On Windows 10, I had created a button in the menu that called a python script (see project). I had managed to do this by modifying values in the registry editor.
My button still appears on Windows 11 but only on the old menu and not the new one. You must now click on “More option” to display all the options.
I know it's possible to disable it on the new menu but I don't want to, I really want to add a button on the new. I think it is possible by modifying data in the register editor.
Microsoft changed Windows 11 on purpose to prevent people from easily adding entries to the context menu.
The only way to display your item in the new context menu is to implement a IExplorerCommand COM object and on top of that, your application needs to be packaged (app identity with a sparse manifest) and signed with a valid certificate.
This was announced on the Windows blog last year in this post.
A tool that allows you to add elements on new context menu
https://github.com/ikas-mc/ContextMenuForWindows11
In decarbonizing I have now come to creating a menubar programmatically using NSMenu.
Carbon seems to be so nice to add standard items to the application menu: Services, Hide app, Hide Others, Show All, Quit app,
and they are even added using the user’s Preferred Language setting in System Preferences’s Language & Region,
so in German Hide Others is added as Andere ausblenden.
I only had to add the About and Preferences items.
However, it seems that in Cocoa I have to add these standard items myself,
but how can I find out what Hide Others is called in the user’s Preferred Language ?
And what is the Cocoa equivalent of CreateStandardWindowMenu ?
If you have Xcode create a new Cocoa application project, it will make a MainMenu.xib that you can examine. It looks like "Hide Others", "Quit" etc. are just menu items with particular actions assigned, but "Services" seems to have some special magic. Even if you don't want to present a whole menu bar from a nib, you could load it from a nib and then pick out certain menu items and move them to another menu, rename them or whatever. Though I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to accomplish. Even if you don't want to localize, you can use a nib.
To address the last part of your revised question, the NSApplication object has a windowsMenu property, i.e., you could create a menu and say [NSApp setWindowsMenu: myMenu]. But I don't know if that adds items like Bring All to Front or if you must create those yourself.
I have created my mainmenu in one of my window xibs.
My application has multiple windows and the mainmenu should be the same for all of them.
But, for each window some of the items will be disabled and others enabled.
The main problem that I see is the selectors.
Since every window controller class (mm) implements some of the functions how can I use the interface builder to set the selectors across multiple controllers.
I guess I need some sort of a "MainMenu Manager" class that will know all of the window controllers that "wants" to get called from the main menu and also the manager will have the code for enabling/disabling items when switching between windows.
Does that make sense? am I missing something here?
If not - can you provide any help on implementing this manager in terms of application flow?
(It should probably init the main menu before I load my first application window)
Thanks,
Make the various targets and selectors properties of the window controllers, make the menubar in MainMenu.xib. Then bind the menu items' target and selector properties to "Application"mainWindow.windowController.property". You can bind other properties such as the title too.
I'd like to know if it ever makes sense to provide some functionality in a piece of software that is only available to the user through a context (right click) menu. It seems that in most software I've worked with the right click menu is always used as a quick way to get to features that are otherwise available from other buttons or menus.
Below is a screen shot of the UI I'm developing. The tree view on the right shows the user's library of catalogs. Users can create new catalogs, or add and remove existing catalogs to and from their library. Catalogs in their library can then be opened or closed, or set to read-only.
The screen shot shows the context menu I've created for the browser. Some commands can be executed independently from any specific catalog (New, Add). Yet the other commands must be applied to a specifically selected catalog (Close, Open, Remove, ReadOnly, Refresh, Clean UP, Rename).
Currently the "Catalog" menu at the top of the window looks identical to this context menu. Yet I think this may be confusing to the users as the tree view which shows the currently selected catalog may not always be visible. The user may have switched to the Search or Filters tab, or the left pane may be hidden entirely.
However, I'm hesitant to change the UI so that the commands that depends on a specifically selected catalog are only available through the context menu.
The Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines for Windows 7 and Windows Vista states (pg233):
“Don’t make commands only available through context menus. Like shortcut keys, context menus are alternative means of performing commands and choosing options.”
The Apple Human Interface Guidelines states (pg189):
“Always ensure that contextual menu items are also available as [pulldown] menu commands. A contextual menu is hidden by default and a user might not know it exists, so it should never be the only way to access a command.”
In your case, opening and closing the catalogue appears already available through the +/- buttons in the tree itself, so you’re already consistent with the Windows guidelines, if not the Apple guidelines. IMO, the only reason to put them on the context menu at all is if they're the default (double-click) action (which they're not right now). Rename may also already be available by directly selecting the name of a selected catalog, but you may want a pulldown menu item for that any way since that may be no more discoverable than the context menu. The rest of the commands probably belong on a pulldown menu in addition to the context menu.
As far as the Catalog pulldown menu being redundant with the Catalog context menu, you may want to consider organizing your pulldown menus by type of action, rather than class of object, in order to provide an alternative organization. As you’ve realized, context menus already organize commands by class of object. In addition to providing an alternative organization that some of you users may find more intuitive, this may simplify your menubar. For example, rather than a Catalog and Family menus, you can have a single Edit menu with Add, Delete, Rename, Copy, etc. where these commands apply to whatever is selected, whether it be a catalog, folder, or family. If they don't apply to the current selection, they're disabled, but if it makes any sense in your app, make them apply.
BTW, what’s the difference between Add Catalog and New Catalog?
In general, it's a bad idea to have menu items accessible only through a contextual menu. Many users may not think to right click on an item to find out what actions can be performed on an item.
From your description, it sounds like it would make sense to have a 'Catalog' menu that disables menu options that are not currently relevant. For example, if no catalog is open, the 'Close' menu item would be greyed out. Similarly, the 'Open', 'Remove', 'Refresh', etc. items would be greyed out if no catalog is selected.
I suppose this depends on your user base, and who you're targetting your software at. Personally I wouldn't expect the user to be able to deduce what functionality is available when it is essentially "hidden" until they right-click on the correct item.
If it were me, I'd have a toolbar shown with the functionality exposed on there. By default the buttons would be disabled, and clicking on a node would enable the appropriate buttons based on the context. You could have this in addition to your current right-click options.
As a rule, I've always treated right-click menus as a redundant (i.e not necessary for operation of the software) shortcut to functionality for "power users".
I would leave the menu item out because the user doesn't have a way to see what catalog they are modifying if the treeview is hidden which can create problems if they think a different one is being shown.
Though, the accessible solution would be to trigger it with the keyboard also.
Yes. One key feature of UI is "discoverability": can the user find the function?
If you think that having a top-level menu doesn't make sense, based on the context, then you could have a menu button (scroll down) labelled (e.g.) "Actions" at the top of the pane.
I want to add an item into the Desktop context menu (the menu you see when you right-click on an empty space on the Windows Desktop).
Something like Catalyst Control Center in this screenshot:
I know how to add items to files' and folders' context menus through registry, but the Desktop seems to work differently: I didn't even find the text in the registry.
So, how can I add a new item into the Desktop menu and how can I associate some code with it?
I think the solution is language independent, if it's not, I'd appreciate any code that helps.
Such a handler must be registered in HKCR\Directory\Background, instead of usual locations like HKCR\Directory, HKCR\Folder, etc.
Check out Creating Shell Extension Handlers in MSDN.
There's a series of articles on CodeProject that details writing Shell Extensions and is very good:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/shell/shellextguide1.aspx