🍎 iPadOS Menu Bar 📱

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

📑 Table of Contents #

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

🧭 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. Elevate your tablet and desktop apps with responsive, adaptive navigation menus, custom status icons, and keyboard shortcuts.

📦 Installation #

Add ipados_menu_bar to your pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  ipados_menu_bar: ^0.6.1

Then run:

flutter pub get

📚 Examples #

Explore practical use cases demonstrating advanced features and integrations:

• Menu Provider Example
  Demonstrates how to dynamically manage menus using a custom provider.
  🔗 View on GitHub

• Multiple Windows Example
  Shows how to open and manage multiple windows with different Flutter views and arguments.
  🔗 View on GitHub

🏁 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.create();

  runApp(MyApp());
}

And everything just works now! Please check out the included examples to learn how PlatformMenu works and how to use it on your application.

🎛️ 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 PlatformMenuBar on 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 to 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 extremely useful when changing contexts, like opening a modal, and you want to prevent unexpected user actions.

Add Icons to your items #

You can use either IconData with the icon attribute or a Widget using the iconWidget attribute on PlatformMenuItemWithIcon, PlatformMenuWithIcon and StatefulPlatformMenuItemWithIcon.

// Disabled items will have their icon's alpha lowered
PlatformMenuItemWithIcon(
  label: 'Disabled item',
  icon: Icons.favorite
),

PlatformMenuItemWithIcon(
  label: 'Icon widget!',
  iconWidget: FlutterLogo(),
  onSelected: () {
    print("Flutter Rocks!!");  
  }
),

Set a state to your item #

Menu items can have three different states: off, on and mixed.

StatefulPlatformMenuItem(
  label: 'Unchecked',
  state: MenuItemState.off
),

StatefulPlatformMenuItem(
  label: 'Checked',
  state: MenuItemState.on
),

StatefulPlatformMenuItemWithIcon(
  label: 'Mixed',
  state: MenuItemState.mixed,
  icon: Icons.question_mark
),

Menu Structure #

Create organized menu hierarchies with:

• PlatformMenu – Defines a top-level menu category.
• PlatformMenuItemGroup – Groups related menu items and automatically separates them from others.
• PlatformMenuItem – Represents an individual menu action, optionally with a keyboard shortcut.
• PlatformMenuWithIcon – A top-level menu that includes a leading icon.
• PlatformMenuItemWithIcon – A single menu action that includes a leading icon.

Default Apple-style Menus

These are prebuilt menu categories designed to follow Apple’s native iPadOS behavior, while allowing custom items and callbacks:

• IPadAppMenu – Allows you to access the Application menu and add your own items.
• IPadFileMenu – Manages file-related operations such as opening, saving, or creating new documents.
• IPadEditMenu – Provides standard edit actions (undo, redo, cut, copy, paste) integrated with iPadOS, plus your own callbacks.
• IPadFormatMenu – Handles formatting-related actions for text or data with system-consistent structure.
• IPadViewMenu – Allows switching between views, toggling panels, or controlling UI visibility (e.g., showing the sidebar).
• IPadWindowMenu – Enables window management and lets you define entry points for new windows, each with its own Flutter view and arguments.

📱 Platform Support #

This package offers dual-optimized behavior for Apple ecosystems and responsive applications:

🔧 Feature Roadmap #

🤝 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 the MIT License.