commands

Own commands and the Start menu

As in Total Commander, you can give rCommander commands of your own: a program with the panel's files as parameters, a row of rCommander's commands one after the other, or another of your own commands. Each own command has a name em_..., can get a key, shows in the command palette and can stand in the Start menu, on the button bar and in an internal association. A * in front of a command line starts it as administrator on Windows.

The window

Configuration > Own commands... and Start > Change Start menu... (or Own commands and Change Start menu in the command palette) open one window with two tabs: Own commands and Start menu. Ctrl+Tab turns between them.

Own commands

The left side lists your commands with a filter (Filter by name, tooltip or command); the right side is the form of the command under the cursor. Insert (New) makes a new one, Enter saves the form, Delete or F8 deletes it after a question.

Field	What it holds
Name	em_ and up to 40 of a-z, 0-9 and _, such as em_notepad. A key binds to this name.
Kind	Program, Internal commands or Own command
Command	A program's path, or a name found on the search path - never in the panel's folder. For Internal commands: rows of the keymap or Total Commander's cm_ names, separated by commas, run one after the other (at most 16). For Own command: the name of another em_...
Parameters	The program's parameters with the placeholders below; ? in front asks for them before the start
Start folder	Where the program starts; empty means the panel's folder
Window	Normal, Minimized or Maximized
Run as administrator	Starts the program through Windows' administrator question (UAC); Windows only
Tooltip	Shown in the palette and the menus; the name when empty
Symbol	A .png or .ico, on Windows also an .exe or .dll with the icon's index; Browse... chooses the file, Choose symbol... one of rCommander's own symbols (Choosing a symbol), and the symbol shows beside it at the button bar's size. A button that runs the command shows it
Key	The key that runs the command; Add key... records one

Own commands may call each other, at most 8 levels deep; a circle is refused. rCommander keeps up to 512 own commands.

The Start menu

The Start menu sits in the menu bar after Configuration, as in Total Commander. At its top is Change Start menu..., below it your entries, submenus and separators. The Start menu tab edits them as a tree:

• A row is an Entry (a Title and a command, with the same fields as an own command), a Submenu (a title) or a Separator. & before a letter of the title makes it the entry's access key.
• Insert (Add) adds a row after the cursor, Enter saves the form, Delete or F8 deletes (a submenu with everything in it, after a question).
• Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down move a row, Ctrl+Right moves it into the submenu above, Ctrl+Left out of its own.

Submenus nest at most 8 levels; the menu keeps up to 512 rows. In rCommander's own drawn menu bar a submenu shows as a heading with its entries indented under it; the Windows menu bar shows real submenus.

Parameters

The Parameters field takes Total Commander's placeholders:

Placeholder	Stands for
%P	The active panel's folder, with the separator at its end
%N	The name under the cursor
%T	The other panel's folder, with the separator
%M	The name under the cursor in the other panel
%O	The name under the cursor without its extension
%E	Its extension, without the dot
%S	All marked names, each in quotes when it has a space; without marks the name under the cursor
%R	The marked names of the other panel
%Q	Turns the quotes of %S and %R off
%Y	Without marks, %S stays empty instead of taking the name under the cursor
%L, %F	A list file with the marked files' full paths (%L) or names (%F), in the system's code page
%UL, %UF	The same list file in UTF-8
%WL, %WF	The same list file in UTF-16
%%	A literal %

Do not put quotes round %P%S yourself; %S quotes the names that need it. A name that does not fit the system's code page refuses %L and %F - use %UL or %UF. The list files lie in a folder only you can read and are removed when rCommander ends or at its next start, so a program that hands the file to an instance already running still finds it.

Environment variables such as %USERPROFILE% work in Command and Start folder; %COMMANDER_PATH% is rCommander's own folder.

? in front of the parameters shows them in a small Parameters window before the start: change them and press Run, or Cancel.

A placeholder needs a panel that shows a local folder: in an archive or on a server the command does not start and the status line says why.

How a program starts

• Without a shell. The program and its parameters go to the system directly, so a file name never becomes shell syntax: a name with & or ; stays a name. On Linux and macOS the parameters are split into words first and the names put in afterwards.
• Found on the search path, never in the panel's folder: a notepad.exe lying in the folder you look at is not the one that starts.
• Batch files (.bat, .cmd) on Windows refuse a name with one of % ^ & | < > " and start nothing, because Windows would read those characters as commands.
• A console program gets its console window, as in Total Commander.

Keys and the palette

Every own command and every Start menu entry can get a key: in the form's Key field, or on the Shortcuts tab of Settings, page Keyboard, with Add key for an own command... and Add key for a Start menu entry... - choose the command or entry, press Record key, then the key. A key bound to an own command keeps its em_... name, as in Total Commander.

The command palette lists each own command as Command: and each Start menu entry as Start: <title>.

Starting as administrator

On Windows, a * in front of a command starts it as administrator; Windows asks its own administrator question (UAC) first, and that question is the only one - there is no switch to skip it.

• In the command line, *cmd opens an administrator console in the panel's folder (Shift+Enter keeps it open afterwards); cmd is always Windows' own from System32, never one from the panel's folder. A folder on a mapped network drive is handed over by its network path, since a program started as administrator does not see your drive letters.
• In an own command, a button or a Start menu entry, tick Run as administrator.
• Cancelling Windows' question is not an error: the status line says nothing was started.

On Linux and macOS a * starts nothing and says Starting as administrator works on Windows only; rCommander never falls back to starting the program without the rights you asked for.

Importing from Total Commander

The import from Total Commander (Settings → Import → Import from Total Commander..., see Connections) also reads Own commands (usercmd.ini) and the Start menu ([user] in wincmd.ini) into its preview. Total Commander's cm_ names become rCommander's rows; one rCommander does not know stays as written and is named in the preview. The Start menu comes in under a submenu Imported from Total Commander. Keys of Start menu entries are not taken over - set them on the Shortcuts tab.

For AI assistants

An assistant can list your own commands and the Start menu over MCP and run an own command or an entry; running one asks you first, as every call that starts a program does. A command that starts as administrator, asks for its parameters with ?, or would get its parameters from the assistant runs only from the window. Making, changing and deleting own commands and Start menu rows is done in the window only, and an import over MCP writes none of them - which program runs is your choice.