FileActionsManager

This program allows to create context menu actions in the Windows file explorer using configuration files.

The main purpose of FileActionsManager is to allow easy installation of the action and associated standalone program, if any, on several machines. If you are looking to manually configure file type actions using a nice GUI, see FileTypesMan from Nirsoft instead.

How to use

General use

When opening a configuration file with FileActionsManager, the program will offer to register the provided context menu action, or unregister it if the action is already registered.

Otherwise, FileActionsManager offers to associate or unassociate itself with .seinf files.

Configuration file syntax

FileActionsManager works using INI files with the .seinf file extension. The following example creates an action to optimize various image formats with RIOT.

[ShellExtension]
Ext=bmp,png,gif,jpg
Name=optimizeimagesize
DisplayName=Optimize image size
Command=Riot.exe "%1"
Requires=Riot.exe,FreeImage.dll
Default=false

Each field has the following purpose:

• Ext: A list of comma-separated file extensions for which the action needs to be created.
• Name: Internal name of the action, must be unique to avoid overwriting another action.
• DisplayName: The label displayed in file context menu inside Windows Explorer.
• Command: The command associated with the action, as typed in cmd.exe for instance.
• Requires: Optional. Files required for the action to work. See below for details.
• Default: Optional. Defines whether the action will become the default action (default: false).

Remark: Some built-in file types in Windows do not have a default action set. Adding a new non-default action to such a file type may make it appear as default since Windows will pick the first action as default when no default action was specified in registry. As a workaround, you can use an action name like zzmyaction.

Providing additional files with Requires

When using the Requires feature, FileActionsManager will look for the required files in the same directory as your .seinf file. For instance, the following architecture is valid:

OptimizeImages
 |- OptimizeImages.seinf
 |- FreeImage.dll
 `- Riot.exe

When opening OptimizeImages.seinf, FileActionsManager will copy FreeImage.dll and Riot.exe to %appdata%\ShellExtensions. Furthermore, the Command will be adapted to the full path to Riot.exe before being set in registry.

It is possible to share the same executable between two actions, for instance it is possible to provide ffmpeg.exe with both ConvertMP3.seinf and ConvertAAC.seinf. ffmpeg.exe will be stored in %appdata%\ShellExtensions, keeping track of which actions depends on ffmpeg.exe. The executable will be deleted only when the last action requiring it is removed.

Different executables or libraries with the same name are not handled since only one version is stored.

Command-line usage

Alternatively to configuration files, FileActionsConsole can be used to register and remove file actions:

:: Usage
FileActionsConsole.exe add <extension(s)> <internal name> <display name> <command> [default=false]
FileActionsConsole.exe del <extension(s)> <internal name>

:: Example
FileActionsConsole.exe add bmp,png,gif,jpg optimizeimagesize "Optimize image size" "Riot.exe "%1""
FileActionsConsole.exe del bmp,png,gif,jpg optimizeimagesize

The command-line utility does not support additional files, you'll have to install them by other means. If you do not need FileActionsConsole.exe, you can safely delete it as it is fully independent from FileActionsManager.exe

How it works

File types in the Windows registry

FileActionsManager works by manipulating software classes defined in registry with the Registry editor. These are stored in two places:

• System-wide file types are defined in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
• Users-defined file types are defined in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes

As user-defined file types will override system-wide file types, FileActionsManager will copy file type information to the current user section of the registry when installing a new context menu action. This way, no administrator privileges are required since only the HKEY_CURRENT_USER section of the registry is opened for writing.

See How to add context menu item to Windows Explorer for more details.

Additional dependencies

When specifying a dependency withRequires, FileActionsManager will copy the file in the Application Data folder of the current user: %appdata%\ShellExtensions.

A file called deps.ini is used to track dependencies. This INI file contains a reverse index of actions for each file present in the directory. When the last action item is removed, the file is deleted.

[Dependencies]
Ffmpeg.exe=aacconvert,mp3convert
Riot.exe=optimizeimagesize
Freeimage.dll=optimizeimagesize

Credits

The following icons are used within FileActionsManager:

• Buuf icons by Mattahan: Text Editor icon
• Buuf icons by Mattahan: Menu icon

These icons are licensed under CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0.

License

FileActionsManager is provided under CDDL-1.0 (Why?).

Basically, you can use it or its source for any project, free or commercial, but if you improve it or fix issues, the license requires you to contribute back by submitting a pull request with your improved version of the code. Also, credit must be given to the original project, and license notices may not be removed from the code.