Menus

In the software world, a list of commands that the user can select from is called a "menu". In Windows (and most other GUI systems), a "menu" is a small pop up window that displays a list of commands. The most common are displayed from the menu bar at the top of most windows in Windows:

Another common way of displaying a menu is by right-clicking on something to make a menu appear at the mouse pointer.

This is called a context menu and the commands on the menu are usually closely related to the thing you clicked on. You can't always bring up a context menu in this way - it depends on the program - but it's very common in Windows programs. For example, in the shell (the program that displays the desktop, taskbar, start menu, icons, folder windows, etc.) you can basically right-click on anything and get a context menu. It's a very standard way of performing actions on specific items.

Types Of Menu Items

The different types of menu items are displayed in the picture. Programmers can create their own types, but these are the standard Windows types.

About The TX81Z Programmer Menus

Speaking of options dialog boxes, you'll notice that the only one I have is the MIDI Setup dialog box. All the other options in the program are accessible directly in the menus. I did this for convenience. There aren't many options, and I figured they would be easier to find if they were in the menu.

One item that I use in the program that I didn't mention are the bold items in some of my menus. These are something I wrote myself. They don't do anything, they are just headers to display the organization of the program options.