Dear Eric,

I did not change the structure of my code: I only SIMPLIFYED IT FOR YOU.

So:

1/3: I do not need neither "advises" neither "judgements" but "solutions";

2/3: as per "pictures", I am not a not a good "painter", only a Civil engineer from the Swiss Institute of Technology (1975), a Master in Business Administration (1978), a PhD in Economics (1991), a Master in Artificial Intelligence from the SIT (1986) and a Master in Robotics also from the SIT (1987).

Maybe all that "stuff" explains my obstination at "finding" working solutions to "real problems" and not "guessing" hypothetical solutions about "dreamed problems".

3/3: as you are "no longer interested" I will not ask you to tell me where precisely in the documentation about building user interfaces I can find the solution to my problem...

And also, please, as you are "no longer interested", FORGET this discussion (which, I know) is followed by several skilled Mathematica programmers who try to solve the problem with myself.

Kindest regards.

Gianni

OK, Eric.

As per your request, I put hereunder what I want "with a menu inside"

I have set twice the same Plot function in both items of the menu for simplification.

Here is the menu:

simulatingSytemsMenu = ActionMenu[
  "Systems",
  {
   "SystemModelSimulate" :> 
    NotebookWrite[SelectedNotebook[], 
     Cell[{ToBoxes[Plot[Sin[x], {x, 0, 6 Pi}]]}, "Output"]],
   "SysteModelPlot" :> 
    NotebookWrite[SelectedNotebook[], 
     Cell[{ToBoxes[Plot[Sin[x], {x, 0, 6 Pi}]]}, "Output"]]
   }
  ]

And here is the Dataset with the menu being active:

Dataset[
  Association[
  "Modeling" -> modeling,

  "Simulating" -> Dataset[simulatingSytemsMenu],

  "Governing" -> governing
    ]
  ]

The reason I put a second Dataset inside "Simulating" is that if you do not put this second Dataset you get "three points" in the element instead of the menu (which is another mystery...)

Dataset[
  Association[
  "Modeling" -> modeling,

  "Simulating" -> simulatingSytemsMenu,

  "Governing" -> governing
    ]
  ]

Regards.

Gianni

Okay, have you tried nesting Datasets then?

"binarizing" -> 
 Dataset[
  Association["asserting" -> asserting, "infering" -> infering]]

OK, Eric.

You end up with the samething I arrived at with Grid,

The reason why I switched to Dataset are:

1/2: incomparable better visual presentation (especially when you put all that in a Palette supposed to be used by a non computer scientist;

2/2: the fantastic job they did at Wolfram with Dataset: only have a look at the Details and Options of the documentation...

Gianni

Yes, the whole data structure is nested Associations. I get that. Just don't wrap it in Dataset. Instead, build your own functions to operate on the nested associations to get the effects that you want.

Maybe that was too brief. My suggestion (just based on what you've told us so far--there may be better options if I knew more) is to use the nested Associations as the data representation of the menu hierarchy that you eventually want. Then you'd define functions that operate on that data to 1. produce the menus, 2. apply the layout you want.

OK, Eric.

The objective is not purely visual.

In my program (includig "asserting" and "infering" in "binarizing") each blue value of each Association will be an ActionMenu, which is the opposite of a purely visual interface (I already tried many solutions with Grid before trying Dataset).

The problem is not to think about what Dataset is trying to figure out but to find a solution to build the hierarchy.

Anyway, thank you for your suggestions Eric.

Regards.

Gianni

Dear Rohit,

The problem now is that Dataset does not seem to accept to add 2 more lines, like in the "binarising" element for example, and returns an Association instead of making the 2 more lines in the Dataset.

Dataset[
 {
  Association[
   "Workflow" ->
    Association[

     "modeling" ->
      Association[
       "imagining" -> imagining,
       "binarizing" -> Association[
         "asserting" -> asserting,
         "infering" -> infering
         ],
       "quantifying" -> quantifying
       ],

     "simulating" ->
      Association[
       "decomposing" -> decomposing,
       "transforming" -> transforming
       ],

     "governing" ->
      Association[
       "testing" -> testing,
       "observing" -> observing,
       "controlling" -> controlling,
       "solving" -> solving

       ]
     ]
   ]},
 ItemSize -> {Automatic},
 MaxItems -> {All, All, All, All, All}
 ]

Hi Gianni,

You can specify the maximum number of items to display at each level using the MaxItems option. Add

MaxItems -> {All, All, All}