Wizard: Menu + menu items

When to use it: your form, class, or report needs a menu item, and the item needs a home — an existing custom menu or a new one.

Size: M · Automatable: fully.

Prerequisites

• The target object exists (form / class / report).
• If attaching to an existing menu: it must be in a writable model (your active/custom models) — Microsoft menus are never edited (see below).

Steps

1. Item kind — Display (form picker from index) / Action (class picker) / Output (report or SSRS name).
2. Basics — name defaults to the object name; label defaults from the object’s label.
3. Properties — ObjectType/Object fixed from step 1; resource flags at their verified minimal defaults.
4. Placement — pick an existing menu from the index (AxMenu list, submenu path), or co-generate a new AxMenu.
5. Summary — AxMenuItem* [+ AxMenu], preview, commit.

The Menu wizard showing placement onto an existing custom menu with the submenu path

Output anatomy

• AxMenuItemDisplay|Action|Output/<YourItem>.xml — the menu item.
• AxMenu/<YourMenu>.xml — if a new menu was co-generated.
• Attach-to-existing uses the raw-merge writer — the one wizard that edits a pre-existing file. The host menu is merged losslessly (never-drop); the overwrite guard is exempted for this case only, gated by the raw-merge fidelity test.

No layering violations

Editing a Microsoft menu is a layering violation, so placement targets are restricted to menus in the writable model set — never Application*. Extending a Microsoft menu stays with the designer, not this wizard.

Verify it worked

• The generated item matches the minimal verified shape (ObjectType/Object set, resource flags at 0).
• The host menu round-trips losslessly after attach.
• On-VM: the menu item appears and launches your form/class/report.

If it goes wrong

• Your menu isn’t in the picker — it’s in a Microsoft model (restricted) or the index hasn’t parsed it; use a custom menu or the designer’s extension route.
• Duplicate attach refused — idempotency law: the item is already there.

Next: Form wizard for the object behind a Display item, List Page wizard for the full navigation flow.