Open recent files popup menu via hotkey

Hello,

is it possible to open the recent files list (or favorites) as popup menu near the current cursor or mouse position via hotkey?

TIA, Uwe.

You can add favorites or recent menu to right mouse button context menu.
from: settings/customize/context menus/lister context/show ... add a menu there, inside that menu, insert a new menu button. Then edit that button. Select "Favorites Menu" or "Recent List" as Function...

PHPBB_IMPORT_WARNING CODE_NEAR_LI

You can add these Opus dynamic lists to your context menus:[ul][li] Recent Locations[/li]
[li] Opus Favorites [/li]
[li] Opus Smart Favorites[/li][/ul]In an Opus lister, there are several context menus. Let's look at the different context menus involved and when they are used:[ol][li] Windows-Provided Context Menu - This appears in Opus when you:[ul][li] Right-click on any file or folder in the listing.[/li]
[li] Depress the Context Menu button on your keyboard, with a listed file or folder selected.[/li][/ul][/li][li] Opus-provided menus:[ol][li] Lister Context - This appears when a regular folder is listed and you:[ul][li]Right-click in the white space at the bottom of the listing, regardless if a file or folder is selected or not.[/li]
[li] Depress the Context Menu button on your keyboard, with no listed files or folders selected.[/li][/ul][/li][li] Lister Zip Context - This appears when a .zip or .rar archive is listed and you:[ul][li] Right-click on any file or folder in the listing, regardless if a file or folder is selected or not.[/li]
[li] Depress the Context Menu button on your keyboard, regardless if a file or folder is selected or not.[/li][/ul][/li][li] Lister FTP Context - This appears when an FTP folder is listed and you:[ul][li] Right-click on any file or folder in the listing, regardless if a file or folder is selected or not.[/li]
[li] Depress the Context Menu button on your keyboard, regardless if a file or folder is selected or not.[/li][/ul][/li][li] Lister Collection Context - This appears when a collection is listed and you:[ul][li] Right-click on any file or folder in the listing, regardless if a file or folder is selected or not.[/li]
[li] Depress the Context Menu button on your keyboard, regardless if a file or folder is selected or not.[/li][/ul][/li][/ol][/li][/ol]So to add any of the dynamic lists we are interested in the Opus Context Menu, we must add them to all of the above Opus Context Menus. This involves a bit of work, but it's not really as bad as it may seem.

