# The Standard Menu Entries

One of the main ways that you'll control programs in &kde; is via the program's menus. They provide access to nearly everything you'll need to do with that program. So that you can more easily remember where things are in the menus, and to help you learn new programs more easily, the menus have a standard layout. This means that once you know how to open a file in one program, you know how to open a file in any &kde; program. Let's take a look at the standard menus:

## The File Menu

&Ctrl;N New

- This entry will start a new, blank document that's appropriate to the program you're using. For example, in &kate; (the &kde; Advanced Text Editor) this entry creates a new text file.

&Ctrl;O Open...

- The Open... menu entry displays the &kde; Open File dialog box, where you can choose a file to open in the program you're using. The Open File dialog is also standardized, so it's the same for all &kde; programs. You can find out more about using this dialog somewhere else in this guide .

  You probably noticed that this menu entry had an ellipsis (...) after the name of the entry. This means that clicking on the entry will open a dialog box of some kind. If you make any changes in the dialog box that appears, they won't take effect until you click on the OK button in the dialog. You can always ignore any changes you made, and close the dialog, by clicking on the Cancel button.

&Ctrl;S Save

- This menu entry will save any changes you've made to the file that you are currently working on. If this is the first time that you've saved the file, the &kde; Save File dialog will appear, and ask you for a name and location for the file.

Save As...

- The Save As... menu entry will save the file you're working on with a different name. The Save File dialog appears, and you can choose a name and location as usual. Note that after you save the file with Save As.., you will be working on the new file. If you save changes, they will be saved under the new filename. To make this a bit clearer, let's take an example:

  1. You are working on a file called `hello.txt` that contains the text Hello World!

  2. You use the Save As... menu entry to save the file with the new name `newhello.txt`.

  3. You add the text Nice to see you! to the file, and use the Save menu entry to save these changes.

  Now, the file `newhello.txt` contains the text Hello World! Nice to see you!, while the file `hello.txt` contains only the text Hello World!.

&Ctrl;P Print...

- This menu entry displays the &kde; Print dialog, ready to print the current document. You can find more information about the options available in this dialog in printing-from-apps.

&Ctrl;W Close

- This menu entry closes the current document. If you have made any changes since you last saved the document, you will be asked whether you want to save those changes. You can choose to Save or Discard those changes. If you didn't really want to close the file, just click Cancel.

&Ctrl;Q Quit

- Use this entry to close the program you're using. If you have unsaved changes in any files, you will be asked whether you want to save them.

## The Edit Menu

&Ctrl;Z Undo

- Use this entry to remove the effect of the last action you performed in the application. For example, if you deleted a line of text, the Undo menu entry will replace that line.

&Ctrl;&Shift;Z Redo

- Use this menu entry to perform the last action that you removed with the Undo menu entry. For example, if, as in the example above, you had replaced a deleted line of text with Undo, the Redo entry would redo the action of deleting the line.

&Ctrl;X Cut

- This menu entry cuts the contents of the current selection to the clipboard. See using-the-clipboard for more information.

&Ctrl;C Copy

- This menu entry copies the contents of the current selection to the clipboard. See using-the-clipboard for more information.

&Ctrl;V Paste

- This menu entry inserts the contents of the clipboard in the current document. The clipboard contents are inserted where the cursor is currently positioned.

&Ctrl;A Select All

- Use this item to select the whole of the current document.

&Ctrl;F Find...

- This menu entry displays the Find Text dialog, which you can use to search for a particular word or phrase in the current document.

F3 Find Next

- Use this item to find the next occurrence of the most recent text you searched for using Find....

## The Settings Menu

Configure Shortcuts...

- In the dialog displayed by this menu entry, you can change the keyboard shortcuts used by the application. See configure-shortcuts.

Configure Toolbars...

- In the dialog displayed by this menu entry, you can change which buttons appear on the application's toolbars. See configuring-toolbars.

Configure Notifications...

- In the dialog displayed by this menu entry, you can change the notifications (sounds, error messages, &etc;) used by the application. See configure-notifications.

Configure `Application`

- In the dialog displayed by this menu entry, you can change settings relating to how the application works in general.

&help.menu.documentation;