All about Menus on Windows PCs

All about Menus on Windows PCs

Contents of this page

What is a Menu?

Where do Menus live?

How do you use a Menu?

How do you get out of a menu?

What is a Menu?

A "Menu" doesn't mean your computer will bring you food! But it does mean you get to select from a menu of choices. Menus are one way you to tell the computer what you want it to do.

Where do Menus live?

On a Windows computers, menus live across the top of each application or directory window, like this:

What's all this, then?

Here is an explanation of what you see above:

Notes:

• The label for some menus have names and some have icons (or pictures). (In the example above, the icon (or picture) to the left of the text "My Computer" in the title bar of this window is also a menu.)
• Cascading menus have been set up to keep menus shorter. (If the menu options didn't "cascade" they'd have to be that much longer to show all the options.)

(Where menus live is one of the major differences between Macintosh and Windows. Click here to see how The Other Half lives.)

How do you use a Menu?

Before we do the Activity, here's the short, narrative version:

1. You "pull down" a menu by clicking in the label (picture of text) of the menu.
2. Once you have a menu pulled down, roll the mouse down. As the tip of the pointer (arrow shape) goes over menu items they may highlight (i.e.: turn black or invert).
3. While you have one menu item selected / highlighted / inverted, click the mouse button in order to execute that menu item.

Notes:

• Some menu items may be "grayed out". This means that menu command is unavailable based on what you have selected. Examples: You can't print a document (i.e.: highlight and execute the Print menu item under the File menu) if you have no document open! You can't Copy (under the Edit menu) if you have no item or text selected within the document.

Activity 1-Let's Choose from a Menu!

1. Put the pointer over the icon named My Computer (usually in the upper left of the desktop) and double click. This will open a directory window of the contents of the My Computer icon.
2. Within that directory window, move the mouse so the point of the arrow is within the File menu
3. Click the mouse button. The menu will pop down.
4. Roll the mouse so the pointer rolls down the menu until it highlights the Close menu command
5. Click the mouse button while it's over the Close menu item.

When you click this two things will happen: 1) The pop-down menu you've been seeing will go away and 2) the directory window of the My Computer icon will close. You may want to try this several times to get the hang of it.

Opps! How do I get out of a menu I don't want?

Now that you've pulled down a menu, let's say you decide the command you want isn't there or you just change you mind. Here are the two ways to get out of a menu:

1. Move the mouse so the pointer is over any open part of the desktop or window, i.e.: not over any part of the menu. Click. This will cancel the menu pull-down.
2. Move the mouse so the pointer is back within the text or label of the menu at the top of the screen. Click. This will de-select the menu so it no longer pops-down.

The Previous Step

Back to Home for Basics

The Next Step