[ol][li] Add Opus Recent and Favorites to Windows Context Menu (supported only inside of Directory Opus)[ol][li] In an Opus lister, open Settings Menu > File Types[/li]
[li] Click on the Directory Opus File Types group and select All Files and Folders.[/li]
[li] Click the Edit button then click on the Context Menu tab.[/li]
[li] Click the New button, and add this item:[ul][li]Action: Opus &Recent Locations
NOTE: The "&" character tells Windows that "R" will be the accelerator key to quickly access this sub-menu.[/li]
[li] Type: Sub-Menu (not supported in Explorer)[/li]
[li] Icon: Whatever you like
NOTE: I used the same icon displayed for the Recent Locations List in Customize - All Commands. But if you don't want an icon, you don't need to specify one.[/li]
[li] Click the OK button when you are done adding the sub-menu.[/li][/ul][/li][li] Select the new Opus Recent Locations sub-menu, click on New, and add this item:[ul][li]Action:Recent Locations[/li]
[li] Type: Run an Opus function (not supported in Explorer)[/li]
[li] Function: Standard Function (Opus or external)[/li]
[li] Command: Recent SHOWICONS[/li]
[li] Click the OK button when you are done adding the dynamic list.[/li][/ul][/li][li] Right-click on the new Recent Locations dynamic list you just added, and select End Sub-menu.
NOTE: This tells Opus that this item is the last in this sub-menu; any items appearing after this item will not appear in this sub-menu, but will appear on the main context menu.[/li]
[li] Right-click on the Opus Recent Locations sub-menu and select Begin a Group.
NOTE: This simply places a divider line above this menu item.[/li]
[li] Without closing the File Types - Directory Opus dialog (the changes are already enabled), Alt+Tab to your opened Opus lister, and test your changes by right-clicking on any file or folder. You should see you new context menu item.[/li]
[li] Repeat steps 1 through 8 for both the Favorites and Smart Favorites dynamic lists, changing steps 4. and 5. as appropriate for each command:[ul]4. Add Favorites Sub-menu[ul][li]Action: Opus Fa&vorites
NOTE: The "&" character tells Windows that "V" will be the accelerator key to quickly access this sub-menu.[/ul]5. Add Favorites Dynamic List[ul][li] Action :Favorites[/li]
[li] Command: Favorites SHOWICONS[/li][/ul][/li][/ul][ul]4. Add Smart Favorites Sub-menu[ul][li]Action: Opus &Smart Favorites
NOTE: The "&" character tells Windows that "S" will be the accelerator key to quickly access this sub-menu.[/ul]5. Add Smart Favorites Dynamic List[ul][li] Action :Smart Favorites[/li]
[li] Command: Favorites SHOWICONS SMART[/li][/ul][/li][/ul][/li][/ol][/li][li]Add Opus Recent and Favorites to Opus Context Menu (supported only inside of Directory Opus)[ol][li] Right-click any toolbar and select Customize.[/li]
[li] In the Customize Dialog, select the Context Menus tab.[/li]
[li] Display each of the Opus Lister Context Menus listed at the top of this post, by do the following:[ul][li] Select the toolbar from the Menus list.[/li]
[li] Click the Show button.[/li][/ul][/li][li] Arrange these context-menu toolbars on your screen so that you can see the Customize dialog, and all four toolbars in this order left to right: Lister Context, Lister Zip Context, Lister FTP Context, Lister Collection Context.[/li]
[li] Copy any one of the Code Boxes below to your clipboard.[/li]
[li] Right-click on each Lister Context Menu and select Paste[ol][li] Recent Locations<?xml version="1.0"?> <button display="both" effect="saturate" separate="yes" type="menu"> <guid>{53051416-498E-4823-B5BF-1C040FF18BCF}</guid> <label>&amp;Recent Locations</label> <tip>A popup menu that shows a list of your most recently visited folders</tip> <icon1>49</icon1> <button display="both" effect="saturate"> <guid>{59BE8878-4EBC-4B31-8B4A-F438852E8FC6}</guid> <label>Recent Locations</label> <tip>Shows your most recently visited folders</tip> <icon1>49</icon1> <function type="normal"> <instruction>Recent SHOWICONS </instruction> </function> </button> </button>[/li]
[li] Favorite Locations<?xml version="1.0"?> <button display="both" effect="saturate" type="menu"> <guid>{2840F837-CDFC-48C3-B25D-B580AD0E278A}</guid> <label>&amp;Favorite Locations</label> <tip>A popup menu that shows a list of your favorite folders</tip> <icon1>47</icon1> <button display="both" effect="saturate"> <guid>{16D1456F-B1F3-493B-958C-CE1CA5DE7F64}</guid> <label>&amp;Favorite Locations</label> <tip>Shows a list of your favorite folders</tip> <icon1>47</icon1> <function type="normal"> <instruction>Favorites SHOWICONS </instruction> </function> </button> </button>[/li]
[li] SmartFavorites<?xml version="1.0"?> <button display="both" effect="saturate" separate="yes" type="menu"> <guid>{53051416-498E-4823-B5BF-1C040FF18BCF}</guid> <label>&amp;Recent Locations</label> <tip>A popup menu that shows a list of your most recently visited folders</tip> <icon1>49</icon1> <button display="both" effect="saturate"> <guid>{59BE8878-4EBC-4B31-8B4A-F438852E8FC6}</guid> <label>Recent Locations</label> <tip>Shows your most recently visited folders</tip> <icon1>49</icon1> <function type="normal"> <instruction>Recent SHOWICONS </instruction> </function> </button> </button>[/li][/ol][/li][li] After you've added these sub-menus, you can drag them around and rearrange them. You can also just paste them to one Lister Context Menu, then depress the Ctrl key and drag them in order to quickly copy them to the other lister context menus (the mouse cursor displays a "+" sign when you are in drag-copy mode).[/li]
[li] If you want to organize them a little, right-click the first one and select Begin a Group. Also right-click the first button after the last one (if any) and select Begin a Group.[/li][/ol][/li][/ol]
Now you have the same dynamic lists in all the context menus. Getting to them by mouse is self-explanatory. By keyboard, you would press the Context Menu button on your keyboard, then press the accelerator letter associated with each dynamic list's sub-menu.


@Admins:
Please add the above to the FAQ section.

Here's a quick video tutorial which demonstrates how to add recent files and favorites to context menu in 25 seconds.

Watch the video (750KB)

If you cant see the video, install this codec

(Red circle around cursor means left click, blue circle means right click)

Is it worth it? I don't think this is frequently asked and the more things in the FAQ section (which is already large) the less likely people are to read them. (Many still don't even read the stickied FAQ items.) People can still find this thread via the Search function and I think that's better than adding every question/answer to the FAQs.

