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Menus display the range of commands available for the user to execute. Windows users are accustomed to standard menus and commands, which appear in many different applications. If you use these same menus, new users may learn your application more easily, and the sense of familiarity will increase all users' confidence and productivity levels.

When designing additional, custom menus and commands, bear in mind that the model for GUI design is the ' Noun-Verb.' principle. Apple fancifully refers to this as 'Hey you'do this!'

In the 'Noun-Verb' model, the user points to something'for example, an on-screen object such as text. This is the noun. The model assumes that the next command action the user chooses will tell the application what to do to the noun. The action is the verb. If you word your menus and commands in a way that the menu - command is a short 'do this' sentence'such as:

“Insert Customer”

“View ? Transaction”

“List Activity”

“Select Current Group”

'your menus will gain added clarity.

This guideline should not severely limit you. There are times when it is most appropriate to use a single menu item to initiate complicated instructions, such as bringing up a dialog box with many different preferences and options for the user to set. When doing so, add an ellipsis (…) following the last word of the menu command.

The following discusses the standard menu implementations recommended by Microsoft:

File Menu

Many database applications do not naturally lend themselves toward allowing the user to open and close external document files. In the simplest case, a database or databases open automatically with the application, and user editing is limited to editing individual rows. Clarion programmers may wish to limit commands on the file menu to those that affect the global operation of the application'Printer Setup and Exit, in the most extreme case. At the very minimum, your Clarion applications should have a File Exit command: this is how users expect a Windows application to allow them to quit the program.

The Print command can be an interesting one in a database application. Many times, a database application allows the user only to print pre-formatted reports.

Other 'docu-centric' Windows applications may simply go ahead and print the current document in its entirety'but a database application can hardly be expected to print a 30,000 record database as the default print preference.

One solution some popular applications use is to drop the print command entirely and provide a separate Report menu. This is a good solution for an application with a limited number of reports. Alternatively, an application with a limited number of reports might also use a cascading menu, attached to the File Print command.

For an application with a large number of pre-formatted reports, one solution might be to present a list box in a dialog window when the user selects the File Print command.

Edit Menu

The Edit menu usually provides commands for reversing the user's last action, plus the clipboard editing commands: cut, copy and paste.

Clearly, database programs present special problems for Undo. In general, Windows applications disable the Undo command after a file operation, such as when a File Save command saves an edited document to disk. A database application may easily present a situation in which it writes data to disk every few seconds when, for example, a user enters a group of new records.

Clarion automatically enables clipboard support for Cut, Copy and Paste when in an edit box. The default accelerator keys for these actions are CTRL+X, CTRL+C and CTRL+V respectively.

View Menu

Microsoft defines the View menu as optional, and states that it includes commands for changing how the program presents the data to the user, without changing any of the data. As such, it presents a natural means for a database application to allow different browse options on a single database.

The View menu may also present options for displaying various interface elements such as toolbars, status bars, and other special controls that are part of the application window. There are no specific command text suggestions for the View menu.

Window Menu

This is an optional menu. If you choose to support the Multiple Document Interface (MDI) in your application, the Window menu allows the user to manipulate entire child windows.

The commands for this menu are flexible. Common commands include:

The Window menu may also contain a numbered list of up to nine open child windows. A number should precede each child window name. When the user chooses a window from the list, the window should receive the focus.

Help Menu

The Help menu provides the user with access to the Windows Help system. It should always be the last menu on the right. The Help menu usually contains the following commands:

Accelerator Keys

A number of commands have gained standard accelerator (or alert, or hot) keys. When creating your application, should you use any of the following commands, we recommend you use the following keys:

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