MenuStrip Control
The MenuStrip class is the foundation of menus functionality in
Windows Forms. If you have worked with menus in .NET 1.0 and 2.0, you must be
familiar with the MainMenu control. In .NET 3.5 and 4.0, the MainMenu control
is replaced with the MenuStrip control.
Creating a MenuStrip
We
can create a MenuStrip control using a Forms designer at design-time or using
the MenuStrip class in code at run-time or dynamically.
To
create a MenuStrip control at design-time, you simply drag and drop a MenuStrip
control from Toolbox to a Form in Visual Studio. After you drag and drop a MenuStrip
on a Form, the MenuStrip1 is added to the Form and looks like Figure 1. Once a MenuStrip
is on the Form, you can add menu items and set its properties and events.
Figure 1
Creating a MenuStrip control at run-time is merely a work of
creating an instance of MenuStrip class, set its properties and adds MenuStrip
class to the Form controls.
First step to create a dynamic MenuStrip is to create an
instance of MenuStrip class. The following code snippet creates a MenuStrip
control object.
C# Code:
MenuStrip MainMenu = new MenuStrip();
VB.NET Code:
Dim MainMenu As New MenuStrip()
In the next step, you may set properties of a MenuStrip
control. The following code snippet sets background color, foreground color,
Text, Name, and Font properties of a MenuStrip.
C# Code:
MainMenu.BackColor = Color.OrangeRed;
MainMenu.ForeColor = Color.Black;
MainMenu.Text = "File
Menu";
MainMenu.Font = new Font("Georgia",
16);
VB.NET Code:
MainMenu.BackColor = Color.OrangeRed
MainMenu.ForeColor = Color.Black
MainMenu.Text = "File
Menu"
MainMenu.Font = New Font("Georgia",
16)
Once the MenuStrip
control is ready with its properties, the next step is to add the MenuStrip to
a Form. To do so, first we set MainMenuStrip property and then use Form.Controls.Add
method that adds MenuStrip control to the Form controls and displays on the
Form based on the location and size of the control. The following code snippet
adds a MenuStrip control to the current Form.
C# Code:
this.MainMenuStrip = MainMenu;
Controls.Add(MainMenu);
VB.NET Code:
Me.MainMenuStrip = MainMenu
Controls.Add(MainMenu)
Setting MenuStrip
Properties
After you place a MenuStrip control on a Form, the next step is to
set properties.
The easiest way to set properties is from the Properties Window.
You can open Properties window by pressing F4 or right click on a control and
select Properties menu item. The Properties window looks like Figure 2.
Figure 2
Name
Name property represents a unique name of a MenuStrip
control. It is used to access the control in the code. The following code
snippet sets and gets the name and text of a MenuStrip control.
C# Code:
MainMenu.Name = "MainMenu";
VB.NET Code:
MainMenu.Name = "MailMenu"
Positioning a
MenuStrip
The Dock property is used to set the position of a
MenuStrip. It is of type DockStyle that can have values Top, Bottom, Left,
Right, and Fill. The following code snippet sets Location, Width, and Height
properties of a MenuStrip control.
C# Code:
MainMenu.Dock = DockStyle.Left;
VB.NET Code:
MainMenu.Dock = DockStyle.Left
Font
Font property represents the font of text of a MenuStrip
control. If you click on the Font property in Properties window, you will see
Font name, size and other font options. The following code snippet sets Font
property at run-time.
C# Code:
MainMenu.Font = new Font("Georgia",
16);
VB.NET Code:
MainMenu.Font = new Font("Georgia",
16)
Background
and Foreground
BackColor and ForeColor properties are used to set background and
foreground color of a MenuStrip respectively. If you click on these properties
in Properties window, the Color Dialog pops up.
Alternatively, you can set background and foreground colors at
run-time. The following code snippet sets BackColor and ForeColor properties.
C# Code:
MainMenu.BackColor = Color.OrangeRed;
MainMenu.ForeColor = Color.Black;
VB.NET Code:
MainMenu.BackColor = Color.OrangeRed
MainMenu.ForeColor = Color.Black
The new MenuStrip with background and foreground
looks like Figure 3.
Figure 3
MenuStrip
Items
A Menu control is nothing without menu items. The Items
property is used to add and work with items in a MenuStrip. We can add items to
a MenuStrip at design-time from Properties Window by clicking on Items
Collection as you can see in Figure 4.
