Hello Rick ( posting to two forums !) I've got it working ( sort of ! ) with the following attributes added just above the property declaration for MenuItems
[EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Always)]
[Browsable(true)]
you have to close down VS for the changes to take effect though, before I added these attributes the property "MenuItems" was not visible in the prop sheet for the menu, now it is, and has a button (...) which adds the correct ( i.e. mine ) menuitem class BUT ! only for the menu pads, if you click on a pad and obey the "type here" prompt the standard items are still added, I'll keep at it though, my next step is to try your suggestion overriding the CollectionItemType
Regards,
Peter J. Kane
Pete