Getting Started with WinForms ApplicationMenu

This tutorial will help you to quickly get started using the control.

Adding Telerik Assemblies Using NuGet

To use RadApplicationMenu when working with NuGet packages, install the Telerik.UI.for.WinForms.AllControls package. The package target framework version may vary.

Read more about NuGet installation in the Install using NuGet Packages article.

With the 2025 Q1 release, the Telerik UI for WinForms has a new licensing mechanism. You can learn more about it here.

Adding Assembly References Manually

When dragging and dropping a control from the Visual Studio (VS) Toolbox onto the Form Designer, VS automatically adds the necessary assemblies. However, if you're adding the control programmatically, you'll need to manually reference the following assemblies:

Telerik.Licensing.Runtime
Telerik.WinControls
Telerik.WinControls.UI
TelerikCommon

The Telerik UI for WinForms assemblies can be install by using one of the available installation approaches.

Defining the RadApplicationMenu

The following tutorial demonstrates how to populate RadApplicationMenu and how to react to a user's choice in code.

1. Drag RadApplicationMenu to a form and click the Smart Tag.

2. Click the Edit Items button.

3. Add a few items.

Figure 1: Adding items at design time

4. Apply different images for each item.

5. In the Properties section in Visual Studio select the events button. Select the desired item from the Properties drop down and double click the Click event.

Figure 2: Generate Click event handler:

6. Replace the automatically generated event handler with this code:

Handling Click event

private void radMenuItem1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    RadMenuItem item = sender as RadMenuItem;
    RadMessageBox.Show(item.Text + " is clicked!");
}

Private Sub RadMenuItem1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles RadMenuItem1.Click
    Dim item As RadMenuItem = TryCast(sender, RadMenuItem)
    RadMessageBox.Show(item.Text + " is clicked!")
End Sub

Figure 2: Handling Click event

Getting Started with WinForms ApplicationMenu

Adding Telerik Assemblies Using NuGet

Adding Assembly References Manually

Defining the RadApplicationMenu

Handling Click event

See Also

Telerik UI for WinForms Learning Resources

Getting Started

Support Resources

Community