Python Console Menu

This library provides a way to quickly create the menu for your Python console app.

Overview of classes

AbstractMenu

This is the abstract class you need to extend in your menus. Its constructor takes in a title which is displayed at the top of the menu. This should be called from your implementation's constructor. Like so:

class MenuImplementation(AbstractMenu):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__("Menu Title")

Methods

• display() this starts this menu. This only needs to be called on the root menu in your system, as all sub-menus are handled by this library.
• add_menu_item(MenuItem(id, description, subMenu or action)) this adds an item to the menu.
• add_hidden_menu_item(new MenuItem(id, description, subMenu or action)) this is a helper method that adds a menu item, which is then hidden.
• show_menu_item(id) this can be used to show hidden menu items, most commonly in the method above. This uses the unique id given to the menu item.
• hide_menu_item(id) this can be used to hide menu items.

Methods to override

• initialise() this needs overriding in your implementations and is where you add the items to the menu.
• update_menu_items() this can be overridden per menu to update items based on changes to your application, such as showing hidden menu items if they're now needed.
• item_text(item) this can be overridden in your implementation to customise the formatting of the item text.
• item_line(index, item) this can be overridden in your implementation to customise the formatting of the item line, by default this is the index and the item text itself.

MenuItem

This is the class used to define items for the menus in your system. It has two constructors one for if the item is a sub menu and another for if its an action. These should be called like this: MenuItem(id, description, subMenu or action)

Methods

• hide() which is used on menu items, to hide them from the list.
• show() which is used on hidden menu items, to show them in the list.
• set_as_exit_option() which is used to set menu items as the exit option for a menu, either going to the parent menu, or exiting the application.

Example

Menu initialisation

mainMenu = MainMenu()
mainMenu.display()

Main Menu Class

class MainMenu(AbstractMenu):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__("Welcome to the main menu")
    
    def initialise(self):
        self.add_menu_item(MenuItem(100, "Exit menu").set_as_exit_option())
        self.add_menu_item(MenuItem(101, "Print Hello World", lambda: print("Hello World!")))

    def item_line(self, index: int, item: 'MenuItem'):
        return "%d: %s" % (index, self.item_text(item))

Output

Welcome to the main menu
0: Exit menu
1: Print Hello World
Select option: 1
Hello World!

Welcome to the main menu
0: Exit menu
1: Print Hello World
Select option: 0

Process finished with exit code 0

Look in demo/menu_demo.py for a better example implementation of the library.