Feature: Support custom args for actions

[yaira2]

What feature or improvement do you think would benefit Files?

With the introduction of custom key-bindings in version 3.4, it's a good time to start considering how we want to implement support for custom arguments in actions.

Requirements

• Adjust actions to support custom args
• Support adding args via the actions page
• Support variables (eg {CurrentDirectory})

Use cases for this feature

• Apply tag by specifying a tag name
• Open item in program
• Open path
• Open tab
• Create item with specific file extension
• Create shortcut Feature: Create a folder shortcut by dragging from the path bar #15557
• Focus specific tab in Info Pane Toggle of Preview/Details/Info pane changes #16045

Files Version

v3.3

Windows Version

Windows 11

Comments

No response

[yaira2]

A good use case for this is applying custom tags (see #11352)

[yaira2]

One thing to consider is how to handle validation. Should there just be a TextBox for inputting args or should it be more specific (eg. a dropdown with a list of tags)?

[0x5bfa]

The latter should be more secure but needs to store a collection(it won' be a big deal I assume).

[yaira2]

Secure as in making sure it's a valid arg?

[0x5bfa]

Yes. If it's just a TextBox we don't have a way to notify user of syntax errors and user would be confused why it doesn't work.

[yaira2]

This feature would be targeting advanced users but it's still something to consider.

[yaira2]

We've discussed this internally and we're leaning towards including validation, we will probably need the following types, but they can be added as needed.

• path
• file extension
• tag name
• username (for RunAsUser)
• archive format (for compressing files)

[0x5bfa]

Great idea. I thought it was nice to have selector box but we cannot list up every file extension. It might be better to use AutoSuggestBox, validate input and show errors if any, like a Branch selector in GitHub(it enables me to select or create it if doesn't exist).

In current implementation of Actions makes us hard to implement error handling like above but we can use hot key editor dialog, put the parameter text box into that, show error text in red like a password box of web auth (like Google Login), after settings tabs done.

For file extensions, doesn't need to validate but for tags or even username we might have to check if it exists and show errors or warnings(maybe don't have to prevent?).

[yaira2]

I thought it was nice to have selector box but we cannot list up every file extension

I think for file extensions it would only need to make sure there are no spaces or unsupported characters in the text field.

for tags or even username we might have to check if it exists and show errors or warnings(maybe don't have to prevent?).

I was thinking along the same lines...