Tear off menu by dragging caption

I'm not sure whether this should be posted here or as a bug report.

I have a top-level menu that pops up from a minimal toolbar containing just an imitation 'Start' button and a time/date display. That top-level menu remains incorrigibly 'torn off', and the "Tear off menu by dragging caption" item Menu Appearance > General in the TLB Settings appears to have no effect in preventing menus from getting torn off.

Prior to my upgrading my Win7 installation to Win8, that was just a minor annoyance, but now, in Win8 each torn-off menu doesn't cancel when the mouse pointer goes off it or indeed one clicks on the desktop or another program's window. The only way to close torn-off top level menu is to click on the imitation Start button on the toolbar or to click on the torn-off menu to bring it into focus, and then to press Esc. Torn off Sub-menus can be closed only by clicking on them and then pressing Esc.

This is tiresome enough that if I cannot resolve this issue I shall do my best to find an alternative launchbar program that keeps its menus together properly and doesn't allow tearing off (at least, if one has chosen for it to function thus).

I am aware of the TLB setting "Auto close menu on mouse leave", and I have that checked, but that is not happening for torn-off menus, though it does happen for menus that haven't got torn off.

So, the question is, whether there is some measure I can take to rectify this situation and stop it recurring, or whether this is really is a bug that needs to be addressed.

Yes, close on mouse leave is not working for torn off menus - this is by design. I thought this option must be disabled for the torn off menus.

I think it is possible to enable the "close on mouse leave" feature for the torn off menus, if you need it. I see the two ways for this feature:

1. Add the special option for torn off menus. I still thinking there some other "tear off" menus applications where "close on mouse leave" can't be used.

2. The torn off menus have the option "Auto-Close menu". This option closes menu when you run something from the torn off menu. I think this option describes your use-case, so maybe the best way - expand this option and enable "close on mouse leave" together with this option.

What do you think?

Thank you, Yuri. That's what I really like to see - the issue immediately recognised and an intent to resolve it.

Actually, the real issue for me is to restore the torn-off menus to non-torn-off state, and to prevent any future tearing off, as the 'drag the caption to tear off' option doesn't work on my system, so that it is permanently turned on, while I want it very definitely 'off'.

So, how can I restore the torn-off menus to non-torn-off state? That would be the big first step for me. And then I'd need the option to disable tearing off to actually work! --Many thanks.

So, how can I restore the torn-off menus to non-torn-off state? That would be the big first step for me.

Open menu and press CTRL+T or right-click in the menu and remove the check mark from the "Tear Off Menu" menu item.

And then I'd need the option to disable tearing off to actually work!

You have to turn off the option:
TLB Settings->Menu->General->Tear Off menu by dragging caption

Eureka! Amazing I didn't think to try this before. I just had a look in the tlbdata.xml file in the top and second level folders, and found tear-off entries, whose values I set to 0. I then logged off and on again, and TLB now works perfectly, and I can no longer tear off the menus.

I did this just before getting your extremely prompt 'non-hack' solution. Many thanks anyway, Yuri. The important thing is that it's all okay now and I know what to do in future if anything goes amiss in that way again. TLB rules - okay!

If you have menu captions on you could also enable the "tear off" caption button and click that to toggle. You could also edit a skin to put the "tear off" caption button on the menu rather than the caption - this way obviously you won't need to show the caption just to access the button. It's a skin edit yes but TLB makes it easy to it.

- Paul