Drag Python menu items to a Shelf

You've written a menu for the Maya UI in Python.

Now if you want to add a Python menu item to a Shelf, you'll find that the Ctrl+Shift combination adds it as a MEL command instead, and your item won't run from the Shelf.

In this post I'll show you how to modify the MEL procedure: menuItemToShelf to accommodate Python commands.

Open the script menuItemToShelf.mel in your favorite text editor, and save a copy in your user/maya/scripts directory.

Look at the last few lines, where the shelfButton command is used to build your new Shelf button.

        //    create the shelfButton
    //
        shelfButton
            -command $command
            -doubleClickCommand $doubleClickCommand
            -image1 $image
            -imageOverlayLabel $imageOverlayLabel
            -label `menuItem -q -label $itemName`
            -style `shelfLayout -q -style $currentShelf`
            -width `shelfLayout -q -cellWidth $currentShelf`
            -height `shelfLayout -q -cellHeight $currentShelf`
            -ann `menuItem -q -ann $itemName`;
     // -style "iconOnly";

The Docs page for shelfButton mentions a flag for specifying whether the script should be considered MEL or Python: -sourceType  that takes one of two values: "mel" or "python".

The Docs go on to say that "mel" is enabled by default, that is, when the flag is not explicitly set.

Well, the workaround is straightforward enough: since the script assumes that my menu item is a MEL command, we'll interrupt the script before the shelf button is created to ask the user: is this a MEL or a Python command ?

Putting a simple confirmDialog before the shelfButton command does the trick:

string $sourceType = `confirmDialog -title "Maya"
        -ma "left" -message "Save menu item to shelf as type:"
        -button "MEL" -button "Python" -defaultButton "MEL"
        -cancelButton "MEL" -dismissString "MEL" `;

And use the value of $sourceType to set the flag -sourceType inside the shelfButton command.

You could follow that by checking the value of $sourceType to determine whether to use the appropriate Python shelf icon:

if ($sourceType == "Python")
    $image = "pythonFamily.xpm";

//    create the shelfButton
//
    shelfButton
        ...
        -sourceType $sourceType;

You can get the full script here.

Save it in your scripts directory, for example: C:/Users/burgeso/Documents/maya/2010-x64/scripts

Launch Maya and away you go....

Cheers,

Owen