A system and method is disclosed that provides for displaying on the screen of a handheld electronic device, an extended menu or a short menu, which is a subset of the corresponding extended menu. The system and method include a list of email messages associated with an email box being displayed on a screen. If at least one email message is designated through use of the auxiliary user input device and no menu is displayed, the user may initiate an ambiguous request. Various short menus are provided with their respective menu items being dependent and adjustable based upon the position of a cursor on the display page, the currently opened application, and/or the previous selections. Further, a selection from the short menu is capable of displaying the extended menu corresponding thereto.