Menu items have attributes that determine how the items are displayed and whether or not the user can choose them. An application can set and query menu-item attributes by sending MM_SETITEMATTR and MM_QUERYITEMATTR messages, with the menu-item identifier, to the menu-bar window. If the specified item is in a submenu, there are two methods of determining its attributes. The first is to send MM_SETITEMATTR and MM_QUERYITEMATTR messages to the top-level menu, specifying the identifier of the item and setting a flag so that the message searches all submenus for the item. Then, you can retrieve the handle of the menu-bar by calling WinWindowFromID, with the handle of the frame window and the FID_MENU frame-control identifier.

The second method, which is more efficient if you want to either work with more than one submenu item or set the same item several times, involves two steps:

• Send an MM_QUERYITEM message to the menu, with the identifier of the submenu. The updated MENUITEM structure contains the window handle of the submenu.

• Send an MM_QUERYITEMATTR (or MM_SETITEMATTR) message to the submenu window, specifying the identifier of the item in the submenu.