Terminal Menus


All the menus within Deltanji use a menu bar style which conforms to de-facto industry standards. Each menu has a series of options arranged horizontally on the first line of the screen. If there are more options than will fit on the screen, the menu will scroll horizontally as the cursor is moved across.

The default option is highlighted in inverse. The cursor keys (left-arrow and right-arrow) can be used to move the highlight from one option to the next. If the last option on the menu is highlighted and the right-arrow key is pressed, the first option will be highlighted, and vice versa. The second line of the screen contains a description of the menu option which is highlighted.

There are three ways to select an option from the menu bar:

  • Position the highlight over the desired option and press the <return> key.
  • Position the highlight over the desired option and press the down-arrow key.
  • Press the key corresponding to the underlined character in the desired option (shortcut key).

Every menu bar has two standard options: Exit and Help. If Exit is selected, Deltanji goes back to the previous menu. The up-arrow key has the same effect as selecting the Exit option. If Help is selected, it displays a page of help text which describes the functions that are available.

For further information, the IBM SAA CUA (System Application Architecture - Common User Access) specification contains a very comprehensive description of menu bars.