Learning Carbon

Moon Travel Planner: Modifying the Menu Bar

The procedures for modifying the menu bar in Interface Builder are similar to those you used to modify the main window in Chapter 4:

• Drag an object from the Menus palette to the menu bar to create new menus and menu items.

• Use the Info window to change menu item attributes and controls.

• Double-click an item and type to change its name.

In this section, you’ll modify the menu bar so it’s customized for the Moon Travel Planner application. You’ll do the following:

1. Disable the items you won’t need.

2. Set up the items the application needs.

3. Add an application-specific menu to the menu bar.

4. Add code to your project to create the menu bar.

5. Test the menus.

Disable the Items You Won’t Need

Let’s take a look at the default menu bar and disable any items you won’t need for the Moon Travel Planner application. The application won’t provide the ability for users to create new files, so you can disable the New menu item in the File menu. Users will be able to choose Open, Close, and Save As commands from the File menu. But you’ll disable Revert and Save. The Moon Travel Planner won’t provide any editing capabilities, so you’ll disable the items in the Edit menu.

Open the menu bar by clicking main.nib in the Resources group of the Moon Travel Planner project, then double-click the MainMenu icon in the Instances pane.

Disable each unneeded item by following these steps:

1. Click a menu (such as File) to open it.

2. Click the item in the menu you want to disable. ...