menu-item-keyboard-navigationhighlightedMenuItem MenuItemDataWithId - The menu itemWhen a menu item is highlighted via keyboard navigation.
load-moreWhen the user scrolls towards the bottom of the menu.

If it is possible to add or load more menu items, then now would be a good moment so that the user can experience infinite scrolling.

Slots

NameDescriptionBindings
pendingMessage to indicate pending state.
no-resultsMessage to show if there are no menu items to display.
defaultDisplay of an individual item in the menu

Keyboard navigation

KeyFunction
TabWhen tabbing over a single-select menu, it selects the currently highlighted menu item.
Down arrowWhen the focus is placed on the component that contains the menu, it opens the menu. When the menu is open, it navigates through the menu items. If pressed at the last visible option, it scrolls to the next "hidden" menu item.
Up arrowWhen the focus is placed on the component that contains the menu, it opens the menu. When the menu is open, it navigates through menu options.
EnterIt opens and closes the menu. When the focus is on an item within the menu, it selects that item.
EscIt closes the menu when it is open.
HomeOptionally, it moves the focus to the first item within the menu. Optionally, in a single-select list box, selection may also move with focus. Supporting this key is strongly recommended for lists with more than five options.
EndOptionally, it moves the focus to the last option. Optionally, in a single-select listbox, selection may also move with focus. Supporting this key is strongly recommended for lists with more than five options.