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koda:en:documentation:create_menu

Creating a menu control

Creating a (main) Menu, ContextMenu or TrayMenu requires a special approach, so we provide a tutorial. It assumes that you have already created the form to which you will add a Menu control.

This tutorial begins by telling you how to create a Menu. The procedures for all three kinds of menus are the same except that a ContextMenu requires extra steps: attaching it to a control (or to the form). Near the end, this tutorial describes these extra steps.

First, click on the Menu icon on the controls palette:

Click anywhere on the form, that is anywhere there won't be a control. You will see a copy of the Menu icon. (The Menu control is a substitute control in Koda terminology.) The Object Inspector shows the properties of the Menu as a whole.

Now, double-click this copy of the icon (or click to the right of Items in Object Inspector). Menu Designer opens. The blue rectangle is a slot Koda has created for the first top-level menu item.

Right-click on this rectangle. You will see that there are three choices: Insert, Delete and Create Submenu. (At this point, Create Submenu does nothing.)

To create the first top-level item, choose Insert (or press Ins). The rectangle now says MenuItem1. You have created your first menu item. Its properties show in Object Inspector.

In Object Inspector, change the Caption to File and and the Name to mnuFile. You can change other properties of this menu item, but for now we will leave them as they are.

Right-click on File and choose Create Submenu. A gray button appears.

Click on the gray button. It turns blue. (The color shows that it is selected.)

Press the Ins key. MenuItem appears, both in the blue rectangle and in Object Inspector. Change the Caption to Open and the Name to mnuOpen.

Now that we know how to create sub-menu items, let's add a second top-level menu item, Help.

In Menu Designer, click in the dotted frame to the right of File. The rectangle changes to blue.

Press Ins. MenuItem1 appears to the right of File, and Object Inspector shows the Caption and Name as MenuItem1. Change them to Help and mnuHelp respectively.

Click on File, then on the gray rectangle below it.

Press Ins. MenuItem1 appears below Open.

In Object Inspector, change the Caption to Save and the Name to mnuSave.

Click on the gray rectangle below Save. Press Ins. In Object Inspector, change the Caption to - and delete the Name. You have just created a horizontal separator.

Click on the gray rectangle. Press Ins. Change the Caption to Exit and the Name to mnuExit.

The screen should now look like:

You may now wish to change the properties of a menu item. To do so, click on its Caption in Menu Designer. Help for each of the properties is here.

To exit Menu Designer, activate the Menu Designer (if it isn't already active), then simply close it.

We suggest that you give the menu you just created a distinctive name (in case you create another menu later). To do so, click on the Menu icon on the form. Object Inspector shows Menu1 TAMenu. Click on Name to change the name of the menu.

For a Context Menu to be active, it must be attached either to the form or to a real control. In our example, we attach it to Button1 (which we assume you created earlier).

Click on the Button1 control. Object Inspector shows Button1 TAButton.

In Object Inspector, click on Context Menu and choose the name of the context menu in the drop-down box:

Try running the form: on Koda's menu, click on Tools, then on Run Form. When you right-click on Button1, your context menu appears.

<color darkgreen>How do I insert a slot for a menu item before an existing menu item?</color>

Select the existing menu item, then press the Ins key.

For example, to insert an Edit menu item between File and Help, click on Help, then press the Ins key.

<color darkgreen>How do I move a menu item?</color>

Drag and drop it.

koda/en/documentation/create_menu.txt · Last modified: 2014/07/10 10:48 (external edit)