[Solved] CtrlCreateMenuItem slow speed on many uses

[IanN1990]

When i got home from uni, i was without my computer for 2 months. So i used the time to under-go a huge autoit project for replacing the right-click on desktop for a completely customizated menu system.

For the most part it is finished, but with one slight thing i dont really like and would to like to improve.

At first i thought it was the alorigutm for sorting though files (from which i updated to Melbas RecFileListToArray and though this has made the coding better / easier to understand it was still very slow).

I have finally come to the conclusion the problem lies within the CtrlCreateMenuItem Function.

Below is some simple code that creates a Context Menu with 9,999 Items (The context menu i created is is programed to load Videos, Desktop, Favorites, Downloads and Music which is summed up to around 6,000 so still a big number).

And it takes 1 second to generate all these menus. So you would right-click the desktop and then need to wait 1-2 seconds before the menu appears which isn't very nice (My work around at the moment is turning each section into a link, so when u click videos, it opens a new context menu with the videos loaded. So instead of loading all 6k all the time, just 3k when the videos is clicked.)

Now onto the purpose of the question, Though my work-around works its not a very nice ending to this project so i was wondering if there is a way to make it all faster?

expandcollapse popup

#NoTrayIcon
#include 'WindowsConstants.au3'
#include 'MenuConstants.au3'
#include 'MouseOnEvent.au3'

Local $GUIRunning = GUICreate("Running", 1, 1, -5, -5, $WS_POPUP, $WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW)
Local $GUIContextMenu = GUICreate("Context Menu", 1, 1, -5, -5, $WS_POPUP, $WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW)
local $MainContextMenu = GUICtrlCreateContextMenu()
local $ContextHandle = GUICtrlGetHandle($MainContextMenu)
local $MousePosition = Mousegetpos()


For $i = 0 to 9999
GUICtrlCreateMenuItem("Hello Test", $MainContextMenu)
Next

Exit
$ContextMenu = _GUICtrlMenu_TrackPopupMenu($ContextHandle, $GUIContextMenu, $MousePosition[0]-10, $MousePosition[1]-10, 1, 1, 2)
$ContextMenuText = _GUICtrlMenu_GetItemText($ContextHandle, $ContextMenu, False)


#Region .Au3 Functions
Func _GUICtrlMenu_TrackPopupMenu($hMenu, $hWnd, $iX = -1, $iY = -1, $iAlignX = 1, $iAlignY = 1, $iNotify = 0, $iButtons = 0)
If $iX = -1 Then $iX = _WinAPI_GetMousePosX()
If $iY = -1 Then $iY = _WinAPI_GetMousePosY()
Local $iFlags = 0
Switch $iAlignX
Case 1
$iFlags = BitOR($iFlags, $TPM_LEFTALIGN)
Case 2
$iFlags = BitOR($iFlags, $TPM_RIGHTALIGN)
Case Else
$iFlags = BitOR($iFlags, $TPM_CENTERALIGN)
EndSwitch
Switch $iAlignY
Case 1
$iFlags = BitOR($iFlags, $TPM_TOPALIGN)
Case 2
$iFlags = BitOR($iFlags, $TPM_VCENTERALIGN)
Case Else
$iFlags = BitOR($iFlags, $TPM_BOTTOMALIGN)
EndSwitch
If BitAND($iNotify, 1) <> 0 Then $iFlags = BitOR($iFlags, $TPM_NONOTIFY)
If BitAND($iNotify, 2) <> 0 Then $iFlags = BitOR($iFlags, $TPM_RETURNCMD)
Switch $iButtons
Case 1
$iFlags = BitOR($iFlags, $TPM_RIGHTBUTTON)
Case Else
$iFlags = BitOR($iFlags, $TPM_LEFTBUTTON)
EndSwitch
Local $aResult = DllCall("User32.dll", "bool", "TrackPopupMenu", "handle", $hMenu, "uint", $iFlags, "int", $iX, "int", $iY, "int", 0, "hwnd", $hWnd, "ptr", 0)
If @error Then Return SetError(@error, @extended, 0)
Return $aResult[0]
EndFunc ;==>_GUICtrlMenu_TrackPopupMenu

Func _GUICtrlMenu_GetItemText($hMenu, $iItem, $fByPos = True)
Local $iByPos = 0
If $fByPos Then $iByPos = $MF_BYPOSITION
Local $aResult = DllCall("User32.dll", "int", "GetMenuStringW", "handle", $hMenu, "uint", $iItem, "wstr", 0, "int", 4096, "uint", $iByPos)
If @error Then Return SetError(@error, @extended, 0)
Return SetExtended($aResult[0], $aResult[3])
EndFunc ;==>_GUICtrlMenu_GetItemText
#EndRegion

Edited September 8, 2012 by IanN1990

[BrewManNH]

Probably not, AutoIt is an interpreted language, it's going to be slow especially when you're putting up 6000 items on a right click menu. Can you even see all 3-6K items at the same time on that context menu?

[IanN1990]

Nope at all once, in many cases its 20-30 files per folder, and many folders etc so it all builds up