Prepared by : MR.

Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

This tutorial demonstrates how to build menus in VB programs. EXAMPLE 1: The end result of Example 1 will be a form containing a menu with two top-level items, File and Help. The File menu, shown below, will have the following level-two items below it: New, Open, Save, Save As, Print, and Exit. Note that separator bars appear above the Save, Print, and Exit items.

The Help menu contains just one level-two item below it, About.

To build a menu for use with your VB program, you use the Menu Editor, which appears as an icon in the toolbar of the VB IDE. It is the circled item in the screen shot below:

Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

Alternatively, you can invoke the Menu Editor from the Tools menu item as shown below:

To build the menu described above, perform the following steps 1. Start a new VB project and invoke the Menu Editor using either method shown above (click the Menu Editor toolbar icon or select the Menu Editor option from the Tools menu). The Menu Editor screen appears, as shown below:

Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

2. For "Caption", type &File (by placing the ampersand to the left of the "F", we establish "F" as an access key for the File item it enables the user to drop down the File menu by keying "Alt+F" on the keyboard in addition to clicking the "File" item with the mouse). For "Name", type mnuFile. Your Menu Editor screen should look like this:

Click the Next button. 3. Click the "right-arrow" button (shown circled below). A ellipsis (...) will appear as the next item in the menu list, indicating that this item is a level-two item (below "File").

Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

For "Caption", type &New; for "Name", type mnuNew, and for "Shortcut", select Ctrl+N. By specifying a shortcut, you allow the user to access the associated menu item by pressing that key combination. So here, you are providing the user three ways of invoking the "New" function: (1) clicking File, then clicking New on the menu; (2) keying Alt+F,N (because we set up an access key for "N" by placing an ampersand to left of "N" in "New"); or (3) keying Ctrl+N. At this point, your Menu Editor screen should look like this:

Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

Click the Next button. 4. For "Caption", type &Open; for "Name", type mnuOpen, and for "Shortcut", select Ctrl+O. Your Menu Editor screen should look like this:

Click the Next button. 5. For "Caption", type - (a hyphen), and for "Name", type mnuFileBar1. A single hyphen as the Caption for a menu item tells VB to create a separator bar at that location. Your Menu Editor screen should look like this:

Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

Click the Next button. 6. For "Caption", type &Save; for "Name", type mnuSave, and for "Shortcut", select Ctrl+S. Your Menu Editor screen should look like this:

Click the Next button. 7. For "Caption", type Save &As ..., and for "Name", type mnuSaveAs. Your Menu Editor screen should look like this:

Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

Click the Next button. 8. For "Caption", type -, and for "Name", type mnuFileBar2. Your Menu Editor screen should look like this:

Click the Next button.

Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

9. For "Caption", type &Print;for "Name", type mnuPrint; and for "Shortcut", select Ctrl+P. Your Menu Editor screen should look like this:

Click the Next button. 10. For "Caption", type -; and for "Name", type mnuFileBar3. Your Menu Editor screen should look like this:

Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

Click the Next button. 11. For "Caption", type E&xit, and for "Name", type mnuExit. Your Menu Editor screen should look like this:

Click the Next button. 12. Click the "left-arrow" button (shown circled below). The ellipsis (...) no longer appears, meaning we are back to the top-level items.

Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

For "Caption", type &Help; and for "Name", type mnuHelp. Your Menu Editor screen should look like this:

Click the Next button.

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Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

13. Click the "right-arrow" button to create a level-two item below "Help". For "Caption", type &About; and for "Name", type mnuAbout. Your Menu Editor screen should look like this:

14. At this point, we are done creating our menu entries, so click the OK button. That will dismiss the menu editor and return focus to the VB IDE. 15. Back in the VB IDE, your form will now have a menu, based on what you have set up in the Menu Editor. If you click on a top-level menu item (File for example), the level-two menu will drop down:

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Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

16. Click on the New menu item. The code window for the mnuFileNew_Click event opens, as shown below. Note: Click is the only event that a menu item can respond to.

