This may be a 'duh thing that I just didn't know... but whilst screwing around I realized you can can copy an existing three-button button from a toolbar INTO another three-button.
COOL!
I don't think it would be great to nest them too deeply... and don't think it's MEANT to be used this way, but it seems to work without any bogus side-effects. I suppose you could just as easily create a menu-button and stick three-button buttons on it, but if you have a rather large list of buttons in a menu, this might be a nifty way of 'organizing' things in a slightly different way.
Well, that's a fine question. Menu buttons obviously let you organize buttons... but they DO NOT let you have a single button that would show you a 'different' set of actions in a menu like style depending on whether you clicked left/middle/or right mouse button... With this little goof, because it doesn't 'execute' any command, it instead pops up the other choices from the three-button buttons placed as items under the initial three-button, letting yuou then select them.
Other than just being surprised by the result, I guess it intrigued me because for a while I've wished I could have qualifier key type control over things like menu's. It just fits my notion of organization a little better than lot's of top level menus, OR deeply nested menu's of stuff.
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About that, I've often wished that I could get different menu's to appear by hitting something like <Ctrl+RMB> that would show me for instance a specific menu of just 'Copy' related functions. This weird little goof I noticed ~sort~ of gives you that (though for buttons, not context menus, and based on mouse clicks and not qual keys).
Again, it only seemed 'cool' to me because of where my head is at about current options to organize menus and such... I've built up QUITE the collection of buttons and context menu entries over the years, and navigating around them can be a PITA sometimes even with the current flexibility Opus provides in organizing it all. It's another of those ironic "damn you Opus for letting me do so much" sort of moments for me... On the one hand, I want something at a relative 'top level' but then build up so much stuff I have to break it down into menu's to keep the most often used things quickly accessible at a glance at the top level.
And actually, I just realized you could put menu buttons as items under three-button buttons.
Don't pay me any mind, I just found this cool program called Directory Opus and am spouting off off about it. Have mercy and let me indulge my inner geekness will ya...
I see what you mean, that's quite cool. Basically if you nest three way buttons within anoither than you end up with a three-way menu. By actually putting menus within the three way button you're getting this functionality quite well. The only real problem with this is that it lacks the menu functionality you get in any standard form when you press Alt. This is still of interest though.
Do you get this with normal toolbar menu buttons anyway?
Anyhow... I've submitted a feature request to get 'actual' support for three-button MENU's in Opus. At the moment putting menu's under three-button BUTTONS is still a kluge... the child menu's contents are offset slightly from the parent button so that they are mis-aligned, and clicking Alt+LMB to quick edit buttons under the child menu's brings up the button editor ok, but changes are not saved after OK'ing out...
But this could greatly refine my toolbars to be less busy on top, while not otherwise nesting them too deep with more and more sub-menus or making them very long and flat at the first level under each menu button... which gets annoying.
I agree steje, this is a cool discovery, one I'd never tried myself before now. I also agree that it's a bid kludgy at the moment, I've noticed button commands don't always "take" when I switch to advanced view to program a button in a menu under a 3 button button. But that's ok, it basically works and now thanks to your discovery I've cleaned up some more screen real estate for me.
Yeah, the screen real estate benefit is nice, particularly because as I otherwise 'move' toolbar menus underneath 'other' toolbar menus to clear up the top level of the toolbar I wind up with large sub-menus which are not so ergonomic (particularly on laptop while travelling) and sometimes a PITA to navigate. Deeply 'nesting' them is just the same 'problem' in different form insofar as navigating... and though some of the menus are things I use often enough to warrant a place on the top level of the toolbar... well... that just violates my sense of Opus Feng Shui...
I do like three-button buttons, and even have one or two with menus, BUT...
whenever I want a new one, I can never remember hpw to do the darn things. It takes me hours to work it out again. I often find myself going back to Gus Wrethmans' Nero Toolbar tutorial, to get me started again.
Yeah, it's not really 'supposed' to work so when you are customizing a three-button button some of the 'new' options are greyed out. If you want to play with this, you need to have an existign three-button button or menu and drag it under another three-button. Only way to do it... and it does 'behave' funky in the way that the contents popup at an offset.
