ipados_menu_bar 0.3.1

A Flutter package that brings the iPadOS menubar to your apps, offering a native-like, customizable menu experience for iPad.

🍎 iPadOS Menu Bar 📱

A custom PlatformMenuDelegate that adds iPadOS 26+ menu bar functionality to Flutter apps

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📑 Table of Contents

• 🧭 Human Interface Guidelines
• 🚀 Features
• 📦 Installation
• 🏁 Getting Started
• 🎛️ Customization Options
• 📱 Platform Support
• 🔧 Feature Roadmap
• ⚠️ API Stability Notice
• 🤝 Contributing
• 📄 License

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🧭 Human Interface Guidelines

This package follows Apple’s official Human Interface Guidelines for the iPadOS menu bar. Before designing your menus, review these resources to ensure consistency with the system experience:

• WWDC session on the iPadOS menu bar: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/208/?time=624
• Apple HIG – Menu Bar: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/the-menu-bar

🚀 Features

Bring the native iPadOS menu bar experience to your Flutter applications with this custom PlatformMenuDelegate. This package provides seamless integration with iPadOS 26+ menu bar functionality, allowing users to access app features through the system menu bar.

📦 Installation

Add ipados_menu_bar to your pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  ipados_menu_bar: ^0.3.1

Then run:

flutter pub get

🏁 Getting Started

Basic Setup

Initialize the iPadOS menu bar in your app's main() method:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:ipados_menu_bar/ipados_menu_bar.dart';

void main() {
  WidgetsFlutterBinding.ensureInitialized();
  WidgetsBinding.instance.platformMenuDelegate = IPadOSPlatformMenuDelegate();

  runApp(MyApp());
}

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      title: 'iPadOS Menu Bar Demo',
      home: PlatformMenuBar(
        menus: [
          // Your custom menus here
          IPadEditMenu(
              onUndo: () => debugPrint('Undo action!'),
              onRedo: () => debugPrint('Redo action!'),
          ),
          PlatformMenu(
            label: 'Normal Actions',
            menus: [
              PlatformMenuItemGroup(
                members: [
                  PlatformMenuItemWithIcon(
                    icon: CupertinoIcons.plus_app,
                    label: 'New Document',
                    onSelected: () {
                      // Handle action
                    },
                  ),
                  PlatformMenuItem(
                    label: 'Open Document',
                    onSelected: () {
                      // Handle action
                    },
                  ),
                ],
              ),
              PlatformMenuItemGroup(
                members: [
                  PlatformMenuWithIcon(
                    icon: CupertinoIcons.folder,
                    label: "Recent Documents",
                    menus: [
                      PlatformMenuItem(
                        label: 'Shopping list',
                        onSelected: () => debugPrint("Carrots, popcorn, water..."),
                      ),
                      // Disabled (onSelected is null)
                      PlatformMenuItem(
                        label: 'Family secrets',
                      ),
                    ],
                  ),
                ]
              ),
            ],
          ),
        ],
        child: Scaffold(
          appBar: AppBar(
            title: Text('My App'),
          ),
          body: Center(
            child: Text('Hello iPadOS Menu Bar!'),
          ),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

🎛️ Customization Options

Hidden Default Menus

The package allows you to hide default system menu items that come with iPadOS:

• File: Hide file-related actions
• Edit: Hide editing actions (cut, copy, paste, etc.)
• Format: Hide text formatting options
• View: Hide view-related controls

These menus will be automatically hidden when there's a PlatformMenuBaron the current context and haven't been placed in the widget tree:

PlatformMenuBar(
    menus: [
        // File and Format will be hidden
        IPadEditMenu(
            onUndo: () => debugPrint('Undo action!'),
            onRedo: () => debugPrint('Redo action!'),
        ),
        IPadViewMenu(),
    ],
)

Disable Menu Items

On custom menu items, you can disable menu items by setting the onSelected or onSelectedIntent a null value:

// Controlling when an item should be clickable using a boolean
PlatformMenuItem(
  label: 'Item 0 (Enabled: $enabledBoolean)',
  onSelected: enabledBoolean
      ? () => debugPrint("Item 0 selected")
      : null,
),

This is handful when changing contexts, like opening a modal, and don't want the user to do unexpected stuff.

Menu Structure

Create organized menu hierarchies with:

• PlatformMenu: Top-level menu categories
• PlatformMenuItemGroup: Grouped menu items with separators
• PlatformMenuItem: Individual menu actions with optional keyboard shortcuts
• PlatformMenuWithIcon: Menu categories with a leading icon
• PlatformMenuItemWithIcon: Individual menu actions with a leading action
• Default menu items: Apple's top-level menu categories with their corresponding items and listeners
  • IPadFileMenu: Items file-related using Apple's incorporated item with callbacks for your app functionality and additional custom items
  • IPadEditMenu: Items for actions on your app using Apple's incorporated item with callbacks for your app f functionality and additional custom items
  • IPadFormatMenu: Items for formatting text or other data on your app using Apple's incorporated item with callbacks for your app functionality and additional custom items
  • IPadViewMenu: Items to switch between screens or other UI-related actions like showing the sidebar
  • IPadWindowMenu: Listeners for reacting when the window layout changes, a new window is opened, switched screen, etc...

📱 Platform Support

This package is specifically designed for iPadOS 26+ and provides enhanced functionality when running on compatible devices. On older iOS versions, it gracefully falls back to standard Flutter menu behavior.

🔧 Feature Roadmap

Feature	Status
Basic Menu Bar Integration	✅
Custom Menu Items	✅
Custom Menu Items HIG Placement	✅
Hide Default Menus (File, Edit, Format, View)	✅
Submenu Nesting	✅
Dynamic Menu Updates	✅
Menu Separators	✅
App Info Custom Children Items	❌
Menu Icons Support	✅
Window Change listeners in dart	🚧
Stateful Items (checked, unchecked, mixed)	✅
Keyboard Shortcuts	✅

⚠️ API Stability Notice

Important: This package is currently in early development (version 0.x.x). The API is subject to breaking changes until it reaches a stable 1.0.0 release. Please be aware that:

• Method signatures may change
• Configuration options may be modified or removed
• New features may introduce breaking changes

We recommend pinning to a specific version in your pubspec.yaml and reviewing the changelog before updating. Once the package reaches version 1.0.0, we will follow semantic versioning for all future releases.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

📄 License

This package is licensed under MIT License.