C# 0 The Complete Reference

PART II

C h a p t e r   2 6 :  

U s e   S y s t e m . W i n d o w s . F o r m s  

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Adding a Menu

The main window of nearly all Windows applications includes a menu across the top. This 

is called the 

main menu.

 The main menu typically contains top-level categories, such as File, 

Edit, and Tools. From the main menu descend 

drop

-

down menus,

 which contain the actual 

selections associated with the categories. When a menu item is selected, a message is generated. 

Therefore, to process a menu selection, your program will assign an event handler to each 

menu item. Because menus are such a bedrock resource in Windows programming, many 

options are available and the topic of menus is quite large. Fortunately, it is easy to create a 

simple main menu.

Originally, there was only one way to create a main menu: by using the classes