>That explains the behavior I'm seeing: the only bars that exist prior to activation of the popup are the ones explicitly defined with the Define Bar command--in this case it is the Cascade and the separator. The help file actually says that in it's on obtuse way so I'm not surprised. Even though _screen.formcount returns a correct value, PrmBar() won't return the caption until the popup has been activated. But _screen..forms() should get me to the caption information that I need.
>
>Thanks

Yes, _screen.Forms should get you what you want

Once a menu pad may be 'addressed' (eg press ALT) all the skip for clauses of all bars in any menu-popup are re-evaluated, which is something I use to dynamically change a popup (eg change a popup and put an updated list of files in it)

The odd thing is that even ALT does not rebuild the _mwindow_ popup

Success with the menu struggle