Menu.MergeMenu(Menu) Method

Definition

Merges the MenuItem objects of one menu with the current menu.

C#
public virtual void MergeMenu(System.Windows.Forms.Menu menuSrc);

Parameters

menuSrc
Menu

The Menu whose menu items are merged with the menu items of the current menu.

Exceptions

It was attempted to merge the menu with itself.

Examples

This example creates two menus, mainMenu1 and mainMenu2. The first menu contains one MenuItem, File, and the second contains one MenuItem, Edit. Using the MergeMenu method, mainMenu2 is merged with mainMenu1. When displayed, mainMenu1 will contain the two menu items, File and Edit. This example requires that you have created a Form named Form1.

C#
      private void InitializeMyMainMenu()
      {
          // Create the 2 menus and the menu items to add.
          MainMenu mainMenu1 = new MainMenu();
          MainMenu mainMenu2 = new MainMenu();

          MenuItem menuItem1 = new MenuItem();
          MenuItem menuItem2 = new MenuItem();

          // Set the caption for the menu items.
          menuItem1.Text = "File";
          menuItem2.Text = "Edit";

          // Add a menu item to each menu for displaying.
          mainMenu1.MenuItems.Add(menuItem1);
          mainMenu2.MenuItems.Add(menuItem2);

          // Merge mainMenu2 with mainMenu1
          mainMenu1.MergeMenu(mainMenu2);

          // Assign mainMenu1 to the form.
          this.Menu = mainMenu1;
      }

Remarks

This method merges MenuItem objects from one menu with the current menu. MenuItem objects are merged according to the values of the MenuItem.MergeType and MenuItem.MergeOrder properties.

Menu merging is typically done to merge the menus of a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) parent form with those of its active MDI child form. This is performed automatically by the .NET Framework common language runtime. For example, if an MDI parent form contains a set of menus for handling files and your MDI child form also has file-related menu items, the menu sets will automatically merge into a single file menu set when the child form is displayed in the MDI parent form.

You can use the MergeMenu method if you are merging two menu structures that are not part of an MDI application. This implementation can be called by the MainMenu or ContextMenu classes to merge two or more objects that derive from Menu.

To merge two MenuItem objects use the MenuItem.MergeMenu method.

Applies to

Product Versions
.NET Framework 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 4.5.1, 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1, 4.7.2, 4.8, 4.8.1
Windows Desktop 3.0, 10

See also