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Screen Menus

Tim Neil edited this page May 12, 2014 · 8 revisions

bbUI handles loading of screen specific menus on both PlayBook, BlackBerry 10 and Smartphones with the same code. Each screen must have a menu defined if you want it displayed. Clean-up occurs on bb.popScreen and bb.pushScreen.

BlackBerry 10 PlayBook BlackBerry 5/6/7

NOTE: See config.xml requirements for menus

Creating a menu is straight forward. Start by creating a <div> that has the attribute data-bb-type="menu". Each item in the menu is another <div> that has the attribute data-bb-type="menu-item". For a menu item to appear on PlayBook 2.x or BlackBerry 10 it must have both an image (data-bb-img) and a caption (innerHTML of the div) or it will be ignored. The on a Smartphone it must have a caption (data-bb-caption). In both cases the onclick() event is the function that will fire when the menu item is selected. On BlackBerry 5/6/7 smartphones you can add the attribute data-bb-selected="true" which makes that the default item when the menu is displayed.

There is an additional type of item you can use data-bb-type="menu-separator" which creates a menu separator on PlayBook 2.x and BlackBerry 5/6/7 smartphones.

NOTE: BlackBerry 10 will ignore separators and will only allow a maximum of 5 menu items

<div data-bb-type="screen">
    <div data-bb-type="menu">
        <div data-bb-type="menu-item" data-bb-img="icon1.png" onclick="foo();">Foo</div>
        <div data-bb-type="menu-item" data-bb-img="icon2.png" onclick="bar();" data-bb-selected="true">Bar</div>
        <div data-bb-type="menu-item" data-bb-img="icon3.png" onclick="fooBar();">FooBar</div>
        <div data-bb-type="menu-separator"></div>
        <div data-bb-type="menu-item" onclick="barFoo();">BarFoo</div>
    </div>
</div>

BlackBerry 10 Specific Styling

As part of BlackBerry 10 styling you are able to pin two of you menu items to the left and right of the menu. These are typically areas where you would place menu items for Settings, Help or an About menu item.

You can pin these two items by using the data-bb-pin attribute set to either right or left. The first two items that specify right or left will be used and the rest will be ignored.

<div data-bb-type="menu">
    <div data-bb-type="menu-item" data-bb-img="icon1.png" data-bb-pin="left">Help</div>
    <div data-bb-type="menu-item" data-bb-img="icon3.png">Settings</div>
    <div data-bb-type="menu-item" data-bb-img="icon2.png" data-bb-pin="right">About</div>
</div>

Another item to note, is that in the BlackBerry 10 UI guidelines it refers to having an application wide menu that is consistent. The bbUI menu is tied to a screen, so you will want to replicate your menu across each of your screens. It's recommended to add your menu to each screen in the onscreenready event.

PlayBook and BlackBerry 10 menu image sizes

When styling is applied to menus on BlackBerry 10 the images used for menus will be scaled to the following resolutions and centered on the menu items.

  • BlackBerry PlayBook - 40 x 40 pixels
  • BlackBerry 10 - 80 x 80 pixels

When styling is applied to menus on PlayBook 2.x with BlackBerry 10 styling turned off images will be scaled to the following resolutions and centered on the menu items.

  • BlackBerry PlayBook 2.x - 65 x 65 pixels