Menu bar

A menu bar is a special part of a computer screen that helps users find different options and tools. It is made up of drop-down menus, which are like little lists that appear when you click on a word or symbol. These menus give you quick access to important actions, such as opening files, changing settings, or finding help with the program you are using.

Menu bars are commonly seen in programs that show pictures, documents, and other files in separate boxes called windows. They make it easier to use the computer because you don’t have to remember special commands or buttons. Even in programs that work mostly with text, like some editors or file organizers, you can often find a menu bar that appears when you press certain keys on your keyboard.

The menu bar is part of something called a graphical user interface, which is the visual way we interact with computers today. It helps keep everything organized, so you can easily move between different tasks and features without getting lost. Whether you’re drawing, writing, or just browsing, the menu bar is there to guide you. For broader coverage of this topic, see Menu (computing).

Implementations

Through the evolution of user interfaces, the menu bar has been implemented in different ways by different user interfaces and application programs.

Macintosh

See also: Apple menu

In the Macintosh operating systems, the menu bar is a horizontal "bar" anchored to the top of the screen. In macOS, the left side contains the Apple menu, the Application menu (its name will match the name of the current application) and the currently focused application's menus (e.g. File, Edit, View, Window, Help). On the right side, it contains menu extras (for example the system clock, volume control, and the Fast user switching menu (if enabled) and the Spotlight icon. All of these menu extras can be moved horizontally by command-clicking and dragging left or right. If an icon is dragged and dropped vertically it will disappear with a puff of smoke, much like the icons in the dock. In the Classic Mac OS (versions 7 through 9), the right side contains the application menu, allowing the user to switch between open applications. In Mac OS 8.5 and later, the menu can be dragged downwards, which would cause it to be represented on screen as a floating palette.

There is only one menu bar, so the application menus displayed are those of the application that is currently focused. Therefore, for example, if the System Preferences application is focused, its menus are in the menu bar, and if the user clicks on the Desktop which is a part of the Finder application, the menu bar will then display the Finder menus.

Apple experiments in GUI design for the Lisa project initially used multiple menu bars anchored to the bottom of windows, but this was quickly dropped in favor of the current arrangement, as it proved slower to use (in accordance with Fitts's law). The idea of separate menus in each window or document was later implemented in Windows and is the default approach in most Linux desktop environments.

Even before the advent of the Macintosh, the universal graphical menu bar appeared in the Apple Lisa in 1983. It has been a feature of all versions of the Classic Mac OS since the first Macintosh was released in 1984, and is still used today in macOS.

Windows

The menu bar in Windows is usually anchored to the top of a window under the title bar; therefore, there can be many menu bars on screen at one time. Menus in the menu bar can be accessed through shortcuts involving the Alt key and the mnemonic letter that appears underlined in the menu title. Additionally, pressing Alt or F10 brings the focus on the first menu of the menu bar.

Linux and UNIX

KDE allows users to turn Macintosh-style and Windows-style menu bars on and off. It can have both types in use at the same time.

The standard MATE desktop uses a menu bar at the top of the screen, but this menu bar only contains Applications, Places and System menus and status information (such as the time of day); individual programs have their own menu bars as well. The Unity desktop shell shipped with Ubuntu Linux from version 11.04 through 17.04 uses a Macintosh-style menu bar; however, it is hidden unless the mouse pointer hovers over it, similar to the Amiga interface. Starting with 17.10, it defaults to the GNOME desktop environment.

Cinnamon does not have a menu bar itself, but in Linux Mint it is shipped with numerous applications which do have them in their own windows.

Recent versions of GNOME do not use menu bars, instead opting to use other means to access the same actions.

Other window managers and desktop environments use a similar scheme, where programs have their own menus, but clicking one or more of the mouse buttons on the root window brings up a menu containing, for example, commands to launch various applications or to log out.

Window manager menus in Linux are typically configurable by editing text files or using a desktop-environment-specific Control Panel applet.

Amiga

The Amiga used a menu-bar style similar to that of the Macintosh, with the exception that the machine's custom graphics chips allowed each program to have its own "screen", with its own resolution and colour settings, which could be dragged down to reveal the screens of other programs. The title/menu bar would typically sit at the top of the screen, and could be accessed by pressing the right mouse button, revealing the names of the various menus. When the right menu button was not pressed down, the menu/title bar would typically display the name of the program which owned the screen, and some other information such as the amount of memory used. When accessing menus with right mouse buttons pressed, one could select multiple menu entries by clicking the left mouse button, and when right mouse button was released, all actions selected in the menus would be performed in the order they were selected. This was known as multiselect.

The Workbench screen title bar would typically display the Workbench version and the amount of free Chip RAM and Fast RAM. An unusual feature of the Amiga menu system was that the Workbench screen would display a "Workbench" menu instead of a "File" or "Apple" menu, while conforming applications would display "Project" and "Tools" menus (projects and tools being, respectively, the Amiga terms for what in other systems are called files or documents, and programs or applications).

Keyboard shortcuts could be accessed by pressing the "right Amiga" key along with a normal alphanumeric key. (Some early keyboards had a Commodore key to the left of the spacebar instead of a "left-Amiga" key.) The filled-in and hollowed-out designs, respectively, of the left- and right-Amiga (or Commodore and Amiga) keys are similar to the closed-Apple and open-Apple keys of later Apple II keyboards.

NeXTstep

The NeXTstep OS for the NeXT machines would display a "menu palette", by default at the top left of the screen. Clicking on the entries in the menu list would display submenus of the commands in the menu. The contents of the menu change depending on whether the user is "in" the Workspace Manager or an application. The menus and the sub-menus can easily be torn off and moved around the screen as individual palette windows.

Power users would often switch off the always-on menu, leaving it to be displayed at the mouse pointer's location when the right mouse button was pressed. The same implementation is used by GNUstep and conforming apps, though applications written for the host operating system or another toolkit will use the menu scheme appropriate to that OS or toolkit.

Atari TOS

The TOS operating system for the Atari ST would display menu bars at the top of the screen like Mac OS. Rather than being 'pulled-down' by holding the mouse button, the menu would appear as soon as the pointer was over its heading. This was done to get around an Apple patent on pull-down menus.

RISC OS

In RISC OS, clicking the middle button displays a menu list at the location of the mouse pointer. The RISC OS implementation of menus is similar to the context menus of other systems, except that menus will not close if the right mouse button is used to select a menu entry. This allows the user to implement or try out several settings before closing the menu.

Ease-of-use

In Windows and Macintosh operating systems, and in many other programs, important actions can be done quickly using keyboard shortcuts like Control-C or Command-C for copying.

On Mac computers, the menu bar is placed at the top of the screen. This makes it easy to reach because you can just move the mouse to the top edge, and it will always find the menu bar. However, if another program is open, you might need to switch to the right program first. Some newer programs, like Microsoft Office 2007, Internet Explorer 7, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox 4, hide the menu bar until you press a key, such as the Alt key, showing options when needed.