Menu Bar Buttons

Article
08/28/2006

If space is available on a Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC, frequently needed actions should be taken out of menus and placed directly on the menu bar so that they are one tap away. In general, actions that appear as menu bar buttons should not be redundantly placed in the menu structure.

When you include menu bar buttons in your application, use the following guidelines:

To avoid user confusion, menu bar buttons with text labels should be grouped to the left of menu bar buttons with iconic labels.
Provide ToolTips for menu bar buttons. For more information, see ToolTips.
Use iconic menu bar buttons to conserve space. Icons are especially useful for cross-application functions such as Delete and Bold, where users will likely benefit from icon consistency.

State Attributes

The following illustration shows the states for a menu bar button on a Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC.

Disabled

At Rest

Active

Label Attributes

For labels on a Windows Mobile–based devices, use the 11pt Tahoma bold font and title capitalization.

Development Considerations

Extensibility and hardware navigation solutions are concerns when using this control.

Share via