Defining a Menu

A menu is used as a front-end to a program with several forms. While you can put form IDs on a menu that are not in the same program, the purpose of a menu is to provide transfers to other forms in the same program.

When you run the program, the menu is accessed first. Therefore, you must define the menu as the first form in the program (except when defining a menu for a menu program).

Note: You can define menus for online, inquiry, or menu programs only.

To define a menu

  1. On the Program Definition form, select the program to which you want to add a menu, press Define (F6), and choose Paint Program.
  2. On the Database Structure-Program Structure form, select the first task, press Define (F6), and choose Menu.
  3. Select the Menu task, press Define (F6), and choose Transfers.

    The Transfer menu appears. The Transfer menu title defaults from the program title.

    When you first define a Transfer menu for a program with multiple forms, the system puts all the forms in that program on the Transfer menu.

    To add or delete form IDs or text on the Transfer menu, see Defining Transfers.

  4. If you made changes to the menu, press OK twice to save it.
    Note: If you add forms to a program after defining its Transfer menu, the system does not add the new forms to the Transfer menu. If you delete a form, the system deletes the form ID for that form from the Transfer menu. If you change the order of the forms, the system adjusts the form IDs on the menu.
  5. Press Exit to return to the Database Structure-Program Structure form.