Declarative DSL building native menu bars with cross‑platform fallbacks, shortcut and icon helpers, per‑platform visibility flags, out‑of‑the‑box macOS defaults and localized labels.
Advanced Menubar adds declarative, native macOS menus to Compose Desktop. Its Kotlin DSL supports standard application and document commands, dynamic custom menus, Compose text editing, Services, the Window menu, native context menus, localized labels, icons, shortcuts, checkmarks, subtitles, tooltips, and badges.
Two window backends are available:
advanced-menubar-awt integrates with Compose Desktop Window and can render the same DSL as
Swing on Windows and Linux.advanced-menubar-tao integrates with Tao decorated windows without initializing AWT. Tao is
provided by the Nucleus library.
Replace current-version with the current published release:
dependencies {
implementation("dev.hansholz:advanced-menubar-awt:current-version")
}
For a Nucleus Tao window:
dependencies {
implementation("dev.hansholz:advanced-menubar-tao:current-version")
}
The artifacts target JVM 21. Native macOS libraries for Apple Silicon and Intel are packaged in the published artifacts.
Window(
title = "Notes",
onCloseRequest = ::exitApplication,
) {
DefaultMacMenuBar(
onAboutClick = { showAbout = true },
onSettingsClick = { showSettings = true },
onHelpClick = ::openHelp,
)
NotesScreen()
}
For full control, declare the native menu structure yourself:
AdvancedMacMenuBar(appName = "Notes") {
MacApplicationMenu {
About { showAbout = true }
Separator()
Services()
Separator()
Hide()
HideOthers()
ShowAll()
Separator()
Quit()
}
FileMenu {
FileNew { newDocument() }
FileOpen { openDocument() }
Separator()
Item(
title = "Export",
shortcut = MenuShortcut(Key.E, meta = true, shift = true),
) { exportDocument() }
}
CustomMenu("View") {
Checkbox("Sidebar", checked = sidebarVisible) { sidebarVisible = it }
}
}
On Windows and Linux, CompatibilityMenuBar renders the DSL as a Swing menu and uses customary
accelerators such as Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y, F3, F11, and F1. Native macOS menu functions never silently
fall back to Swing. AppKit-only presentation (SF Symbols, subtitles, and badges) is intentionally
omitted by Swing.
NativeTextContextMenuProvider(
isDark = darkTheme,
customActions = listOf(
ContextMenuAction("Look up in project", "magnifyingglass") {
lookUpSelection()
},
),
) {
DefaultMacMenuBar()
Column {
OutlinedTextField(state = textState)
SelectionContainer {
Text("Selectable, read-only text")
}
}
}
On macOS, isDark changes the appearance of the entire NSApplication so all native menus use the
same theme. Editable fields and selectable read-only text receive their corresponding native AppKit
menus. A DefaultMacMenuBar in the provider scope enables its Edit commands only while a Compose
text input session is active; this uses the same Compose API with AWT and Tao and supports both
state-based and legacy Compose text fields. Outside the provider, the commands remain enabled as
before; custom AdvancedMacMenuBar/ declarations are unchanged. If the native
bridge is unavailable, Compose's normal context menu remains active. See
for details and limitations.
The project documentation covers backend selection, every DSL group, native Edit behavior, context menus, icons, shortcuts, localization, GraalVM packaging, limitations, and sample applications. Start with the Quickstart or open the DSL reference.
Advanced Menubar is available under the Apache License 2.0.
CompatibilityMenuBarSurfaced from shared tags and platforms — no rankings paid for.