Design Utilities › Introduction › Commands › Menus in Design

Menus in Design

The Toolkit menu utilities provide a rapid way of designing and presenting menus.

Menus are the ideal top down framework within which to design a system. They represent how the system will appear to the user, and so provide a checklist of available functions. Since every task is allocated a menu, and every menu is associated with a user, menus help you to highlight an often neglected aspect of system design: who will do what, when.

The Toolkit Menu concepts are discussed in detail in the section on menus in this manual. From the point of view of design, the following features of Toolkit menus should be stressed:

• User functions and menus can rapidly be designed in outline and presented to the user for comment.
• Help text, panels and reports can be associated with each menu option so that when a user takes the option, the appropriate design is displayed.
• The design menus can be carried straight into development, with actual programs replacing designs when they are completed