Figure 4
When you click on the Collections, the String Collection
Editor window will pop up where you can type strings. Each line added to this
collection will become a MenuStrip item. I add four items as you can see from
Figure 5.
Figure 5
A ToolStripMenuItem represents a menu items. The following
code snippet creates a menu item and sets its properties.
C# Code:
// Create a Menu Item
ToolStripMenuItem FileMenu = new ToolStripMenuItem("File");
FileMenu.BackColor = Color.OrangeRed;
FileMenu.ForeColor = Color.Black;
FileMenu.Text = "File
Menu";
FileMenu.Font = new Font("Georgia",
16);
FileMenu.TextAlign = ContentAlignment.BottomRight;
FileMenu.ToolTipText = "Click
Me";
VB.NET Code:
Dim FileMenu As New ToolStripMenuItem("File")
FileMenu.BackColor = Color.OrangeRed
FileMenu.ForeColor = Color.Black
FileMenu.Text = "File
Menu"
FileMenu.Font = New Font("Georgia",
16)
FileMenu.TextAlign = ContentAlignment.BottomRight
FileMenu.TextDirection = ToolStripTextDirection.Vertical90
FileMenu.ToolTipText = "Click
Me"
Once a menu item is
created, we can add it to the main menu by using MenuStrip.Items.Add method.
The following code snippet adds FileMenu item to the MainMenu.
C# Code:
MainMenu.Items.Add(FileMenu);
VB.NET Code:
MainMenu.Items.Add(FileMenu)
Adding Menu Item Click Event Handler
The main purpose of a
menu item is to add a click event handler and write code that we need to
execute on the menu item click event handler. For example, on File >> New
menu item click event handler, we may want to create a new file.
To add an event
handler, you go to Events window and double click on Click and other as you can
see in Figure 6.
Figure 6
We can also define and
implement an event handler dynamically. The following code snippet defines and
implements these events and their respective event handlers.
C# Code:
FileMenu.Click += new
System.EventHandler(this.FileMenuItemClick);
private void FileMenuItemClick(object sender, EventArgs
e)
{
MessageBox.Show("File
menu item clicked");
}
VB.NET Code:
Dim FileMenuItem As New ToolStripMenuItem("File", Nothing,
_
New EventHandler(AddressOf FileMenuItemClick))
Private Sub FileMenuItemClick
(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e
As EventArgs)
MessageBox.Show("File
menu item clicked!")
End Sub
Setting Image
a Menu Item Background
The BackgroundImage property is used to set an image as background
of a menu item. The BackgroundImageLayout is used to set the layout of the
image. The following code snippet sets an image as background of a menu item.
C# Code:
FileMenu.BackgroundImage = Image.FromFile("C:\Images\Garden.jpg");
FileMenu.BackgroundImageLayout = ImageLayout.Tile;
VB.NET Code:
FileMenu.BackgroundImage = Image.FromFile("C:\Images\Garden.jpg")
FileMenu.BackgroundImageLayout = ImageLayout.Tile
Vertical Text
in Menu Items
By default, the text of a menu is horizontal. You can change the
direction of menu items by setting TextDirection property that is a type of
ToolStrupTextDirection. The following code snippet sets the text direction of a
menu item to vertical.
C# Code:
FileMenu.TextDirection = ToolStripTextDirection.Vertical90;
VB.NET Code:
FileMenu.TextDirection = ToolStripTextDirection.Vertical90
Set Tooltip
of a Menu Item
The ToolTipText property is used to set the tooltip of a menu
items.
C# Code:
FileMenu.ToolTipText = "Click
Me";
VB.NET Code:
FileMenu.ToolTipText = "Click
Me"
Menu Grip
By default, menus do not have a grip but we can show a grip by
setting GripStyle property to visible. The following code snippet makes a menu
grip visible.
C# Code:
MainMenu.GripStyle = ToolStripGripStyle.Visible;
VB.NET Code:
MainMenu.GripStyle = ToolStripGripStyle.Visible
Summary
In this article, we discussed discuss how to create menus using
the MenuStrip control. First we discussed how to create menus at design-time
and run-time. After that we saw, how to set menus properties and click event
handlers.