Defining the appearance of menu items

You can use the Menu painter to change the appearance and
behavior of your menu and menu items by choosing different settings
in the tabbed pages in the Properties view.

For a list of all menu item properties, see Objects
and Controls
.

All of these properties are discussed in the sections that
follow.

Setting General
properties

When you select a menu item and then select the General tab
page in the Properties view, you can set a variety of general properties
for the selected menu item.

Unlocking menu item names

For information, see “How menu items
are named”.

Creating MicroHelp and tags

You can create MicroHelp Text and a tag for a menu item. MicroHelp
is a brief text description of the menu item that displays on the
status bar at the bottom of a Multiple Document Interface (MDI)
application window. You can quickly add MicroHelp text to any menu
item in your application. A tag is a text string that you can associate
with an object and use in any way you want.

To create MicroHelp text:

1. Select the General tab in the Properties view.

2. Select the menu item for which you want to create MicroHelp.

3. Enter the MicroHelp text in the MicroHelp edit control.

For information about defining MicroHelp text
and tag properties, see the chapter on building MDI applications
in Application Techniques
.

Setting the appearance
of a menu item

On the General tab page in the Properties view, you can also
specify how a menu item appears during execution.

The settings you specify here determine how the menu items
display by default. You can change the values of the properties
in scripts during execution.

Assigning
accelerator and shortcut keys

Every menu item should have an accelerator key,
also called a mnemonic access key, which allows users to select
the item from the keyboard by pressing ALT+key
when
the menu is displayed. Accelerator keys display with an underline
in the menu item text.

You can also define shortcut keys,
which are combinations of keys that a user can press to select a
menu item anytime.

For example, in the following menu all menu items have accelerator
keys (New’s accelerator key is N, Open’s is O,
and so on). New, Open, Close, and Print each have shortcut keys
(the CTRL key in combination with another key or keys).

You should adopt conventions for using accelerator and shortcut
keys in your applications. All menu items should have accelerator
keys, and commonly used menu items should have shortcut keys.

If you specify the same shortcut for more than one MenuItem,
the command that occurs later in the menu hierarchy is executed.

To assign an accelerator key:

1. Type an ampersand (&) before the
   letter in the menu item text that you want to designate as the accelerator
   key.

   For example, &File designates the F in File as an
   accelerator key and Ma&ximize designates the x in Maximize
   as an accelerator key.

To assign a shortcut key:

1. Select the menu item you want to assign
   a shortcut key to.

2. Select the General tab on the property sheet.

3. Select a key from the Key dropdown listbox.

   

4. Select Shortcut Alt, Shortcut Ctrl, and/or
   Shortcut Shift to create a key combination.

   PowerBuilder displays the shortcut key next to the menu item
   name.

Setting toolbar and picture properties

In an MDI application you can associate a menu item with a
button on a toolbar by performing two steps:

• Associate the menu
  item with a toolbar button
• Associate the toolbar button with a picture

You can specify whether the toolbar button will be visible
on the toolbar, its placement on the toolbar, and the pictures it
will use. You can also specify different pictures for the toolbar
button up and down states.

To associate a menu item with a toolbar button
and picture:

1. Select the Toolbar tab on the Menu painter property
   sheet.

   

2. Enter the following information:

   In this box	Do this
   ToolBarItemText	Enter the descriptive text for the toolbar button. This text displays in the toolbar item when the application is running if the display text option is on for toolbars
   ToolBarItemName	Enter the name of the picture you want to associate with the toolbar button’s normal state by selecting a stock picture or using the Browse button to associate a cursor, bitmap, or icon file
   ToolBarItemDownName	Enter the name of the picture you want to associate with the toolbar button’s normal state by selecting a stock picture or using the Browse button to associate a cursor, bitmap, or icon file
   ToolBarItemVisible	If you want the toolbar button to be visible, select the checkbox
   ToolBarItemDown	If you want the toolbar button to appear pressed, select the checkbox
   ToolBarItemSpace	Specify the amount of space you want before the button in the toolbar
   ToolBarItemOrder	Specify the order for the button in the toolbar by entering a number. The default is to display buttons in the same order as in the menu
   ToolBarItemBarIndex	Specify the number of the toolbar in which you want the toolbar button to appear
   ObjectType	Select Menu or MenuCascade to specify the type of menu item the toolbar button is associated with
   Columns	(This property only displays if you choose MenuCascade in the ObjectType dropdown listbox) Indicate the number of columns you want to display in the cascading toolbar
   Drop Down	(This property only displays if you choose MenuCascade in the ObjectType dropdown listbox) If you want the button to be a DropDown toolbar button, select the checkbox

For information about defining toolbars and
picture properties, see the chapter on building MDI applications
in Application Techniques
.

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