CertiGuide to A+ (A+ 4 Real)  9  Chapter 1: What are Operating Systems and How Do They Work?       9  Operating System Features            9  “What's This?” Explained

“What's This?” Explained 1 How to Create a Shortcut

A context sensitive menu is a menu accessed by clicking the right mouse button, which displays menu options specific to the location and application where the click occurred. As a practical example, these are the context menus displayed when right clicking on the desktop, and right clicking on My Computer.

As you can see, 3^rd party applications, Paint Shop Pro in this example, are also able to add their own features to these context menus, known as “extensions”.

Windows follows a very specific design pattern that allows both new and experienced users to understand quickly the available options in almost any context. In the desktop popup menu above, a number of menu items have a small arrow pointing to the right next to them. This symbol indicates that moving the mouse cursor over this item and pausing for a second will cause a second sub-menu to appear. In a similar manner, some of the items in the My Computer popup menu have 3 periods, “…”, appended to them. This indicates that when the option in question is clicked, a dialog box will appear to prompt for further input.

“What's This?” Explained 1 How to Create a Shortcut