Try these two chunks of lisp: (easy-menu-add-item lisp-interaction-mode-menubar-menu nil '("Hacking" ["test" self-insert-command t])) (easy-menu-add-item lisp-interaction-mode-menubar-menu '("Lisp") '("Hacking" ["test" self-insert-command t])) Now unless I misunderstand greatly, *one* of these should add a submenu `Hacking' with an item `test' to the Lisp submenu of the menubar visible in lisp-interaction-mode. (The docs are ambiguous regarding which of these actually works.) Instead, the first inserts a `Hacking' menu at the top level, and the second inserts a *submenu* of the Lisp menu, itself titled `Lisp', with a submenu of *that* called `Hacking'. Normally I'd debug it myself, easymenu calls straight down into a tangle of lisp in menubar.el that I got lost trying to untangle. Further, if this is a bug in easymenu/menubar.el, how can I add items to a menu in a semiportable fashion that works on XEmacsen with this bug? :( (*frustrated*) -- `Frankly I wonder whether you are not writing your posts from underneath a bridge.' --- Jason Clifford, to a particularly dense troll