# Chapter 1

## Introduction

CNS Menu allows you to place hierarchal menus anywhere on a FileMaker® Pro layout. When a menu item is chosen, the script of your choice in the database of your choice is performed. Menus can have any number of sub menus and can be displayed with a variety of styles and bullet marks. Creating menus with CNS Menu is as easy as handing the plug-in a return-delimited list of menu items to display. Your menu items can have a display name, and a value that can be used in your scripts, so the end user can see useful information such as a customer name while the value can be a Customer ID number.

CNS Menu ships with the "CNS Menu.fp7" example database which includes 15 examples demonstrating ways to use and understand the CNS Menu plug-in. The database is fully unlocked so you can explore every detail. We have also included the documentation for each example inline, so you can both examine the example and see its explanation all from one layout. Examples include, QuickMenu, Menu Placement, MenuBuilder, Value List to QuickMenu, Hidden Items, Menu Decoration, Mouse Grabber, Right Click, Data Entry, Layout Navigation, Update Menu Item, Bookmark Example, External XML Menu, and RSS Menu.

CNS Menu has many advantages over its predecessor, SCRIPTit. This rendition includes MenuBuilder in the configuration dialog which allows you to quickly build new menus without having to know XML. You can then simply use menus built in MenuBuilder in your database, or copy the XML which is generated for you. CNS Menu also includes a brand new way to create menus called "QuickMenus". A QuickMenu takes a return-seperated list of items and creates a menu for you without having to know or use any XML.