Lecture 5: Creating Menus (1)

Introduction
 So far, we have discussed several Features expected of Applications:
 ToolBars with ToolBar Buttons
 Using multiple Forms and Dialog Boxes
 In Lectures 5 - 6, we will discuss the expected Menu capability:
 Adding Menus to our VB .NET projects
 Adding Submenus to our Project’s Menus
 Creating Context Menus
 Along the way, we will discuss the MenuStrip Control, which:
 Allows you to add Menus, Menu Items, and SubMenu Items…
 Contains a built in Menu Editor which allows you to:
 Add, Change, and Delete Menu Items.
 The Menus you create will also support related features:
 Access Keys and Shortcut Keys
 Check Marks
 Access Keys and Shortcut Keys
 Once created, your menus can support keyboard operation:
 In addition to normal mouse-based opening, closing, and activation.

 Access Keys:
 Allow users to open a menu using the <Alt> key + a letter.
 Example: <Alt x> (2 keys pressed simultaneously)
 Once activated, the opened Menu will appear on the screen;
 Opened Menus can be navigated easily, as usual:
 Using the Arrow keys or the Mouse.

 Shortcut Keys:
 Which allow users to directly invoke a menu item
 Often using a Function Key (e.g., F3), or the <Ctrl> key + a letter.
 Example: <Ctrl x> (2 keys pressed simultaneously).
 Once invoked by the user, Menu-driven effects take place normally.
 Check Marks
 Shown below is an example Project with a MenuStrip Control:

 This instance consists of several components:

 Three Menus, various Menu Items (not all shown), and a SubMenu

 A CheckMark:
 Provides True/False selection of the Item
 Selection is not exclusive (independent of other Checkmarked items)

 A Separator:
 provides logical separation for groups of items.
 The MenuStrip Control
 To demonstrate, let’s make a simple Menu-based Editing project…
Adding Menu Items and SubMenus
Adding Toolbars (1):
Toolbars (2): Setting tspMain
Toolbars (3): Setting tspFormatting
 Adding TextBoxes
 Now, finish the GUI by adding two TextBoxes:

 Next, we will add code to make the Menus work…

Coding the Menus (1)
Coding the Menus (2)
Coding the Menus (3)
 Conclusion (Cont. in Lecture 6)
 In this Lecture, we discussed the MenuStrip Control,
which:
 Allows you to add Menus, Menu Items, and SubMenu Items…
 Including the addition of Access Keys and Shortcut Keys
 As well as Check Marks
 We also used the Menu Editor :
 Which allowed us to Add, Change, and Delete Menu Items.

 In Lecture 6, we continue our discussion of Menus, by :

 Finishing our QuickMenu Project
 Coding our ToolStrips
 Testing Menu Functions
 Discussing Context Menus:
 A second type of ‘drop-down’ menu also supported by VB .NET
 The ContextMenuStrip Control