From the initial screen of the Menu Painter, you choose a status of a program, and then the work area is displayed. Here, you can edit all of the components of the screen.

From the worksheet, you can create a menu bar, define menu functions, assign F keys, customize the standard tool bar, and create an application toolbar.

To maintain the menu bar, application toolbar, or function key settings, click the Expand icon next to the relevant area.

The Menu Painter keeps lists of all components of the GUI. These are used for component administration, and have functions such as Create, Rename, Copy, and so on. For example, the menu list contains the entries from all of the menu bars in the program. In all, there are six different lists (status list, menu list, function list, title list, menu bar list and function key setting list). You can access any of these lists from the Goto menu of the worksheet, or from the initial screen of the Menu Painter. Regardless of where you make changes, on the worksheet or through a list view, the Menu Painter updates and saves your changes in the same manner. You can also change menu texts, function texts, icons, title texts and short documentation if you access the list in change mode. The lists not only give a rapid overview of the interface components for the whole program, they also make it easier to maintain their text entries.

While you are within the Menu Painter, you do not have to save your work each time you move from the Worksheet view to a display list view. In principle, you only need to save your work before you leave the Menu Painter altogether. You do this using the Save function. However, if you do forget to save, the system will remind you by displaying a dialog box before you leave the Menu Painter.

None of the changes you make to your interface are visible at runtime until you activate it. Once you have completed and tested your changes, you must reactivate the interface. When you activate the interface, the system creates a load version of it. After activation, your last set of changes becomes visible in all programs that use the interface.