# Creating Panel Controls

Menu Bar |

A menu provides a space-saving way to list user options/controls or to provide quick access to other areas or modules in the application. Menus are unique in that, by convention, they are not laid out with the other controls in the panel but are presented within a Menu Bar or launched in the form of a Popup Menu.

A menu bar provides a container for menu names, and it has a fixed location along the top of a panel; e.g. a menu bar displays at the top of the Panel Designer.

A menu bar can consist of items and, optionally, groups of items (menu levels). NOMADS allows a maximum of eight levels. A unique selection character prefixed by an & (ampersand) is mandatory in each menu item. When the menu is displayed, the character is underlined, which identifies it as a hot key that can be pressed in conjunction with the Alt key to activate the selection from the keyboard. If not already present, NOMADS inserts an & (ampersand) before the first character.

To define the menu bar attributes for a panel, see Menu Bar Definition.

#### Note:
In the Panel Header properties window, the Dialogue and Menu Bar check boxes must be selected.