It's also covered by existing things like the Toolbar editing tutorial video, if people can make the leap from there being a DriveButtons command which generates a list of drives to the assumption that there are similar commands which generate lists of recents and favorites, which can also be discovered by looking around the pre-made toolbars in Customize mode.

You could post it into the Tutorials section if you want, though. It does cover a bunch of different details (like making context menu sub-menus) in a step-by-step which is useful, but even then I think those things would be best explained in isolation, else people who want to do them but don't want to make a Recents or Favorites list on their menus will overlook the tutorial as it won't appear relevant.

@kenalcock
Thanks for your detailed description! It helped me a lot.

@halloween
Thanks for the video! Shows how easy it is to configure context menus.

May I ask one further question? Is it possible to open such a favorite or recent menu via hotkey, let's say Alt+Down?

Best regards,
Uwe

I believe there's no way to create hotkey specific custom context menus. You can only edit default context menus. And accessing them with keyboard is only possible with that key in picture. Correct me if I'm wrong...

It's not on my notebook keyboard (thanks, IBM) :frowning:

@halloween
Thanks for your help!

Regards, Uwe

Using the Alt key plus underlined letter of a top-level menu is a better way to access a menu from the toolbar/menubar. The key you press has to be a normal character, though, and part of the menu's label.

You can also bind a hotkey to the Toolbar command to pop open a toolbar or floating menu (they're the same thing to Opus). Only problem is it wouldn't close when you select an item (at least from a generated list like Recents or Favorites).

That's right.
IMHO it's a big lack of functionality. It means I can't have my list just one keyboard shortcut away, I have to 1) spawn the context menu, 2) type the key for the specific list I'm looking for (and be sure the shortcut key isn't used by another item in the context menu), 3) select the entry in the list.

I tried to spawn a toolbar with my list with the float state & at the mouse position, but then as you said, it doesn't go away when an entry is selected.
And furthermore, it doesn't have the focus when shown, so basically I have to use the mouse in that case.

Now if we had a toggle for toolbars that would put the focus in, and close the toolbar once it's been used, that would be perfect.

I can think of other uses for such a toggle too: the command line would greatly benefit from it; when invoked, the command line shows, it has the focus, you type the command right away, and when executed the command line goes back hidden.

That'd be perfect.

I agree it would be useful to be able to have toolbars which auto-close as soon as you do anything with them. Not sure how easy or difficult that would be for GPSoft to add given all the types of toolbar buttons, though. (For many of the buttons which don't turn into generated lists you can do this already by adding a 2nd line to their command which closes the toolbar.)

Also agree that an option to give the newly opened toolbar the focus would be handy in this situation. Making that an argument of the Toolbar command would make sense since it wouldn't always be desired.

Both seem like reasonable things to ask GPSoft for.

That said, at the moment you can do this by putting the menus on your main toolbar and using the Alt-key so I wouldn't say it's impossible to do, it just means you have to clutter up your main toolbar a little bit. That gets you down from 3 steps to 2, and it can't be lower than 2 steps since you have to display the menu with one key and then select the item with another.

Is it possible to override the default behavior of selecting the first target with an accelerator rather than skip to the next target with the same accelerator?

in other words, now if a list like favorites has options "&APA" and "P&AP" and alt-A is given, Dopus goes directly to "APA" instead of, what seems more natural, waiting for return or another alt-something.

[quote="dh59"]Is it possible to override the default behavior of selecting the first target with an accelerator rather than skip to the next target with the same accelerator?

in other words, now if a list like favorites has options "&APA" and "P&AP" and alt-A is given, Dopus goes directly to "APA" instead of, what seems more natural, waiting for return or another alt-something.[/quote]
Opus assumes that you've created accelerators which are unique in any given menu. When they aren't it'll pick the last one (based on what you said).

Ask GPSoft if you want it to behave differently.

drizzt71 wrote: [quote]Is it possible to open such a favorite or recent menu via hotkey, let's say Alt+Down?[/quote]
Although it's not elegant, one work-around that can accomplish this is to add a main menu item (to the right of Help) for the 'Recent Menu' command that is set to show an image rather than a label and then use a blank image. The label's 'trigger letter' can be set to any letter not used by other menu items (I use &z; the rest of the label won't be seen). So the new menu item is invisible unless the mouse passes over it, and 'Alt-z' will pop up the Recent Folders menu.

I would prefer being able to use a regular hotkey, but this gets me by for now.

Hi,

This sounds quite good! Is there an updated or better how-to on this as things have prob changed since this was written! :slight_smile: The videos no longer available and the 25 second method sounds good!

br
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