Hi TommyB,
I believe the short answer is "Correct!".
How I understand it:
The displayed vaues are not associated with the data coming from a "Menu Ring". On the other hand, an enum does!
Quick experiment:
1) Create a new VI and drop a Menu Ring and a Enum on the front panel.
2) Customize both, giving them a short list to start (1.e. a,b,c) and save them both as typedefs.
3) Back in your new VI pop-up on both controls and create indicators.
4) Goto the wiring tool and do a "ctrl-h" (show help) and then position the wiring tool over the wire and observe the help window.
You will see that the enum wire knows about the strings assigned to the numeric values. This is not the case with a Menu Ring.
Additional experiment:
5) Customize both of you
r controls created earlier and do a "save as..." with the "save without updating callers" option set, after making small changes to the list.
6) Drop these new typedef'd controls on the VI FP and try wiring them up. The Menu Ring will not complain. The Enums will (provided they are different). I will take advantage of this fact in my code by using enums to ensure I do not miss changing a enum value in a sub-VI 7 layers deep in another VI. I would rather get a broken arrow at development time than a peculiar failure intermitantly.
So...
Menu Rings are just fancy numerics, Enums are probably what you want.
I hope this helps,
Ben