In thePlace mnuFileNew_Click event, place the code you want to execute when the user clicks the New menu item. Since this is just a demo, we will place a simple MsgBox statement in the event procedure: MsgBox "Code for 'New' goes here.", vbInformation, "Menu Demo"

17. Code similar MsgBox statements for the Open, Save, Save As, and Print menu items: Private Sub mnuFileOpen_Click() MsgBox "Code for 'Open' goes here.", vbInformation, "Menu Demo" End Sub Private Sub mnuFileSave_Click() MsgBox "Code for 'Save' goes here.", vbInformation, "Menu Demo" End Sub Private Sub mnuFileSaveAs_Click() MsgBox "Code for 'Save As' goes here.", vbInformation, "Menu Demo" End Sub Private Sub mnuFilePrint_Click() MsgBox "Code for 'Print' goes here.", vbInformation, "Menu Demo" End Sub 18. For the Exit menu item Click event, code the statement Unload Me. Private Sub mnuFileExit_Click() Unload Me End Sub

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Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

19. For the About menu item Click event, code as shown below: Private Sub mnuHelpAbout_Click() MsgBox "Menu Demo" & vbCrLf _ & "Copyright " & Chr$(169) & " 2004 thevbprogrammer.com", , _ "About" End Sub 20. Run the program. Note how the code executes when you click on the various menu items. Also test the use of the access keys (e.g., Alt+F, N) and shortcut keys (e.g., Ctrl-O).

21. Save the program and exit VB. .

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Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

EXAMPLE 2: This example shows you how to create a popup menu (sometimes called a context menu or a right-click menu). 1. Start a new VB project and place a label on the form. Name the label lblTestText. Set the Caption to Test Text.

2. Open the Menu Editor, and create a top-level item with a Caption value of PopUpFormat and the Name mnuPopuUpFormat. Also importantly uncheck theVisible checkbox (see the circled item below). In order for a menu to be a pop-up menu, it must be invisible.

3. Create the following level-two menu items below the PopUpFormat top-level menu. (When creating these level-two items, keep the Visible box checked.)

Caption Bold Italic Underline - (hyphen)

Name mnuBold mnuItalic mnuUnderline mnuFormatSep

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Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Cancel

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

mnuCancel

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

When done, your Menu Editor should look like this:

4. Click OK to save your changes. Note: When you return to the IDE, you will NOT see this menu on the form (remember it's a pop-up menu, and it will only be visible when invoked through code). 5. Code the lblTestText_MouseDown event as shown below. Note that the Button parameter is tested for vbRightButton as is conventional, we only want to pop up the menu if the user right-clicks on the label. If the user clicks the right mouse button, the PopupMenu statement is executed. It is this statement that makes the pop-up menu appear.

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Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

Private Sub lblTestText_MouseDown(Button As Integer, _ Shift As Integer, _ X As Single, _ Y As Single) If Button = vbRightButton Then PopupMenu mnuPopUpFormat, vbPopupMenuRightButton End If End Sub

The full syntax for the PopupMenu method, from MSDN, is: object.PopupMenu menuname, flags, x, y, boldcommand The PopupMenu method syntax has these parts:

5. Code the mnuBold_Click event as shown below. Note that the Checked property of the menu item is used. When set to True, this causes a checkmark to appear to the left of the menu item. The Checked property is typically used as a toggle. Private Sub mnuBold_Click() If mnuBold.Checked Then lblTestText.FontBold = False mnuBold.Checked = False Else lblTestText.FontBold = True mnuBold.Checked = True End If End Sub 6. Code the mnuItalic_Click and mnuUnderline_Click events in a similar fashion as shown below. Private Sub mnuItalic_Click() If mnuItalic.Checked Then lblTestText.FontItalic = False mnuItalic.Checked = False Else lblTestText.FontItalic = True

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Prepared by : MR. Othman A Alasmer

Title of paper : Menu Editor 2012 - 2013

Web: student3013.blogspot.com

mnuItalic.Checked = True End If End Sub Private Sub mnuUnderline_Click() If mnuUnderline.Checked Then lblTestText.FontUnderline = False mnuUnderline.Checked = False Else lblTestText.FontUnderline = True mnuUnderline.Checked = True End If End Sub 7. Run the program and check out the various options you have coded.

8. Save the program and exit VB. Download the project files for this example here.

NOTES: If desired, you can have both a "regular" menu and as many pop-up menus as you want on the same form. Any top-level menu that has its Visible box checked in the Menu Editor will appear at the top of the form in the menu bar you create. Any top-level menu that has its Visible box unchecked in the Menu Editor will NOT appear at the top of the form in the menu bar, but can be used as a pop-up menu invoked with the Popup Menu method.

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