Mixed sprite/text menu items

I have an application that has a menu where the menu items on one particular menu are mixed sprite and text. To do this each menu item has to be an indirected mixed text and sprite icon where the sprite name is communicated via a validation string.

I am not sure how to register the half a dozen or so sprites that I use. They seem to have to be Wimp sprites because there is no window associated with the icons used for the menu (all menu items are icons) where I can specify a user sprite area is to be used.

One possibility is !appname00, !appname02 etc.

Any ideas please?

Would it be easier just to use a window? If it’s the final leaf of the menu tree, could you generate a dialogue box that looks and behaves like a regular menu?

The menu looks like this – – ordinary menu items but with sprites at the left hand edge.

There very well may be a sensible way of implementing this as a menu, but if you’re getting stuck why not implement it as a dialogue box? Make the work area white, and cover the entire area with a list of menu-type icons. You’ll be able to make it look and behave exactly as it does currently, with the advantage that it’ll be easy to use sprites from your user area. It would be a bit more work to implement item ticks, etc., but not too difficult if you need them. Another bonus is that, with a bit of care, you’ll be able to line up the text columns more neatly. At present, you’re probably at the limits of standard menu formatting.

It works fine as a menu (and has done for the last ten years). No problems. Just would be nice to have the sprites in a private pool rather than use the wimp pool. Would menuselect work correctly with the suggested method?