Menu Bar

The area near the top of a window, below the title bar and above the rest of the window, that contains routing choices that display pull-down menus. Typically, a menu-bar choice is a single word.

[ Guidelines | Essential Related Topics | Supplemental Related Topics ]

When To Use

Provide a menu bar when a window will provide more than six action choices or routing choices. Also provide a menu bar if you provide the functions available in the File, Edit or View menus.

Guidelines

	If you provide a menu bar, place on it only routing choices that leads to pull-down menus.
	If a menu bar is not provided in a window displaying a view of an object, place all actions and routing choices on push buttons in that window, except those choices that appear on the system menu.
	Allow a user to turn the display of the menu bar on and off.
	Provide the following choices on the menu bar, in the relative order shown, if you provide any of the choices listed in their associated menus: File Edit View Application specific menu items Windows Help
	If you provide any choices that do not logically fir within any of the predefined means, such as the Edit menu or the View menu, provide application specific menu bar choices that lead to menus that logically group your application-specific choices. (see Menu Design)
	If a menu-bar choice can never be selected by a particular user, do not display it on the menu bar.
	When a user selects a choice on a menu bar, display the pull-down menu associated with the choice.
	When a window contains push buttons that affect the entire window and the window contains a menu bar, place choices in the pull-down menus that provide function equivalent to the push button functions in that window.
	Use graphics, text, or both for each choice in a menu bar, as appropriate to the application. For Example, choices on a menu bar for a drawing product could be graphical rather than textual.
	Capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a name of a choice or on a menu bar unless the name contains an abbreviation, acronym, or proper noun that should be capitalized.
	Provide the predefined mnemonic assignments for the standard menu bar choices.

Essential Related Topics

Choice
Control
Menu (Control)
Mnemonic
Pull-Down Menu
Routing (Choice Type)

Supplemental Related Topics

Edit Menu
File Menu
Help Menu
Menu Design
Push Button
System Menu
View Menu
Window
Windows Menu

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