Menus

Set the application menu before creating windows on Windows and GTK-based Linux/FreeBSD so those windows can attach it. On macOS, the menu is application-level.

app.setMenu({
  items: [
    {
      label: 'File',
      submenu: {
        items: [
          { id: 'new', label: 'New', accelerator: 'CmdOrCtrl+N' },
          { id: 'open', label: 'Open', accelerator: 'CmdOrCtrl+O' },
          { role: 'separator' },
          { role: 'quit' },
        ],
      },
    },
  ],
});

const win = app.createBrowserWindow({ title: 'Editor' });

Handle a custom item's id through the application event:

app.on('custom-menu-click', ({ customMenuEvent }) => {
  if (customMenuEvent.id === 'open') openDocument();
});

The event pump delivers menu events, so call app.run() or pump events manually. Linux uses Muda's GTK integration; menu items and custom-menu-click work there.

Per-window menuCopy Anchor Link

Supply a menu in BrowserWindowOptions on Windows and GTK-based Linux/FreeBSD. There is no win.setMenu() method:

const settings = app.createBrowserWindow({
  title: 'Settings',
  menu: {
    items: [{ id: 'reset', label: 'Reset settings' }],
  },
});

A per-window menu overrides the global menu on Windows and GTK-based Linux/FreeBSD. showMenu: false prevents those windows from attaching the global menu. macOS menus belong to the application: BrowserWindowOptions.menu is not attached there, and showMenu does not hide the application menu. win.hasMenu() checks whether the wrapper owns a per-window menu object, not whether it is visible.

Calling app.setMenu() again replaces the application menu definition, but the native binding does not reattach that replacement to existing Windows or GTK-based Linux/FreeBSD windows. Set it before creating windows that should use it. Pass null to clear the global menu; on macOS that restores its default application menu.

Items, roles, and acceleratorsCopy Anchor Link

Custom items accept id, label, enabled, and accelerator. A nested submenu creates a submenu. Use a stable id for items your code handles. Predefined roles such as copy, paste, undo, quit, and separator map to native platform actions. See the complete Menu API reference for role names and platform behavior.

The repository examples show application menus and window menus.