Menus

Menus present the whole range of an application's commands to the user, and often a subset of its preferences. When designing a new application, place common menu items in the same locations as they appear in other applications, as this makes it much easier for the user to learn.

In most applications, only primary windows should have a menubar. Utility windows and dialogs should be simple enough that their functions can be provided by controls such as buttons placed within the window.

Occasionally, however, a utility window or dialog is so complex that there would be too many such controls. In this case, you may use a menubar provided that:

  • the menus follow the same standard layout as described in Section 4.4 ― Standard Menus
  • the window does not include a dialog button area or any buttons that dismiss it, such as OK, Close or Cancel. Place these commands on the File menu or equivalent instead.
Guidelines
  • Label menu items with verbs for commands and adjectives for settings, according to the rules in Section 8.3.2 ― Capitalization.
  • Make a menu item insensitive when its command is unavailable. For example, the Edit ▸ Copy item, which issues the command to copy selected data to the clipboard, should not be active when there is no data selected.
  • Provide an access key for every menu item. You may use the same access key on different menus in your application, but avoid duplicating access keys on the same menu. Note that unlike other controls, once a menu is displayed, its access keys may be used by just typing the letter; it is not necessary to press the Alt key at the same time.
  • Design your menu structure to avoid more than one level of submenus. Deep menu hierarchies are harder to memorize and physically difficult to navigate.
  • Do not have menus with less than three items on them (except the standard Help menu, which has only two items by default). If you have a submenu with fewer than three items on it, move them into their parent menu. If you have a top-level menu with fewer than three items on it, find another suitable menu to add them to, or find suitable items from other menus to add to it.
Assistants The Menubar

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