MenuBarTest.java - AWT Menu Bar Test Program

Java Swing Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟MenuBarTest.java - AWT Menu Bar Test Program

This section provides a tutorial example on how to use the java.awt.MenuBar class to create a menu bar in a frame window.

If you want to add a menu bar to a AWT frame, you can follow this example program:

/* MenuBarTest.java
 * Copyright (c) 1997-2024 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
 */
import java.awt.Frame;
import java.awt.MenuBar;
import java.awt.Menu;
import java.awt.MenuItem;
import java.awt.Button;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
public class MenuBarTest {
   public static void main(String[] a) {
      Frame f = new Frame("MenuBar Test");
      f.setBounds(50,50,250,150);

      MenuBar mb = new MenuBar();      
      mb.add(new Menu("Tools")); 
      mb.add(new Menu("Options")); 
      mb.add(new Menu("Save")); 
      mb.add(new Menu("Quit")); 
      
      f.setMenuBar(mb);
      f.add(new MyButton());
      f.setVisible(true);
   }
   private static class MyButton extends Button 
      implements ActionListener {
      public MyButton() {
         super("Check");
         addActionListener(this);
      }
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
         System.out.println("Check button clicked");
         Frame myFrame = (Frame) (this.getParent());
         MenuBar myMenuBar = myFrame.getMenuBar();
         System.out.println("# of elements in the menu bar: "
            +myMenuBar.getMenuCount());
      }
   }
}

If you run this example, you will see the frame window shows up with the menu bar like this:

If you click the "Check" button, you will see text output in the console window:

Check button clicked
# of elements in the menu bar: 4

Interesting notes about this tutorial example:

The "Check" Button added in the frame is a grand grand child of the frame. So I have to use "this.getParent()" to reach the frame object from the button object.
getMenuCount() methods work as expected.

Note that there seems to be a problem with the f.setMenuBar(mb) call on macOS computers. It fails to display the menu bar as shown below. And it does not give out any error.