Here are some questions to be answered before making any choice on what a menu will look like and how it will be manipulated by the user...

1) Single or Multiple lined display? How high and how wide (in characters.) Do you have the whole display or just a section of it?

2) Do you already have a set of options you know you want to present? How many? Is there a natural grouping or hierarchy of the options?

3) How sophisticated is your user? You might want to have shortcuts or special letters that go directly to a function.

4) How quick should data entry be? If you have to navigate through several menu levels, this takes more time.

5) How much ROM space do you have to store menu text that is displayed?

6) Do you want to give help and possibly context sensative help?

7) How about internationalization? One language or many?

8) What kind of input device do you have? Full ASCII keyboard or just a few of buttons?

In general, menus are typically table driven where you have an array of menu option structures that have: 1) the option text; 2) the address of a routine to call when that option is selected, and 3) possibly a shortcut letter for that option.
A relatively simple menu driver displays the option text, moves a cursor or highlights the option text and calls the appropriate routine once an item is selected.

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