Visual Basic Console Menu

This library provides a way to quickly create the menu for your VB.net console app.

Overview

Classes

AbstractMenu

This is the abstract class you need to extend in your menus. It's constructor takes in a title which is displayed at the top of the menu. This should be called from your implementations constructor. Like so:

public Sub New()
    MyBase.New("Menu Title")
End Sub

Methods

• Init() this needs overridding in your implementations and is where you add the items to the menu.
• Display() this starts this menu. This only needs to be called on the root menu in your system, as all sub-menus are handled by this library.
• AddMenuItem(new MenuItem(id, description, subMenu or action)) this adds an item to the menu.
• AddHiddenMenuItem(new MenuItem(id, description, subMenu or action)) this is a helper method that adds a menu item, which is then hidden.
• UpdateMenuItems() this can be overriden per menu to update items based on changes to your application, such as showing hidden menu items if they're now needed.
• ShowMenuItem(id) this can be used to show hidden menu items, most commonly in the method above. This uses the unique id given to the menu item.
• HideMenuItem(id) this can be used to hide menu items.

MenuItem

This is the class used to define items for the menus in your system. It has two constructors one for if the item is a sub menu and another for if its an action. These should be called like this: New MenuItem(id, description, subMenu or action)

Methods

• Hide() which is used on menu items, to hide them from the list.
• Show() which is used on hidden menu items, to show them in the list.
• SetAsExitOption() which is used to set menu items as the exit option for a menu, either going to the parent menu, or exiting the application.

Example

Main Class

Module Program
    Sub Main(args As String())
        Dim mainMenu = New MainMenu()
        mainMenu.Display()
    End Sub
End Module

Main Menu Class

Public Class MainMenu
    Inherits AbstractMenu
    
    public Sub New()
        MyBase.New("Welcome to the main menu.")
    End Sub
    
    Protected Overrides Sub Init()
        AddMenuItem(New MenuItem(0, "Exit menu", action := Nothing).SetAsExitOption())
        AddMenuItem(New MenuItem(1, "Print Hello World", Sub() 
            Console.WriteLine("Hello World!")
            End Sub
        ))
    End Sub
End Class

Output

Welcome to the main menu
0. Exit menu
1. Print Hello World
Select option: 1
Hello World!

Welcome to the main menu
0. Exit menu
1. Print Hello World
Select option: 0

Look in LibraryTest for a better example implementation of the library.