The File Type Editor lets you configure the traditional Windows System File Types with Opus extensions plus it gives you access to special features available only from within Opus. These include Directory Opus File Types and File Type Groups.
The dialog uses an Opus FlatList control instead of the standard list display which allows the special Directory Opus File Types to be kept separate from the System File Types. The second section is the File Type Groups category. File Type Groups are just that - groups of file types. They are defined by file extension in exactly the same way that normal File Types are defined. File Type Groups are used by the Content Type system, and also let you configure tooltips (called InfoTips) for groups of common file types. The Group column displays the current group (if any) for each individual File Type and lets you change a file type’s group membership without having to edit the file type itself.
In the same manner as other Opus dialogs, the File Types dialog has a File menu which provides commands for exporting and importing Opus File Types. You can export a single File Type or all File Types - note that only the Opus-specific elements are exported. This can be very useful if, for instance, you want to send someone your context menu definition for a certain type of file.
The Edit button allows you to edit the selected file type. The New button has a drop-down menu attached -select to create either a new File Type or a new File Type Group. The Copy button lets you make a new copy of the currently selected file type; the Delete button lets you delete the currently selected file type; and the Find button lets you search all file types for text strings by extension, description, content type and Open With.
For normal System File Types, the Change button lets you change the default program used to open them without having to go through the full File Type editor. This system also lets you edit the Open With menu that otherwise Windows does not let you modify without editing the Registry.
For Windows System file types, you can quickly assign these to an Opus File Type Group by clicking in the group column on the right of the file type to access a popup menu of the currently available groups.
Editing a File Type
When you double-click a File type or highlight one and click the Edit button, the Edit File Type dialog is displayed. On the surface, this appears very similar to the Windows file type editing system. You can add and delete extensions from the file type, and also change the MIME Content Type field.
File Type Tab
The File Type Editor consists of a number of parts; one showing the actual file type definition or class, one showing the possible events or user actions, and one detailing the corresponding commands each action will perform. This varies slightly for Opus File Types which have no associated Actions tab.
There are four different classes of action you may adjust:
• Actions
These are the standard actions that are available in Explorer and Opus, including Open, Open With, Explore, Find, Print and Print To. When setting these actions for a Windows file type, the dialog is very similar to the one that appears in Windows Explorer. It lets you configure the label, command, and DDE options.
• Events
These are actions that are only available in Opus, and include double-click with various qualifier keys (double-click by itself is defined by the Open event), double-click with the middle mouse button, and four drag and drop events. These actions have no effect at all in Windows/Explorer. Double-click on the event to display an editor where it may define Opus commands for this function in a similar manner to editing buttons.
• Context Menu
The Context Menu page lets you configure the items that will appear on the context menu for selected files. You can choose to add context menu items which are supported by Windows or which are Opus-specific. Both of these will appear inside Opus but Explorer will only show the supported Windows items.
Windows allows external programs to add items to the context menu of all or selected files. After you have installed a number of programs these can build up and become distracting. From Preferences - Miscellaneous you can select to show only the Opus-specific menu items for the file context menu if you wish.
► As with a number of other controls within Opus, if you hold down the Shift key when accessing the menu, Opus will invert the defined behavior.
• Drop Menu
This lets you add items to the drag and drop menu (the menu that appears when you drag with the right mouse button). You can add items to both Opus and Windows file types, but they will only appear when the file is dropped onto an Opus Lister; Explorer does not support this.
Both the Context Menu and
Drop Menu tabs allow you to place menu items in sub-menus. This is only
supported within Directory Opus – if you create Windows-compatible context menu
items inside a sub-menu, they will not appear in a sub-menu in
Explorer.
To create a sub-menu, add a New item as normal, and set the
type to Sub-menu. Any further context menu items you add below this will
appear indented, as they are now part of the sub-menu. To end a sub-menu and
return to the previous level, right-click the last item and choose Decrease
Indent.
File Colors Tab
The File Colors tab lets you override file display colors on a per-filetype basis. For example, you might want all ZIP files to appear green when unselected – so you would locate the ZIP FileType, turn on the Override default display colors option and set the unselected text color to green.
Info Tip Tab
The Info Tip tab lets you configure the tooltip that is displayed when the mouse hovers over a file of this type (or in the case of a File Type Group, a member of the group). Opus will automatically create InfoTips for the default File Type Groups. You can use any of the standard Lister information fields for InfoTips, as well as several special fields:
• {foldersize} displays the size of a folder; it will automatically calculate the size of the folder even if folder size counting is not enabled by default
• {foldercontents} displays a brief summary of the contents of a folder
• {thumbnail} displays a thumbnail image in the tooltip itself, for any image format recognized by Opus
• {infotip} displays the system-provided InfoTip (if there is one) for this type of file. This can be useful if you have third-party context extensions installed that provide InfoTip information.
If information for the specified field is not available then the entire line is omitted from the displayed InfoTip - so in the example shown, a JPEG containing EXIF tags might display all the specified information, whereas a GIF image would probably only display the first line (the file description and the image thumbnail).
You can also conditionally include text based on the presence of two fields. This is useful if you want to combine two fields on the one line, with text between them. If only one of the fields exist, the conditional text will not be displayed. For example,
{!prodname&prodversion} – {!}
This would include the “ - “ if, and only if, both the Product Name and Product Version fields were present.
InfoTips support simple html mark-up for text styles. Supported tags are <b> for bold, <i> for italics and <u> for underline. You can also use the font tag to change color, but not the font. For example, <font color=#ff8000> would set the text color to orange. A shortcut for the font color tag is <#aabbcc>.
Tiles Mode Tab
The Tiles Mode tab lets you configure the information that is displayed for a class of file in Tiles Mode. This works in a very similar way to the Info Tip tab.