How to make Tpopupmenu to pre-select the 1st menu entry when a popup is opened with the keyboard

Question

The items in TPopupMenu can be highlighted/selected with keyboard or mouse. When selected with keyboard, you can move in the menu with the arrow keys.

How to mark the 1st menu item as selected (blue) without simulating the down arrow keypress with VK_DOWN (see code below)?

Popup := TPopupMenu.create(nil);
Popup.OnPopup := PopupClick;
class procedure TTrayMain.PopupClick(Sender: TObject) ;
begin    
  // Code below activates the first menu entry.. 
  // Now Looking for an alternative solution to replace this hack:
  keybd_event( VK_DOWN, MapVirtualKey( VK_DOWN,0), 0, 0);
  keybd_event( VK_DOWN, MapVirtualKey( VK_DOWN,0), KEYEVENTF_KEYUP, 0);

end;

Answer 1

You need to send the undocumented MN_SELECITEM message to the popupwindow.

unit Unit1;

interface

uses
  Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms,
  Dialogs, Menus, ExtCtrls, StdCtrls;

type
  TForm1 = class(TForm)
    PopupMenu1: TPopupMenu;
    Item1: TMenuItem;
    Item2: TMenuItem;
    Item3: TMenuItem;
  private
    { Private declarations }
  public
    { Public declarations }
  end;

  //To override the default PopupList, based on Remy Lebeau's code
  TPopupListEx = class(TPopupList)
  protected
    procedure WndProc(var Message: TMessage); override;
  end;

var
  Form1: TForm1;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

const MN_SELECTITEM = $01E5;

{ TPopupListEx }

procedure TPopupListEx.WndProc(var Message: TMessage);
var hm:HMENU;

begin
  inherited;
  if (Message.Msg = WM_ENTERMENULOOP) and (Message.WParam = 1) then
    begin
      //When the popupwindow is already created, we can ask it's handle
      hm:=FindWindow(PChar('#32768'),nil);
      //Send the MN_SELECTITEM message. The third parameter is the desired menuitem's index.
      SendMessage(hm,MN_SELECTITEM,0,0);
    end;
end;

initialization
  Popuplist.Free; //free the "default", "old" list
  PopupList := TPopupListEx.Create; //create the new one
  // The new PopupList will be freed by
  // finalization section of Menus unit.
end.

Note about other (including the mentioned delphipraxis sample) solutions:

Setting the MenuItem to a highlight state with SetMenuItemInfoW or with HiliteMenuItem won't work, since it's only affect the appearance, but when you hover the mouse over any other item, the first item remains highlighted.