Title: Create menu items at run time with images, shortcut keys, and event handlers in C#

This example shows how you can create menu items at run time. The following code adds new menu items to the Tools menu when the program starts.

// Create some tool menu items. private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Tool 1 displays a string. ToolStripMenuItem tool1 = new ToolStripMenuItem("Tool 1"); tool1.Name = "mnuToolsTool1"; tool1.ShortcutKeys = (Keys.D1 | Keys.Control); // Ctrl+1 tool1.Click += mnuTool1_Click; mnuTools.DropDownItems.Add(tool1); // Tool 2 displays a string and image. ToolStripMenuItem tool2 = new ToolStripMenuItem( "Tool 2", Properties.Resources.happy); tool2.Name = "mnuToolsTool2"; tool2.ShortcutKeys = (Keys.D2 | Keys.Control); // Ctrl+2 tool2.Click += mnuTool2_Click; mnuTools.DropDownItems.Add(tool2); }

The code first creates a ToolStripMenuItem, passing the constructor the string it should display. It then:

• Sets the item's name
• Sets the item's ShortcutKeys property to the 1 key plus the Control key so it is activated when the user presses Ctrl+1
• Adds the mnuTool1_Click event handler to the item's Click event handler

The code then adds the new item to the mnuTools top-level menu item created at design time.

The program repeats these steps for a second menu item, this time passing the ToolStripMenuItem constructor a string and image so the menu item displays both text and a picture.

The following code shows the menu items' event handlers.

// Execute tool 1. private void mnuTool1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { MessageBox.Show("Tool 1"); } // Execute tool 2. private void mnuTool2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { MessageBox.Show("Tool 2"); }

Download the example to experiment with it and to see additional details.