Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional in 10 Minutes

Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional in 10 Minutes

By Dorothy Burke and Jane Calabria

Reading a Menu

Windows menus contain a number of common elements that indicate what will happen when you choose a command, provide a shortcut, or limit your choice of commands. Some menus, for example, may contain commands that are dimmed or grayed-out. However, most commands perform some sort of task when you select them.

Caution

Grayed-out Commands If a command appears grayed-out, you cannot currently use that command. Grayed-out commands are only available for use under certain circumstances. For example, you cannot choose the Copy command or the Delete command if you have not first selected an object to copy or delete.

Depending on the type of command you select, one of four things will happen:

Tip

Separator Lines Give You a Clue Commands on most menus are grouped together and divided by separator lines. When bulleted option commands are grouped, you can select only one option in the group, for example. When checked commands are grouped, you can choose as many or as few options as you want.

Figure 3.3 shows common menu elements: the ellipsis, the check mark, an option bullet, an arrow with submenu, and separator lines.

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Figure 3.3 Indicators let you know what will happen before you select the command.

To practice using menu commands, follow these steps:

  1. In the My Computer window, choose View, Toolbars. The Toolbar menu displays, showing you the options available for displaying toolbars. Items with check marks are currently selected. To select a new option, click it. To deselect an option, click it once, which removes the check mark.
  2. Choose Tools, Folder Options (notice the ellipsis after the Option command). A dialog box appears. Click on each tabbed page in the dialog box to review folder options. To cancel the dialog box, choose the Cancel button.

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