i cant understand why i cant receive WM_COMMAND messages.
i have used menu's and intercepted this message many many times
before. i have even compared the code in fasm from another project
and i cant see where the problem is.
i have even changed the value of the constants but that doesnt help.

here is my menu resouce

; CONSTANTS
RC_MENU_ID_MAINWND = 1

IDM_FILE_EXIT = 101

IDM_HELP_VERSION = 130
IDM_HELP_ABOUT = 131

section '.rsrc' resource data readable

directory RT_MENU, my_menus

resource my_menus, RC_MENU_ID_MAINWND,LANG_ENGLISH+SUBLANG_DEFAULT, mainwnd_menu

menu mainwnd_menu
menuitem "&File", 0, MFR_POPUP
menuitem "E&xit", IDM_FILE_EXIT, MFR_END
menuitem "Hel&p", 0, MFR_POPUP or MFR_END
menuitem "&Version...", IDM_HELP_VERSION, 0
menuitem "&About...", IDM_HELP_ABOUT, MFR_END

the menu is displayed properly, but when clicking on a menu item
nothing happens. here is my the relevant bit from my window proc
code

cmp [uMsg], .WM_COMMAND
je .WM_COMMAND

... other code
.WM_COMMAND:
invoke MessageBox, HWND_DESKTOP, "WM_COMMAND", NULL, MB_OK

the message box is there just to tell me i have got WM_COMMAND because
the code to check which item it was using wParam didnt work. so i added this to check. and the message box doesnt appear.

Could it be the period befored the WM_CO... in

cmp [uMsg], .WM_COMMAND

just read your reply, and tried it.
yes it was !
i can't believe i missed such a silly mistake,
i should take more breaks and come back to it fresh.

thankyou eoin.

My solution when something like that happens is to just copy and paste over some working code (if some exists). It saves searching for small typos.