files/en-us/web/html/reference/elements/menu/index.md
The <menu> HTML element is described in the HTML specification as a semantic alternative to {{HTMLElement("ul")}}, but treated by browsers (and exposed through the accessibility tree) as no different than {{HTMLElement("ul")}}. It represents an unordered list of items (which are represented by {{HTMLElement("li")}} elements).
{{InteractiveExample("HTML Demo: <menu>", "tabbed-shorter")}}
<div class="news">
<a href="#">NASA's Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet</a>
<menu>
<li><button id="save">Save for later</button></li>
<li><button id="share">Share this news</button></li>
</menu>
</div>
.news {
background-color: bisque;
padding: 1em;
border: solid thin black;
}
menu {
list-style-type: none;
display: flex;
padding: 0;
margin-bottom: 0;
gap: 1em;
}
This element also accepts the global attributes.
compact {{Deprecated_inline}}
compact attribute, the CSS property {{cssxref("line-height")}} can be used with a value of 80%.The <menu> and {{HTMLElement("ul")}} elements both represent an unordered list of items. The key difference is that {{HTMLElement("ul")}} primarily contains items for display, while <menu> represents a toolbar containing commands that the user can perform or activate.
[!NOTE] In early versions of the HTML specification, the
<menu>element had an additional use case as a context menu. This functionality is considered obsolete and is not in the specification.
In this example, a <menu> is used to create a toolbar for an editing application.
<menu>
<li><button onclick="copy()">Copy</button></li>
<li><button onclick="cut()">Cut</button></li>
<li><button onclick="paste()">Paste</button></li>
</menu>
Note that this is functionally no different from:
<ul>
<li><button onclick="copy()">Copy</button></li>
<li><button onclick="cut()">Cut</button></li>
<li><button onclick="paste()">Paste</button></li>
</ul>
menu,
ul {
display: flex;
list-style: none;
padding: 0;
width: 400px;
}
li {
flex-grow: 1;
}
button {
width: 100%;
}
{{EmbedLiveSample("Toolbar", "100%", 100)}}
{{Specifications}}
{{Compat}}