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### 5.42 How can I create or modify new pull-down menu options?

Each menu title (e.g., ‘`File`’, ‘`Edit`’, ‘`Buffers`’) represents a local or global keymap. Selecting a menu title with the mouse displays that keymap's non-`nil` contents in the form of a menu.

So to add a menu option to an existing menu, all you have to do is add a new definition to the appropriate keymap. Adding a ‘`Forward Word`’ item to the ‘`Edit`’ menu thus requires the following Lisp code:

         (define-key global-map
           [menu-bar edit forward]
           '("Forward word" . forward-word))

The first line adds the entry to the global keymap, which includes global menu bar entries. Replacing the reference to `global-map` with a local keymap would add this menu option only within a particular mode.

The second line describes the path from the menu-bar to the new entry. Placing this menu entry underneath the ‘`File`’ menu would mean changing the word `edit` in the second line to `file`.

The third line is a cons cell whose first element is the title that will be displayed, and whose second element is the function that will be called when that menu option is invoked.

To add a new menu, rather than a new option to an existing menu, we must define an entirely new keymap:

         (define-key global-map [menu-bar words]
           (cons "Words" (make-sparse-keymap "Words")))

The above code creates a new sparse keymap, gives it the name ‘`Words`’, and attaches it to the global menu bar. Adding the ‘`Forward Word`’ item to this new menu would thus require the following code:

         (define-key global-map
           [menu-bar words forward]
           '("Forward word" . forward-word))

Note that because of the way keymaps work, menu options are displayed with the more recently defined items at the top. Thus if you were to define menu options ‘`foo`’, ‘`bar`’, and ‘`baz`’ (in that order), the menu option ‘`baz`’ would appear at the top, and ‘`foo`’ would be at the bottom.

One way to avoid this problem is to use the function `define-key-after`, which works the same as `define-key`, but lets you modify where items appear. The following Lisp code would insert the ‘`Forward Word`’ item in the ‘`Edit`’ menu immediately following the ‘`Undo`’ item:

         (define-key-after
           (lookup-key global-map [menu-bar edit])
           [forward]
           '("Forward word" . forward-word)
           'undo)

Note how the second and third arguments to `define-key-after` are different from those of `define-key`, and that we have added a new (final) argument, the function after which our new key should be defined.

To move a menu option from one position to another, simply evaluate `define-key-after` with the appropriate final argument.

More detailed information—and more examples of how to create and modify menu options—are in the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, under “Menu Keymaps.” (See Emacs Lisp documentation, for information on this manual.)