Menus

Overview

Studio Menus allow you to create and manage navigation entries that provide access to your custom views and data. Each menu entry can point to a specific action, have an icon, and be restricted to certain user roles.

Menus are managed from App > Studio components > Menus.

Studio Menus grid view

The grid view provides a Show records button that opens the records accessible through the selected menu’s action.

Creating a Menu

Navigate to App > Studio components > Menus and click New, or use the inline menu editor in the Custom Model form when enabling menu generation.

Studio Menu form

Basic Information

Field Required Description

Existing menu (1)

No

Virtual field (visible only on new records). Select an existing menu to modify it instead of creating a new one.

Name (2)

Yes

Technical name of the menu. Must start with an alphabetic character. Auto-generated from title if not provided.

Title (3)

Yes

Display text shown in the navigation menu.

XML ID (4)

No

Unique XML identifier used for import/export and references. Auto-generated if not provided.

Parent menu (5)

No

The parent menu entry under which this menu appears. References a MetaMenu record.

Order (6)

No

Numeric value controlling the position within the parent menu. Lower values appear first.
The menu name must start with a letter (a-z or A-Z). This is validated by StudioMenuService.checkAndGenerateName().

Icon and Appearance

  • Icon (7): Choose from over 500 icons available in the studio.menu.icon.select selection. Icons use the Bootstrap Icons library.

  • Icon background (8): Select a background color for the icon from 11 available colors (TagSelect widget): red, pink, purple, deep-purple, indigo, blue, light-blue, cyan, teal, green, orange.

Use icons and background colors to visually distinguish menu categories. For example, use blue for data entry menus and green for reporting menus.

Studio App

  • Studio App: Associates the menu with a Studio App for packaging.

This field is only visible when enableStudioApp is enabled in the configuration.

Action Binding

Show Action

The Show action toggle (boolean-switch) controls whether the menu has an associated action. When enabled, the action editor appears.

Action Editor

Menu action editor

The inline action editor allows you to configure what happens when a user clicks the menu entry:

Field Description

Is JSON

Toggle between custom (JSON) models and standard models

Model

The data model to display when the menu is clicked

Views (studioActionViews)

The views to open (grid, form, etc.) with their sequence

View params

Additional context parameters passed to the view

Lines

Action lines for data manipulation (used with Create/Update actions)

Domain condition

A filtering expression to restrict the records shown

Permissions

Menu permissions panel

The Permissions panel controls who can see and access the menu entry:

  • Groups (9): Restrict access to members of specific user groups (TagSelect, M2M:Group).

  • Roles (10): Restrict access to users with specific roles (TagSelect, M2M:Role).

If neither groups nor roles are specified, the menu is visible to all users. When both are specified, a user must belong to at least one of the specified groups OR have at least one of the specified roles.

Advanced Options

The Extra panel (collapsible) provides additional configuration:

Field Description

Condition to check

A Groovy expression evaluated at runtime. The menu is only visible when this expression returns true. Maximum 1024 characters.

Module to check

A module name. The menu is only visible when this module is installed.

Left

When checked (default: true), the menu appears in the left sidebar navigation.

Mobile

When checked, the menu is available in the mobile application.

Hidden

When checked, the menu is hidden from the navigation.

Link

An external URL. When set, clicking the menu opens this URL instead of an internal view.

Tag

Static text displayed as a badge next to the menu title.

Tag get

An action-method that dynamically returns the tag value.

Tag count

An action-method that dynamically returns a numeric count for the badge.

Tag style

Visual style of the tag badge (selection: default, info, success, warning, danger, inverse).

Technical Details

Studio menus are stored in the StudioMenu entity. When saved, they generate corresponding MetaMenu records that are used by the application’s menu system.

Key relationships:

  • StudioMenu → MetaMenu (generated): The actual menu entry used by the application

  • StudioMenu → StudioAction (M2O): The action executed when the menu is clicked

  • StudioMenu → MetaMenu (parentMenu): The parent in the menu hierarchy

  • Actions — Configure what happens when a menu is clicked

  • Custom Models — Auto-generated menus for custom models

  • Studio Apps — Packaging menus with other components

  • Configuration — Enable/disable Studio App grouping