How to Add Functionality to a Menu in JavaFX

In this article, we show how to add functionality to a menu in JavaFX.

Before, we showed how to create a menu in JavaFX. Now we extend that tutorial and show how to add functionality to the menu so that when a menu item is clicked, something is done.

So it's actually pretty simple to add functionality to a menu item.

It's the simple use of event handlers. You attach an event handler to a menu item. And then in the event handling code, you can specify what you want done.

In this code, we're going to add functionality to the exit menu item in the File menu. When you click the exit menu item, the window closes.

So below is the full Java code to implement this.

import javafx.application.Application; import static javafx.application.Application.launch; import javafx.application.Platform; import javafx.scene.Scene; import javafx.scene.control.Menu; import javafx.scene.control.MenuBar; import javafx.scene.control.MenuItem; import javafx.scene.control.SeparatorMenuItem; import javafx.scene.layout.BorderPane; import javafx.stage.Stage; public class MenuProgram extends Application { @Override public void start(Stage primaryStage) { primaryStage.setTitle("Software Program"); //create menu bar MenuBar menubar= new MenuBar(); //Menu name Menu filemenu= new Menu ("File"); //Create and add menu items to menu MenuItem newproject= new MenuItem("New Project..."); filemenu.getItems().add(newproject); MenuItem newfile= new MenuItem("New File..."); filemenu.getItems().add(newfile); filemenu.getItems().add(new SeparatorMenuItem()); MenuItem openproject= new MenuItem("Open Project..."); filemenu.getItems().add(openproject); MenuItem openfile= new MenuItem("Open File..."); filemenu.getItems().add(openfile); filemenu.getItems().add(new SeparatorMenuItem()); MenuItem save= new MenuItem("Save"); filemenu.getItems().add(save); MenuItem saveas= new MenuItem("Save As..."); filemenu.getItems().add(saveas); MenuItem saveall= new MenuItem("Save All"); filemenu.getItems().add(saveall); filemenu.getItems().add(new SeparatorMenuItem()); MenuItem exit= new MenuItem("Exit"); filemenu.getItems().add(exit); exit.setOnAction(e -> Platform.exit()); Menu editmenu= new Menu("Edit"); MenuItem cut= new MenuItem("Cut"); editmenu.getItems().add(cut); MenuItem copy= new MenuItem("Copy"); editmenu.getItems().add(copy); MenuItem paste= new MenuItem("Paste"); editmenu.getItems().add(paste); //Add items to menu bar menubar.getMenus().addAll(filemenu, editmenu); BorderPane layout= new BorderPane(); layout.setTop(menubar); Scene scene1= new Scene(layout, 300, 300); primaryStage.setScene(scene1); primaryStage.show(); } public static void main(String[] args) { launch(args); } }

So we import all the packages we need, create our class, override the start method, and set the title of our stage.

We then create our menu bar, which will hold all the menus we create. In this code, we create a File menu and an Edit Menu.

We then create the File menu.

We then create all the items in the File menu.

To do this, we first create the menu item. The first menu item that we create is the "New Project..." menu item. So we create this through the line, MenuItem newproject= new MenuItem("New Project...");

We then add this menu item to the file menu through the line, filemenu.getItems().add(newproject);

And we repeat this for all the other menu items.

Now, in this code, we add functionality to the exit menu item in the File menu.

How we do this is through event handling.

We use event handling so that the window closes upon the exit menu item being clicked. We do this through the line, exit.setOnAction(e -> Platform.exit());

This line will close the window when the exit menu item is clicked.

And this is all that is required to add functionality to menu in JavaFX.

Simply by using event handling, you can do any action when an item is clicked.

Again, for this program, only the exit menu item has functionality but you can easily apply this to any menu item not that you know it's just event handling using lambda expressions to do the job.

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