Pin a folder to taskbar icon

A feature I miss from Windows Explorer that I have not yet located within DOpus is the ability to pin a folder to the list shown when right-clicking the DOpus icon on the taskbar. For example, here is the top of my context menu for the Explorer icon

image

I know about Favorites, but I find the pinned folders feature to be a lot more accessible.

Is there a way to do it in DOpus?

Thanks,
Yosh

Microsoft doesn't allow third-party applications to pin folders the way Explorer can, but you can get a similar effect using the options under Preferences / Favorites and Recent / Jump List.

Thansks for the quick answer, @Jon

Are you sure this is still correct? I see, for example (under Win 10) that all Office apps also provide the ability to pin files for opening. I even see that for my VPN client I can pin sites for Quick Connection directly from the context menu.

I also did some shallow searching and found this description of Jump lists:

Where I see this (italics added):

As items appear in a destination list's Recent category (or the Frequent category or a custom category as discussed in a later section), a user might want to ensure that the item is always in the list for quick access. To accomplish this, he or she can pin that item to the list, which adds the item to the Pinned category. When a user is actively working with a destination, he or she wants it easily at hand and so would pin it to the application's destination list. After the user's work there is done, he or she simply unpins the item. This user control keeps the list uncluttered and relevant.

What do you think?

thanks,
Yosh

Well, I see I reacted a little too fast. I just tried out your suggestion and see that it gives me part of the functionality I wanted. Thanks!

that said, I still think it would be a worthy addition to DOpus to have it conform to the Windows Pinning convention mentioned in my previous post as described in the referenced Microsoft Dev article.

Thanks!

Applications can pin files to their taskbar buttons but only File Explorer is able to pin folders, because it's still beyond Microsoft's imagination that anyone would want to open a folder in anything other than File Explorer. :slight_smile:

(Applications can also add their own custom commands to the list, which is how Opus is able to add a list of folders. But you can't just drag & drop a folder to the taskbar to pin it like you can with File Explorer.)

Thanks, @Leo. But I am not talking about drag 'n drop to pin. I'm talking about using the pin feature built in to Jump Lists for any recent item. See this example from NordVPN's jump list, which does not deal with file or folders, but rather the entities with which it deals, i.e., VPN connection points (POPs):

There does not appear to be any restriction on the type of "item" that can appear in the jump list. See again this quote from the above-referenced Microsoft dev reference:

As items appear in a destination list's Recent category (or the Frequent category or a custom category as discussed in a later section), a user might want to ensure that the item is always in the list for quick access. To accomplish this, he or she can pin that item to the list, which adds the item to the Pinned category. When a user is actively working with a destination, he or she wants it easily at hand and so would pin it to the application's destination list. After the user's work there is done, he or she simply unpins the item.

If you can display it in Recents, it seems you should be able to allow the user to pin it, no?

thanks,
Yosh

That feature only works for filetypes that are registered to a particular application, and Windows doesn't let applications register themselves as the handler for folders in that way.

thanks @Jon /

First, I want to say that you guys are among the most competent, versatile, and experienced Windows devs I've met and DOpus is one heckuva capable product.

So please don't take my "stubbornness" as any indication of a lack of appreciation for what you know and are telling me. I think that the problem is that I am not communicating clearly what I am asking for and what I understand from my own experience and from reading the Windows APIs (and from making the possibly mistaken assumption that logic holds in this context).

When discussing Jump Lists, the APIs make it pretty clear than an "item" appearing therein can be anything. Not just files, but anything at all, including custom lists that have meaning only to the app.
For example, on this page:

appears this text (emphasis added):

When to Use

Jump Lists contain both destination and task lists.

  • Destinations are items that appear in the Recent, Frequent, or custom categories, based on an individual's usage. Destinations can be files, folders, websites, or other content-based items, but are not necessarily file-backed. Destinations can be thought of as things or nouns. Destinations can be pinned or removed from the Jump List by the user. They are generally represented by IShellItem objects but they can also be IShellLink objects.
  • Tasks are common actions performed in an application that apply to all users of that application regardless of an individual's usage patterns. Tasks can be thought of as actions or verbs. Tasks cannot be pinned or removed. They are represented by IShellLink objects.

It doesn't suggest any requirement for handlers for filetypes or folders, since "Destinations...are not necessarily file-backed".

At any rate, I believe I could simulate the behavior I would like to get by using the feature you mentioned in your first response (thanks for that - I hadn't known about it before). Unfortunately, it appears there is a bug in that feature, which I have documented here.

thanks for your patience with me.

Best,
Yosh

Opus already lets you add folders to the jump lists via Preferences.

You just can't use the drag & drop pinning mechanism on the taskbar for folders, as it's only something the shell itself can use and has no (public/known/documented) API that would allow anything else to pin a folder via that mechanism.

I'm not quite sure why you keep coming back to the "drag & drop pinning mechanism". That's not what I'm talking about at all.

When you right-click the taskbar icon, you get a jump list of recent things the app related to. When you point at (hover over) one of them, a push-pin icon appears on the right edge. You can click it and the item gets pinned and appears in the "Pinned" section at the top of the jump list. If you point at it again, you can click again and un-pin it. You can also right-click an item to pin/unpin or do other app-defined actions.

Has nothing to do with "drag & drop".

I recorded a quick screen capture to show what I mean. You can see a 10s video here.

That's the mechanism I was looking for in DOpus, too. I understand now about the Preferences way. The built-in technique is more accessible and consistent across almost all apps. That's why I wish DOpus conformed to standard Windows behavior in this case.

thanks,
Yosh

We've been over this already in this thread.

  • The entire pinning mechanism does not work for folders.
  • It only works for files.
  • There is nothing we can do about it. It's how the taskbar works and only Microsoft can change it.

(And Microsoft seem to have abandoned jumplists as a feature entirely, as they aren't even visible by default in Windows 11.)