Menu
▾
▴
#156 Windows context menu in result table
Hello, first I've to say, DocFetcher has a very good search engine!
But at the end after the regarding files are found, I'm missing to open the standard windows context menu (normally openable by right click on a file).
This would be a very usefull feature for the further processing.
Thanks,
Heiko
Sorry, the headline is a little bit confusing. Better would be "Windows Context Menu". Could somebody change it please?
Hi,
I'm not sure what this feature request is about. Do you mean replicating the file context menu from the Windows explorer in DocFetcher's result table? Doing so would require a huge amount of programming effort, and besides, DocFetcher is supposed to be mostly platform-independent, not tied to Windows.
Best regards
q:-) <= Quang
Hello Quang,
yes, I like to get the context menu from windows explorer, but is it really necessary to "copy" or reemplement it in java?
Is it not possible to call the OS (Windows and maybe also Linux) to open it's context menu?
Here I found a forum's discussion about this topic, which could help:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3247033/how-can-i-use-the-systems-context-menu-for-files-in-a-java-application
Best regards,
Heiko
This feature is a lot more work-intensive than you think...
The question at StackOverflow has two answers. One of them is basic stuff everyone working with the SWT library knows. The other one hints at a Windows-only solution involving native calls and COM. Going down that route is going to be complicated and messy, and afterwards somebody has to maintain the mess.
As for Linux, it's very likely that a different solution is needed for each desktop environment (GNOME, KDE, etc.), and macOS is an entirely different beast. Again, whatever mess is created for these platforms has to be maintained indefinitely.
Also, the StackOverflow answer suggests subclassing the Menu component, which is explicitly discouraged by the SWT developers because internal changes in SWT could break the feature at any time.
What a pitty! I thought there is a easier way, but I'm not familiar with Java and its libraries.
What's about an alternative way to build a bridge from the result list to an external programm via Drag and Drop?
Is this a possible multi-OS way selecting multiple files in the results list and dragging+dropping them into an other program (an editor for example)?
DocFetcher is very cool to search text and find files, but after that the further workflow with the found files is quite limited...
Last edit: Heiko Kuester 2020-09-17
If you're talking about a text editor, you can copy the files from DocFetcher and paste them as file paths into the text editor.
If you're talking about any other kind of editor, that would at least require the other editor to accept dropped files. Try dragging files from Windows Explorer into it and see if it works.
Last edit: Nam-Quang Tran 2020-09-18
In Windows it's a normal way to drag multiple files and to drop them into a program's window or desktop icon to open them. "Dropping to open" works with every Windows-compliant program.
The alternative way is to copy the path text into the file open selector box of the target program, but there are also pitfalls at the moment (see https://sourceforge.net/p/docfetcher/feature-requests/157/).
The other alternative way opening multiple files is the context-open function in DocFetcher, but this opens the files with the standard program of the OS, which is not always wanted.
Sometime you want to open the files with an other (non-standard) program or with an extra instance of a program.
For better understanding here is a discription of my use case:
In my daily work, I'm developing products with multiple IDE tools similar to eclipse, but this IDEs have not a good file search/index engine.
I've three IDEs for Logic (VHDL) Development und Simulation, one for Software Development and furthermore a normal text editor.
Now I like to use DocFetcher to find the wanted files (sometimes many files and sometimes with spaces in file names/paths) and then to open them with the current wanted IDE.
DocFetcher is a really cool stuff to find files, but for this use case the further work flow (open to edit) is with more manual effort (e.g. opening file by file or adding quotation marks in file selector box or ...)
Last edit: Heiko Kuester 2020-09-18
I think what you really want is a customizable "Open With..." submenu in the context menu of DocFetcher's result table. DocFetcher's preferences dialog would then have a new subsection where you could add programs to the "Open With..." submenu. Is my understanding correct?
On a related note, the open-source DocFetcher project is not being developed anymore (except for occasional bugfixes), but a commercial version called DocFetcher Pro is planned for 2021. For info about the pricing model, see this forum thread. The above "Open With..." submenu feature is not too hard to implement and looks like a reasonable feature for DocFetcher Pro.
Yes, a "open with..." sounds good.
I'm looking forward to DocFetcher Pro.
Thanks for your good support!