How to disable a menu item in JavaFX

A menu is a list of options or commands presented to the user, typically menus contain items that perform some action. The contents of a menu are known as menu items and a menu bar holds multiple menus.

In JavaFX a menu is represented by the javafx.scene.control.Menu class, a menu item is represented by the javafx.scene.control.MenuItem class, And, the javafx.scene.control.MenuBar class represents a menu bar.

To create a menu −

• Instantiate the Menu class.

• Create a required number of menu items by instantiating the MenuItem class.

• Add all the menu items to the menu as −

fileMenu.getItems().addAll(item1, item2, item3);

• Create a menu bar by instantiating the MenuBar class.

• Add all the created menus to the menu bar as −

menuBar.getMenus().addAll(fileMenu, fileList, skin);

• Add the menu bar to the scene.

Disabling a MenuItem

The MenuItem class contains a property named visible (boolean), which specifies whether to display the current MenuItem. You can set the value to this property using the setVisible() method.

To disable a particular menu item invoke the setVisible() method on its object by passing the boolean value “false”.

Example

import javafx.application.Application; import javafx.scene.Group; import javafx.scene.Scene; import javafx.scene.control.Menu; import javafx.scene.control.MenuBar; import javafx.scene.control.MenuItem; import javafx.scene.paint.Color; import javafx.stage.Stage; public class DisablingMenuItems extends Application {    @Override    public void start(Stage stage) {       //Creating a menu       Menu fileMenu = new Menu("File");       //Creating menu Items       fileMenu.setMnemonicParsing(true);       MenuItem item1 = new MenuItem("Add Files");       MenuItem item2 = new MenuItem("Start Converting");       MenuItem item3 = new MenuItem("Stop Converting");       MenuItem item4 = new MenuItem("Remove File");       MenuItem item5 = new MenuItem("Exit");       //Adding all the menu items to the menu       fileMenu.getItems().addAll(item1, item2, item3, item4, item5);       //Disabling menu items       item2.setDisable(true);       item3.setDisable(true);       //Creating a menu bar and adding menu to it.       MenuBar menuBar = new MenuBar(fileMenu);       menuBar.setTranslateX(200);       menuBar.setTranslateY(20);       //Setting the stage       Group root = new Group(menuBar);       Scene scene = new Scene(root, 595, 200, Color.BEIGE);       stage.setTitle("Menu Example");       stage.setScene(scene);       stage.show();    }    public static void main(String args[]){       launch(args);    } }