Hour 9. Adding Menus and Toolbars to Forms

The use of a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for interacting with and navigating programs is one of the greatest features of Windows. In spite of this, a fair number of Windows users still rely primarily on the keyboard, preferring to use a mouse only when absolutely necessary. Data-entry people in particular never take their hands off the keyboard. Many software companies receive support calls from angry customers because a commonly used function is accessible only by using a mouse. Menus are the easiest way for a user who relies on the keyboard to navigate your program. Visual Studio and C# make it easier than ever to create menus for your applications. In this hour, you'll learn how to build, manipulate, and program menus on a form. In addition, I'll teach you how to use the Toolbar control to create attractive and functional toolbars. Finally, you'll learn how to “finish off” a form with a status bar.

The highlights of this hour include the following:

• Adding, moving, and deleting menu items

• Creating checked menu items

• Programming menus

• Implementing context menus

• Assigning shortcut keys

• Creating toolbar items

• Defining toggle buttons and separators

• Creating a status bar