Creating Submenus

Many application menus contain drop-down lists that appear next to a menu item to provide additional, related commands. Such lists are indicated by an arrow to the right of the menu item. Delphi supports as many levels of such submenus as you want to build into your menu.

Organizing your menu structure this way can save vertical screen space. However, for optimal design purposes you probably want to use no more than two or three menu levels in your interface design. (For pop-up menus, you might want to use only one submenu, if any.)

To create a submenu:

Select the menu item under which you want to create a submenu.
Press Ctrl+RIGHT ARROW to create the first placeholder, or right-click and choose Create Submenu.
Type a name for the submenu item, or drag an existing menu item into this placeholder.
Press ENTER, or DOWN ARROW, to create the next placeholder.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each item you want to create in the submenu.
Press ESC to return to the previous menu level.

Creating submenus by demoting existing menus

You can create a submenu by inserting a menu item from the menu bar (or a menu template) between menu items in a list. When you move a menu into an existing menu structure, all its associated items move with it, creating a fully intact submenu. This pertains to submenus as well. Moving a menu item into an existing submenu just creates one more level of nesting.