A context menu (also called contextual, shortcut, and pop up or pop-up menu) is a

menu In a restaurant, the menu is a list of food and beverages offered to customers and the prices. A menu may be à la carte – which presents a list of options from which customers choose – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-established seque ...

in a

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

(GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-click mouse operation. A context menu offers a limited set of choices that are available in the current state, or context, of the operating system or application to which the menu belongs. Usually the available choices are actions related to the selected object. From a technical point of view, such a context menu is a

graphical control element A graphical widget (also graphical control element or control) in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through direct ...

History

Context menus first appeared in the

Smalltalk Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed reflective programming language. It was designed and created in part for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, at the Learning Research Group (LRG) of Xerox PARC by Alan Ka ...

environment on the

Xerox Alto The Xerox Alto is a computer designed from its inception to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface (GUI), later using the desktop metaphor. The first machines were introduced on 1 March 1973, a decade before mass-market G ...

computer, where they were called ''pop-up menus''; they were invented by

Dan Ingalls Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls Jr. (born 1944) is a pioneer of object-oriented computer programming and the principal architect, designer and implementer of five generations of Smalltalk environments. He designed the bytecoded virtual machine that ...

in the mid-1970s.

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...

v3.0 introduced the context menu for copy and paste functionality in 1990.

Borland Borland Software Corporation was a computer technology company founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn. Its main business was the development and sale of software development and software deployment product ...

demonstrated extensive use of the context menu in 1991 at the Second Paradox Conference in Phoenix Arizona.

Lotus 1-2-3 Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (later part of IBM). It was the first killer application of the IBM PC, was hugely popular in the 1980s, and significantly contributed to the success of IBM PC-compatibles i ...

/G for

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

v1.0 added additional formatting options in 1991. Borland

Quattro Pro Quattro Pro is a spreadsheet program developed by Borland and now sold by Corel, most often as part of Corel's WordPerfect Office suite. Characteristics Historically, Quattro Pro used keyboard commands close to those of Lotus 1-2-3. While it ...

for Windows v1.0 introduced the Properties context menu option in 1992.

Implementation

Context menus are opened via various forms of user interaction that target a region of the GUI that supports context menus. The specific form of user interaction and the means by which a region is targeted vary: * On a computer running

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, or

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

running the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wit ...

, clicking the secondary mouse button (usually the right button) opens a context menu for the region that is under the mouse pointer. * For quickness, implementations may additionally support hold-and-release selection, meaning the pointer is held down and dragged, and released at desirable menu entry. * On systems that support one-button mice, context menus are typically opened by pressing and holding the primary mouse button (this works on the icons in the Dock on

) or by pressing a keyboard/mouse button combination (e.g. Ctrl-mouse click in

Classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The ...

and macOS). A keyboard alternative for macOS is to enable

Mouse keys Mouse keys is a feature of some graphical user interfaces that uses the keyboard (especially numeric keypad) as a pointing device (usually replacing a mouse). Its roots lie in the earliest days of visual editors when line and column navigation was ...

Universal Access Apple Universal Access is a component of the macOS operating system that provides computing abilities to people with visual impairment, hearing impairment, or physical disability. Components Universal Access is a preference pane of the Sys ...

. Then, depending on whether a laptop or compact or extended keyboard type is used, the shortcut is ++5 or +5 (numeric keypad) or ++i (laptop). * On systems with a

multi-touch In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface (a touchpad or touchscreen) to recognize the presence of more than one somatosensory system, point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CER ...

interface such as MacBook or Surface, the context menu can be opened by pressing or tapping with two fingers instead of just one. * Some cameras on smartphones for example recognize a

QR code A QR code (an initialism for quick response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about th ...

when a picture is taken. Then a pop-up appears if you want to 'open' the QR content. This could be anything like a website or to configure your phone to connect to

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...

. See image. * On some user interfaces, context menu items are accompanied by icons for quicker recognition upon navigation. * Context menus can also have a top row of icons only for quick access to most frequently used options. Windows mouse click behavior is such that the context menu doesn't open while the mouse button is pressed, but only opens the menu when the button is released, so the user has to click again to select a context menu item. This behavior differs from that of macOS and most free software GUIs. * In Microsoft Windows, pressing the Application key or Shift+F10 opens a context menu for the region that has

focus Focus, or its plural form foci may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in South Australia Film *''Focus'', a 1962 TV film starring James Whitmore * ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based ...

. Context menus are sometimes hierarchically organized, allowing navigation through different levels of the menu structure. The implementations differ:

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms includin ...

was one of the first applications to only show sub-entries of some menu entries after clicking an arrow icon on the context menu, otherwise executing an action associated with the parent entry. This makes it possible to quickly repeat an action with the parameters of the previous execution, and to better separate options from actions.

X Window Managers

The following

window manager A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They work in conjunction ...

s provide context menu functionality: *

9wm 9wm is an open source stacking window manager for X11, written by David Hogan (dhog) in 1994 to emulate the Plan 9 Second Edition window manager, 8 . Many later minimalist window managers for X were either inspired by, or directly derived from ...

* Awesome *

IceWM IceWM is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, originally written by Marko Maček. It was written from scratch in C++ and is released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License. It is customizable, relatively lightw ...

—

middle-click A computer mouse (plural mice, sometimes mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional space, two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer (user interface ...

and

right-click A context menu (also called contextual, shortcut, and pop up or pop-up menu) is a menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-click mouse operation. A context menu offers a limited set of choice ...

context menus on

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

menubar A menu bar is a graphical control element which contains Drop-down list, drop-down menus. The menu bar's purpose is to supply a common housing for window- or Application software, application-specific menus which provide access to such function ...

titlebar In computing, a window is a graphical control element. It consists of a visual area containing some of the graphical user interface of the program it belongs to and is framed by a window decoration. It usually has a rectangular shape that can ove ...

s, and titleicon *

olwm olwm (OPEN LOOK Window Manager) was the default stacking window manager for OpenWindows, the original X11 desktop environment included with SunOS and Solaris. Its unique characteristic is its implementation of the OPEN LOOK look and feel. Sco ...

* openbox *

sawfish Sawfish, also known as carpenter sharks, are a family of rays characterized by a long, narrow, flattened rostrum, or nose extension, lined with sharp transverse teeth, arranged in a way that resembles a saw. They are among the largest fish wi ...

Usability

Context menus have received some criticism from

usability Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a soft ...

analysts when improperly used, as some applications make certain features ''only'' available in context menus, which may confuse even experienced users (especially when the context menus can only be activated in a limited area of the application's client window). Context menus usually open in a fixed position under the pointer, but when the pointer is near a screen edge the menu will be displaced - thus reducing consistency and impeding use of

muscle memory Muscle memory is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition, which has been used synonymously with motor learning. When a movement is repeated over time, the brain creates a long-te ...

. If the context menu is being triggered by keyboard, such as by using Shift + F10, the context menu appears near the focused widget instead of the position of the pointer, to save recognition efforts.

In documentation

Microsoft's guidelines call for always using the term ''context menu'', and explicitly deprecate ''shortcut menu''.

References

External links

{{Graphical control elements Graphical control elements Graphical user interface elements Macintosh operating systems user interface Windows administration