GUI ScreenIO for
Windows|
GUI ScreenIO for
Windows |
All Windows applications should use menus. Menus are what make Windows applications easy to use; they present most, if not all, actions available to the user in a standardized and easily-understood form.
All types of menus are handled identically in your program; they simply return events that you evaluate and respond to in your program.
There are four types of menus:
The main menu is displayed beneath the title bar of your main window. Generally speaking, all Windows applications should have a main menu, even if it only offers the option to quit; File/Exit.
A Blind menu is used to define keyboard shortcut keys that do NOT appear on any menu. You might, for example, want to define some secret key combination that only you knew about.
Events defined in a blind menu are defined as 88-level items in your panel copybook but are never displayed on any menu that the user can see.
All menus MAY have function key equivalents (explained below), but blind menu items MUST have them.
Context menus appear when you press the right mouse button. Here's what a context menu looks like:
The Default Context menu appears when the user presses the right mouse button anywhere in your panel's client area, other than over a control with its own context menu; see the next section.
Control Context Menus are designed using these same procedures, but are invoked by right-clicking a control in the editor. Some controls do not allow context menus.
Most GUI ScreenIO controls automatically support the standard Windows context menu that offers editing functions; copy/paste/undo, etc.
You might wonder about those underlined letters on the menu selections.
The underlined character is used for the Windows keyboard interface. Pressing the Alt or F10 key causes the menu to become active. You can then select the item that you want by using the arrow keys or by simply typing the underlined letter of the item that you want.
You specify the significant letter of a menu item by putting an ampersand (&) character in front of it. At runtime, Windows will underline that letter and will automatically handle the keyboard shortcut.
To select the Open option without using the mouse, for example, you would tap the Alt (or F10) key, then tap "F" (for File), then tap "O" for Open. This is standard Windows behavior, and users often become accustomed to using them.
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