Great idea! Thank you.
Not only that it worked, but it led me to a simpler solution. If the valid returns .F. it will prevent the Save button to receive focus, and I always know the name of the save button, so I changed the menu procedure to the following:

_screen.activeform.CmdSave1.setfocus()
if _screen.activeform.activecontrol.name = 'CmdSave1'
  _screen.activeform.CmdSave1.click()
else
  =messagebox('Cannot save. The current value is invalid.')
endif

>How about calling the Valid method (if there is one) of the current control specifically from the menu option? You can check what's returned, and continue if you get back something other than .F. or 0.