Events

The Events tab lets you configure functions for file types that are initiated by various mouse events - double-click and drag and drop events. For example, you can configure Opus to run a different program for files when they're double-clicked and the Shift key is held down, or when they're double-clicked with the middle mouse button (if you have one). It's also possible to use this system to have different double-click behavior to Explorer - so that double-cilcking a file in Opus can behave quite differently to double-clicking it in Explorer.

The above screenshot shows an example of some events that have been configured for the Images file type group. The events that you can configure are:

• Drag-and-drop: What happens when you drag and drop a file to another folder.
• Left double-click: What happens when you double-click a file with the left mouse button.
• Middle double-click: What happens when you double-click a file with the middle mouse button.

These three events can also be configured separately depending on whether the Alt, Ctrl or Shift keys are held down. There are no right button double-click events as the right button is used for Context Menus. You can also add items to the drag and drop context menu (the menu displayed when you drag a file with the right mouse button) on the Drop Menu tab.

Whenever one of the above events occurs, Opus searches your configured file types looking for a configured action. File types are searched in the following order:

1. The specific file type for that file (e.g. for a .jpg file this might be the JPEG Image file type)
2. The file type group that contains that file extension (e.g. Images)
3. The Recognized images file type if the file is a recognized image file
4. The All files file type (or for a folder, All folders)
5. The All files and folders file type.

The first, most specific, file type found that has a function defined for that event is the one used.

To edit the event for a file type, select the event from the list and click the Edit button at the bottom of the page (or double-click the event in the list). The event editor is a variant of the standard command editor, so please see the Command Editor page for instructions on how to define a command.

You can also right-click on the items in the events list to display a context menu for the event. This context menu lets you use Copy and Paste to copy the definition from one event to another.

The events system can be very useful; with a bit of careful thought and configuration it's possibly to really streamline your workflow. To take the above screenshot as an example, four events have been configured for the Images group (meaning they will act on any file type added to that group).

1. The Drag-and-drop + Ctrl event has been configured to convert images to PNG format when you hold the Ctrl key and drop them in a folder.
   
   
   
   The function used for this is Image CONVERT=png. This invokes the Image Conversion function and specifies an output format of PNG. Because the output format has been specified on the command line, the image conversion dialog will not appear - instead the dropped file will be immediately saved to the target folder in PNG format.
   
   
2. The Left double-click event has been configured to open the file in the internal Opus viewer when the file is double-clicked.
   
   
   
   This event calls the internal Show command to view the image using the standalone image viewer. This lets you double-click images in Opus to preview them quickly in its own viewer, but doesn't have any effect on what happens when you double-click an image file outside of Opus.
   
   
3. The Left double-click + Ctrl event has been configured to open the file in Photoshop when the file is double-clicked and the Ctrl key is held down.
   
   
   
   This event runs the external function "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5 (64 Bit)\Photoshop.exe" %1 to open the file in Photoshop. The %1 control code is used to pass the filename to Photoshop.exe.
   
   
4. Finally, the Middle double-click event has been configured to open the file in the standard Windows image viewer when the file is double-clicked with the middle mouse button.
   
   
   
   This events runs the external function C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe "C:\Program Files\Windows Photo Viewer\PhotoViewer.dll", ImageView_Fullscreen %1 which invokes the Windows photo viewer. The name of the file is passed to the application using the %1 control code.