To create a new menu, open a new Menu designer or Popup Menu designer window, type the name of your first item, and press Enter.

The cursor automatically drops a level and opens an editing block for the next item. Use the same sequence for entering additional items.

To edit items above or below the current item, use your Up and Down arrow keys. Tab and Shift+Tab lets you navigate left and right through your structure.

To add a submenu, select the item that will be the entry point to your submenu and press Tab. A new editing block appears to the right of the current item.

To add a new top-level item in a pulldown menu, select the rightmost existing top-level item and press Tab.

Note that other pulldown and submenus are hidden while you create new ones. You can return to view or edit the others any time by selecting the root item for each.

To insert a top-level or submenu root item in front of an existing one, choose an item, then choose Menu|Insert Menu (Ctrl+M or Alt+MM) from the main dBASE Plus menu.

To delete an item, select the item and choose Menu|Delete Current (Ctrl+U or Alt+MU) from the main dBASE Plus menu. Be aware, however, that deleting a top-level or submenu root item also removes all items and submenus below the item you are deleting.

You can also perform structural changes by dragging items and entire root/submenu systems from one location to another within your menus. To move items, just click, hold, drag, and release onto another item. Note that if you drag a held item onto another top-level or submenu entry point, the pulldown or submenu open up to allow you to relocate your dragged item.

To see your menus in action, you have to attach your menus to a form (as instructed earlier in this chapter), and save and close the designer that contains the menu you want to test. You can reopen saved menus for editing or redesign from the Forms page in the Navigator. As noted earlier, pulldown menus carry the extension .MNU, and popups are saved as .POP files.