The AWT contains four main classes to handle menus:
java.awt.Menu
java.awt.MenuBar
java.awt.MenuItem
java.awt.PopupMenu
To use menus in your application you need to add instances of all
three classes, one MenuBar
with one or more
Menu
s, each with several MenuItem
s.
The java.awt.MenuComponent
class is the ultimate
superclass of all these classes. MenuComponent
extends
java.lang.Object
. Thus menus, menu bars, and menu
items are not components and cannot be added to containers in the
usual fashion.
java.lang.Object
|
+---java.awt.MenuComponent
|
+---java.awt.MenuBar
|
+---java.awt.MenuItem
|
+---java.awt.Menu
|
+---java.awt.PopupMenu
Both MenuBar
and MenuItem
extend
MenuComponent
. Menu
extends
MenuItem
. (This sounds a little strange, but if you think
about it a menu is an item in a menu bar.) Furthermore,
MenuBar
implements the java.awt.MenuContainer
interface.