Java: Menus

Types of menus

Think of a menu as a way to arrange buttons. There are several types.

Dropdown menus: JMenuBar, JMenu, and JMenuItem

A menu bar can be added to the top of any top-level containers, eg, JFrame, JApplet, or JDialog. Note that a menu bar can not be added to JPanel.

Dropdown menus have three parts:

  1. JMenuBar is positioned across the top of a container (eg a JFrame, JPanel, or JApplet). It's placed above the content pane, so does not use the container's layout. Add menus to the menubar.
  2. JMenu is a vertical list of menu items.
  3. JMenuItem and Separators are added to each menu. Menu items are usually strings, but can also have icons, checkboxes, or hierarchical submenus.

Menus and Menu Items are Buttons!

It is easy to see how menu items are buttons that appear when a menu appears. But the menu names in the menu bar are also buttons. When you press on these "buttons", they create a popup menu that you see as a dropdown menu.

Example - MenuDemo

The following program creates a simple menu. It doesn't do anything useful.

The main program

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// File   : menus/MenuDemo.java
// Purpose: Simple demo of building menus.  main program.
// Author : Fred Swartz
// Date   : 2000-04-26 (Rota), 2002-05-01 (Sicilia), 2005-02-08 (Pfalz)

import javax.swing.*;

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// MenuDemo
public class MenuDemo {
    //================================================================= main
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        JFrame win = new JFrame("MenuDemo");
        win.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        //... Create the GUI component (JPanel), which
        //    also contains a method to create a menubar.
        MenuDemoGUI content = new MenuDemoGUI();
        win.setContentPane(content);
        win.setJMenuBar(content.createMenubar());

        win.pack();
        win.setVisible(true);
    }
}

The GUI

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// File   : menus/MenuDemoGUI.java
// Purpose: GUI for menu demo.  Subclasses JPanel and defines a method
//          which generates menubar.
// Author : Fred Swartz
// Date   : 2000-04-26 (Rota), 2002-05-01 (Sicilia), 2005-02-08 (Pfalz)

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// MenuDemoGUI
class MenuDemoGUI extends JPanel {
    JTextArea m_editArea = new JTextArea(20, 50);

    //... Menuitems are buttons, so should be instance variables
    //    so they can be en-/disabled by various actions.
    JMenuItem m_openItem = new JMenuItem("Open"); // create new menu item
    JMenuItem m_quitItem = new JMenuItem("Quit"); // another menu item
    JMenuItem m_copyItem = new JMenuItem("Copy");
    JMenuItem m_pasteItem= new JMenuItem("Paste");

    //========================================================== constructor
    public MenuDemoGUI() {
        //... Add listeners to menu items
        m_openItem.addActionListener(new OpenAction());
        m_quitItem.addActionListener(new QuitAction());
        //... Copy and Paste don't have listeners yet, so disable them.
        m_copyItem.setEnabled(false);
        m_pasteItem.setEnabled(false);

        //... Add the single component.
        setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        add(m_editArea, BorderLayout.CENTER);
    }


    //==================================================== createMenubar
    // It's common to write a method that produces the menubar.
    // There are two reasons for this.
    // First, it gives a little better organization to the program
    //        and doesn't mix content pane and menu construction.
    // Second, it can be defined wherever you want, so that it can be
    //        put in a JPanel subclass (as here), or elsewhere.
    JMenuBar createMenubar() {
        //... Menubar, menus, menu items.  Use indentation to show structure.
        JMenuBar menubar = new JMenuBar();  // declare and create new menu bar
            JMenu fileMenu = new JMenu("File");// declare and create new menu
                menubar.add(fileMenu);        // add the menu to the menubar
                fileMenu.add(m_openItem); // add the menu item to the menu
                fileMenu.addSeparator();  // add separator line to menu
                fileMenu.add(m_quitItem);
            JMenu editMenu = new JMenu("Edit");
                menubar.add(editMenu);
                editMenu.add(m_copyItem);
                editMenu.add(m_pasteItem);
        return menubar;
    }


    ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// OpenAction
    class OpenAction implements ActionListener {
        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
            JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Sorry, can't open anything");
        }
    }

    ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// QuitAction
    class QuitAction implements ActionListener {
        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
            System.exit(0);  // terminate this program
        }
    }
}
Copyleft 2005 Fred Swartz MIT License