Programming a folder browser

[lieven]

Hi,

I'm a programmer for 3D animators. That's why we have lot's of network drives, and people have to jump to their favorite folders all the time. They have to do this a lot, everytime the same 3 or 4 directories (e.g. source jpg's on one place, work files on another place and rendered files on a third place...).
Browsing is time-consuming, certainly when there's a directory structure of sometimes 15 subfolders. I want to develop my own "folder express", or "chameleon folder", if you know these programs.
Saying it differently, I would like to have shortcuts to directories in my right click menu. When people are in windwos explorer they just have to right click, and click there favorite folder, to browse directly.

I surfed already for 5 days the internet to find a solution for my problem. Many solutions, but not the ones I'm looking for... What I want to do is adding a menu item in the context menu of windows explorer. This Item should be a sort of "browse to" item. When I am in explorer and I right click the directory background, the menu should pop up, and then I should be able to browse to (for example) c:\temp or c:\windows...
What I ***don't*** want to do (as the internet offers these solutions) is:
- rightclicking on a file or a directory, no I want to click on the background, the white area of a directory in windows explore
- I don't want to add an item like "copy to" or "move to", it should be something like "browse to"
- I don't want to add an option to empty the recycler bin or so...
I think I'm close to the solution:
The registry entries are found in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shellex\Con textMenuHandlers
in order to customize the menu-items of the directory-background-right-click-menu (what's it called anyway)
I think it will be already a huge step forward if I could just boot explorer.exe or another application.

I'm not very experienced with editing the registry, but I've tried already to add a key with the several names (for now it is "explore"), and in this key there's a default value and another key, with the name "command" in this key, I've putted the value "explorer.exe".
But nope, not working...
I think I should find the correct guid (if it exists for browsing files) like many tutorials teach me on the internet for adding "the empty recycle bin" option: Just add a key on the location above, with any name, and put {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} as a value there. And all of a sudden the "empty recycle bin"-option appears...I've already found a sort of "IShellBrowser", can I use this guid, or what should I do?
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{000214E2-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}

Or can somebody imagine another way of programming this? I was thinking about programming a service which adds functionality to the scroll button-click, and which creates a new menu?

I just don't love windows...

Anyway, I can program in Java and in VB.NET. C++ is a long time ago, but I still should manage to do it. I don't think my Cobol85 will help me out here... ;-)

Somebody out there any ideas? Curious for your reactions.
Thanks in advance,
Lieven

[MeTh0Dz]

Couldn't you just hook explorer or whatever program it is and then keep track of when there are right clicks and then open up your menu.

Or you could have a program that watches all currently active programs and it notifies it self when explorer or whatever opens up. Then it just keeps track of right clicks in a certain window, or 'x, y' plane. Which you could get from getting the foreground window, or by using system metrics.

[MeTh0Dz]

Sorry for the double post, but this just came to my mind. As far as finding actual files and subdirectories, you will probably end up needing to use... FindFirstFile() and FindNextFile(). That is unless you are just hardcoding a few paths in or something, just thought I'd share that.

[lieven]

hey, thanks for your reply!

what do you mean by "hook explorer"

Is your suggestion creating a service who will keep an eye on every application in windows and when the right-click event in explorer happens, create a menu more? Because perhaps I'm not understanding it?
Isn't it difficult to replace the normal right click menu then by a self-created one?

Thanks!
Lieven

[MeTh0Dz]

You wouldn't be creating a service. Basically you would be hooking the application, and then watching to see when the user right clicked. At that time you would want to produce your menu. Obviously there is going to be a lot of logistical stuff involved with doing this.

[lieven]

Ok, Thanks for your reply, I'll try to search and look up what hooking exactly is, and how to do it