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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Shell Extensions - Index

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1 Jun 2002 772.3K   381   131
An index of all the articles in the Idiot's Guide

Since the Idiot's Guide series has become quite large, here is an index of all the articles that gives a quick blurb about each one, so you can quickly find the articles that interest you.

Some other dedicated folks are writing translations of the Guide. Here are the published translations:


Part I - A step-by-step tutorial on writing shell extensions

 [Part 1 screen shot - 9K]

Part I is a simple overview of shell extensions, and discusses how to debug them. The sample extension illustrates adding items to the context menu for text files.

Part II - A tutorial on writing a shell extension that operates on multiple files at once

 [Part 2 screen shot - 5K]

Part II demonstrates how to write a context menu extension that operates on all of the selected files at once. The sample project is a utility that adds registration and unregistration commands to the context menus for DLLs.

Part III - A tutorial on writing a shell extension that shows pop-up info for files

 [Part 3 screen shot - 6K]

Part III demonstrates the QueryInfo extension that customizes the infotip for text files. It also explains how to use MFC in a shell extension.

Part IV - A tutorial on writing a shell extension that provides custom drag and drop functionality

 [Part 4 screen shot - 12K]

Part IV shows how to add items to the menu displayed when the user drags and drops with the right mouse button in Explorer. The sample project is a utility that makes hard links for files. (Note: the extension is functional only on Windows 2000, but you can still compile and run the extension on previous versions of Windows. See the article for instructions.)

Part V - A tutorial on writing a shell extension that adds pages to the properties dialog of files

 [Part 5 screen shot - 23K]

Part V demonstrates how to add new pages to Explorer's Properties dialog. The sample project adds a page on which you can edit the created, modified, and last accessed times of files.

Part VI - A tutorial on writing a shell extension that can be used on the Send To menu

 [Part 6 screen shot - 9K]

Part VI discusses a drop handler extension that gets added to the SendTo menu. The sample project is a clone of the Send To Any Folder power toy.

Part VII - A tutorial on using owner-drawn menus in a context menu shell extensions, and on making a context menu extension that responds to a right-click in a directory background

 [Part 7 screen shot - 6K]

Part VII tackles two topics suggested by readers: owner-drawn menu items and the context menu for the background of directory windows. The sample project contains two extensions: a bitmap viewer (pictured above) that puts a thumbnail of BMP files in the context menu, and a simple extension that adds items to the context menu of directory backgrounds.

Part VIII - A tutorial on adding columns to Explorer's details view via a column handler shell extension

 [Part 8 screen shot - 6K]

Part VIII demonstrates how to add columns to the details view of Explorer on Windows 2000. The sample project adds a few columns that show ID3v1 tag data in MP3 files.. (This extension works only on Windows 2000.)

Part IX - A tutorial on writing an extension to customize the icons displayed for a file type.

 [Part 9 screen shot - 24K]

Part IX shows how to customize file icons on a file-by-file basis. The demo project is an extension that shows 4 different icons for text files, depending on the size of the file.

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here


Written By
Software Developer (Senior) VMware
United States United States
Michael lives in sunny Mountain View, California. He started programming with an Apple //e in 4th grade, graduated from UCLA with a math degree in 1994, and immediately landed a job as a QA engineer at Symantec, working on the Norton AntiVirus team. He pretty much taught himself Windows and MFC programming, and in 1999 he designed and coded a new interface for Norton AntiVirus 2000.
Mike has been a a developer at Napster and at his own lil' startup, Zabersoft, a development company he co-founded with offices in Los Angeles and Odense, Denmark. Mike is now a senior engineer at VMware.

He also enjoys his hobbies of playing pinball, bike riding, photography, and Domion on Friday nights (current favorite combo: Village + double Pirate Ship). He would get his own snooker table too if they weren't so darn big! He is also sad that he's forgotten the languages he's studied: French, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese.

Mike was a VC MVP from 2005 to 2009.

Comments and Discussions

 
GeneralRe: 高手!(chinese) Pin
anonymous118-Aug-02 4:37
anonymous118-Aug-02 4:37 
GeneralRe: 高手!(chinese) Pin
Michael Dunn18-Aug-02 4:54
sitebuilderMichael Dunn18-Aug-02 4:54 
GeneralChange Directory (cd) Pin
5-Dec-01 0:50
suss5-Dec-01 0:50 
GeneralNamespace extensions in "Open" and "Save As" dialog boxes Pin
reverendshoebox8-Nov-01 2:20
reverendshoebox8-Nov-01 2:20 
GeneralRe: Namespace extensions in "Open" and "Save As" dialog boxes Pin
Michael Dunn24-Dec-01 19:03
sitebuilderMichael Dunn24-Dec-01 19:03 
QuestionAnother way of handling custom clipboard formats? Pin
reverendshoebox12-Oct-01 4:29
reverendshoebox12-Oct-01 4:29 
AnswerRe: Another way of handling custom clipboard formats? Pin
Michael Dunn13-Oct-01 20:51
sitebuilderMichael Dunn13-Oct-01 20:51 
GeneralRe: Another way of handling custom clipboard formats? Pin
reverendshoebox15-Oct-01 3:16
reverendshoebox15-Oct-01 3:16 
GeneralEmulate File System Pin
1-Oct-01 23:43
suss1-Oct-01 23:43 
GeneralRe: Emulate File System Pin
KneelZ16-Oct-01 3:00
KneelZ16-Oct-01 3:00 
GeneralRe: Emulate File System Pin
Michael Dunn16-Oct-01 7:57
sitebuilderMichael Dunn16-Oct-01 7:57 
GeneralDos boxes Pin
27-Sep-01 1:04
suss27-Sep-01 1:04 
GeneralRe: Dos boxes Pin
Michael Dunn27-Sep-01 8:09
sitebuilderMichael Dunn27-Sep-01 8:09 
QuestionIs MS Visual Studio needed?? Pin
21-Sep-01 1:44
suss21-Sep-01 1:44 
AnswerRe: Is MS Visual Studio needed?? Pin
Michael Dunn21-Sep-01 8:41
sitebuilderMichael Dunn21-Sep-01 8:41 
QuestionDoesn't link in Release Mode? Pin
Yoni30-Jun-01 4:28
Yoni30-Jun-01 4:28 
AnswerRe: Doesn't link in Release Mode? Pin
Michael Dunn30-Jun-01 12:44
sitebuilderMichael Dunn30-Jun-01 12:44 
GeneralRe: Doesn't link in Release Mode? Pin
Yoni30-Jun-01 17:51
Yoni30-Jun-01 17:51 
GeneralCreating User Namespaces Pin
28-Jun-01 9:05
suss28-Jun-01 9:05 
GeneralRe: Creating User Namespaces Pin
Michael Dunn29-Jun-01 22:44
sitebuilderMichael Dunn29-Jun-01 22:44 
Questionthumview/preview extension? Pin
29-May-01 13:57
suss29-May-01 13:57 
AnswerRe: thumview/preview extension? Pin
Michael Dunn29-May-01 14:47
sitebuilderMichael Dunn29-May-01 14:47 
GeneralGreat article series - but I need another part Pin
23-May-01 18:12
suss23-May-01 18:12 
GeneralRe: Great article series - but I need another part Pin
Michael Dunn23-May-01 19:19
sitebuilderMichael Dunn23-May-01 19:19 
GeneralRe: Great article series - but I need another part Pin
Thomas Freudenberg13-Jun-01 5:31
Thomas Freudenberg13-Jun-01 5:31 

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