Teach Yourself Borland C++ in 14 Days - portal

246 Day 7
NOTE
Creating a Menu by Hand
Although there are easier ways to create a File menu, you will create your first menu by hand.
The Menu Designer always has a blank menu item that acts as a placeholder for any new menu
items you create. When you first start the Menu Designer, the blank item is selected:
1. Change the Name property to FileMenu.
2. Click on the Caption property in the Object Inspector, type &File, and press Enter.
The ampersand (&) is used to create the underlined character for a
menu item. The underlined character is the accelerator the user can
type, in combination with the Alt key, to navigate a menu using the
keyboard. You can put ampersands anywhere in the menu item’s text.
For instance, the customary text string for the Exit menu item is E&xit.
All you have to do is provide the ampersands where appropriate and
Windows will take it from there.
At this point, several things happen. First, the File menu shows up in the Menu Designer.
It also shows on the main form behind the Menu Designer. (Remember when we added the
Bevel component to the ScratchPad main form to use as a spacer? Now you can see why. The
bevel provides visual distinction between the menu and the speedbar.) The other thing that
happens is that a new, blank placeholder is added below the File menu you just created, plus
a new, pop-up placeholder is created to the right of the File menu. The Object Inspector is
displaying a blank MenuItem component, waiting for you to enter the Caption and Name
property values. Figure 7.19 shows the Menu Designer as it appears at this point.
Figure 7.19.
The Menu Designer
and Object Inspector
after the File menu is
created.