Advanced Menubar for Compose Desktop

Advanced-Menubar is a Compose Desktop (JVM) library that replaces the default macOS menu bar integration with a declarative DSL. It provides native macOS menus, shortcut handling and fallbacks for Windows and Linux so your desktop apps can ship with a consistent menu experience.

Features

• Native macOS menu bar: Build full Cocoa menus with AdvancedMacMenu, including application, file, edit, format, view, window, help, and custom menus driven by Compose state.
• Cross-platform fallback: Use CompatibilityMenu to render the same menu DSL through Compose MenuBar widgets on non-macOS hosts while still delegating to Cocoa on macOS.
• Out-of-the-box defaults: Attach a default macOS menu setup with one call to DefaultMacMenu, which also brings you the options to set callback of About, Settings and Help.
• Per-platform visibility controls: Mark items as macOS-only or Windows/Linux-only with MenuVisibility flags so your menus adapt automatically.
• Shortcut & icon helpers: Convert Compose icons to template PNGs for the menu bar with rememberMenuIconFrom or define MenuShortcut values for keyboard access.
• Localized strings: Bundled menu translations keep stock menu labels familiar to users.

Getting started

Compose Advanced-Menubar is published to Maven Central:

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    implementation("dev.hansholz:advanced-menubar:<version>")
}

Usage

1. Build a native macOS menu bar

@Composable
fun MacMenu(appName: String) {
    AdvancedMacMenu(appName) {
        MacApplicationMenu {
            About { /* show about dialog */ }
            Separator()
            Settings { /* open settings */ }
            Quit { /* optional custom quit */ }
        }

        MacFileMenu {
            FileNew { createNewDocument() }
            FileOpen { openExisting() }
            Separator()
            FileSave(enabled = fileChanged) { save() }
        }

        MacViewMenu {
            ToggleFullScreen()
        }

        MacCustomMenu("Tools") {
            Item("Reload Data", shortcut = MenuShortcut(Key.R, meta = true)) { reload() }
        }
    }
}

AdvancedMacMenu rebuilds the Cocoa menu whenever Compose state changes, so enabling/disabling items and checkboxes is seamless.

2. Share menus across macOS, Windows, and Linux

@Composable
fun FrameWindowScope.CrossPlatformMenu(appName: String) {
    CompatibilityMenu(appName) {
        MacApplicationMenu {
            About { /* ... */ }
            Quit()
        }
        FileMenu {
            FileOpen { /* ... */ }
            FileSave { /* ... */ }
        }
        HelpMenu {
            AppHelp { openHelpCenter() }
        }
    }
}

On macOS this delegates to Cocoa; elsewhere the same DSL is rendered through Compose MenuBar.

3. Drop in macOS defaults

DefaultMacMenu(
    onAboutClick = { showAboutDialog() },
    onSettingsClick = { openPreferences() },
    onHelpClick = { openDocs() }
)

DefaultMacMenu only runs on macOS and adds the most common menu entries (Application, View, Window, Help).

4. Control visibility per platform

Use the optional visibility parameter in items from CompatibilityMenu to hide or show items depending on the host OS:

FileMenu {
    FilePageSetup(visibility = MenuVisibility.MACOS_ONLY)
    FilePrint { /* ... */ }
}

5. Provide menu icons (currently macOS only) and shortcuts

val infoIcon = rememberMenuIconFrom(Icons.Rounded.Info)
CustomMenu("Help") {
    Item("Documentation", macIcon = infoIcon) { openDocs() }
    Item("Reload", shortcut = MenuShortcut(Key.R, meta = true)) { reload() }
}

rememberMenuIconFrom rasterizes Compose vectors into template PNG bytes ready for the menu bar on macOS, while MenuShortcut converts to native key equivalents.

For the MenuIcons on MacOS can also SFSymbols, Pngs and Files be used.

Localized strings

The strings for the menu bars are localized using Compose Resources and the default language can be changed with Locale.setDefault(...).

Currently, the following languages are supported:

• English
• German

Sample project

You can find a sample project in the sample directory. Run the following command to test it:

./gradlew :sample:runDistributable

License

Advanced-Menubar is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. See LICENSE.txt.