I've been using this holiday to try and sort out my context menus, which are always in a mess and not very understandable for an infrequent user.
I've finally analysed the organisation of context menus for files and 'directory-folders'. What has surprised me, if my findings are correct, is that the order of commands used by DOpus in file context menus is different to the order used by Windows Explorer. The same is true for directory-folders. See attached Word document for my results.
What does the DOpus team think the order should be? It's very hard to create a reliable test environment for context menus and so I may be wrong in my findings but I don't think so.
I'm pretty savvy with the context menu stuff... and I've HEAVILY customized my context menu. I can say that YOUR screencap of the Opus menu doesn't appear to follow the normal conventions based on what I'm used to seeing from Opus. I've never seen that ALLFILESYSTEMOBJECTS related stuff tacked onto the end of the menu order such as you're showing.
So, while I'm curious... I'm compelled to ask (and this is not meant to be facetious) why do you care? Opus lets you move the pieces around as you see fit.
Thanks for the feedback, Steje. I care about the order because I want to design my right-click context menus so that they are consistent and that particular functions are always roughly in the same place.
You wrote 'Opus lets you move the pieces around as you see fit'. I didn't know about this function but I looked and found Settings> File Types. I've spent quite a while looking around and can see what you mean about customising.
I'll have to look a little more but I think my original assertion will hold: that DOpus brings groups of commands into the right-hand click menu in a different order to Win Explorer.
The Settings> File Types> All Files group doesn't sem to be working. I have quite a few Shell and ShellEX commands but this display shows Actions and Context Menus empty. However, when DOPus displays the Right-Click menu for a file, the commands in the registry are incorporated.
I am as curious as your are about why they'd be different... but to be honest - I think you 'might' be in the minority of users that would give a crap about what Explorer shows . That is not an absolute statement - I don't know... maybe "many" Opus users also for some ungodly reason continue to use Explorer... don't know for sure.
I've been not-so-active on the forums for awhile - and I have a monster project to work on this weekend, AND I doubt GPSoft will go out of their way (again "opinion") to change anything related to differences in how they list context menu actions vs explorer - though maybe they might offer some explanation or reasoning about why it might be different... BUT, I'll willingly dig through things to help peel back the layers of the onion with you out of personal interest as an academic excersize as I find time...
The bloody thing pops on very rare occasions because other software sometimes insists that Explorer is the only way to "Go to folder" for example.
It is the same sort of behaviour that you sometimes see when Internet Explorer leaps into view because a program decides to ignore your preference for Firefox to handle urls and insists that it knows best how to browse the Internet.
Darned annoying, but it happens. Fortunately, not that often.
Steje, I'd be interested in continuing this conversation with you. Like you, I suddenly get busy but if we are not working to a deadline it won't matter how long it takes.
What I propose is that we move our conversation out of this thread, maybe moving to the forum mail system to start with, and continue using this thread to press for an answer from GPSoft on why they are using a different order to constructing the right-click menu. It might be an oversight or it may be deliberate. Thing is, other developers who add items to the right-click menu will be assuming the Win Explorer model.
From what I've deduced about the construction of the right-click menu, I can't say that the Win Explorer is ideal, hence I'm not barracking for it, I'm simply wanting to understand GPSoft's position on it.
To summarise my findings based on observation (please remember it is very difficult to construct reliable data for these experiments):
Right-click menu construction for files – Win Explorer.
I don't think it's too hard to puzzle out... just takes some time. I'll fire up a VM and do some 'clean' system testing after I finish some scripting work later...
. That is not an absolute statement - I don't know... maybe "many" Opus users also for some ungodly reason continue to use Explorer... don't know for sure.