How do I do a good menu?

now i've checked faq for this, but there hasn't been much help.

what i was wondering is, how do you people control your main menu?

let's say we have options / start game / exit / about on your main menu.

when you click options - you want a window to open with options. how do you do it? just a hidden layer that shows on click or is there a better way? (can layout be included in layout, like window open layout) ?

I usually have my in game options as a hidden layer and when I want the menu to pop up I just pause the game and unhide the layer. Works like a charm as long as you keep your event sheets organized, clean and well documented

There is no right or wrong, it all depends on what you want and/or feel comfortable with..

You already say you want to open a window, which is a choice, because you could also just animate the menu to show the options.

Creating a "pop-up" could be done by revealing a layer, but also by creating all the new elements in events and/or changing the function and look of elements already on the screen.

Layouts are separate, so one layout can not be shown within another layout, global layers are available though..