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How to Use Submenus in a Context Menu Shell Extension

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14 Feb 20032 min read 273.6K   3K   78   59
How to manage submenus in a context menu extension

Submenus in a context menu extension

In this article, I'll cover a tricky aspect of context menu extensions - submenus. The approach most people take at first to creating submenus leads to odd behavior in Explorer, but once you know the trick to make Explorer manage the menu correctly, it's easy! This article assumes you have a good grasp of context menu extensions. If you need a refresher, see part 1 and part 2 of my shell extension series.

Adding a submenu

This article's extension is a simple Open With... submenu, which has two items, Notepad and Internet Explorer. It behaves like the enhanced Open With menu in XP, and opens the selected file in the program that you pick. This Open With menu will demonstrate how to properly create a submenu in an extension.

What you might try first

The first thing that comes to mind is to create a new menu with CreatePopupMenu() and insert it into the menu provided by Explorer.

HRESULT COpenWithCtxMenuExt::QueryContextMenu ( 
  HMENU hmenu, UINT uMenuIndex, UINT uidFirstCmd, UINT uidLastCmd, UINT uFlags )
{
    // If the flags include CMF_DEFAULTONLY then we shouldn't do anything.
    if ( uFlags & CMF_DEFAULTONLY )
        return MAKE_HRESULT ( SEVERITY_SUCCESS, FACILITY_NULL, 0 );

    // First, create and populate a submenu.
    HMENU hSubmenu = CreatePopupMenu();
    UINT uID = uidFirstCmd;

    InsertMenu ( hSubmenu, 0, MF_BYPOSITION, uID++, _T("&Notepad") );
    InsertMenu ( hSubmenu, 1, MF_BYPOSITION, uID++, _T("&Internet Explorer") );

    // Insert the submenu into the ctx menu provided by Explorer.
    <FONT color=red>InsertMenu ( hmenu, uMenuIndex, MF_BYPOSITION | MF_POPUP, 
                 (UINT_PTR) hSubmenu, _T("C&P Open With") );</FONT>

    return MAKE_HRESULT ( SEVERITY_SUCCESS, FACILITY_NULL, uID - uidFirstCmd );
}

This actually works fine for the context menu, however the context menu items you add are duplicated on Explorer's File menu. If you invoke the context menu repeatedly, you'll see leftover popups on the File menu:

 [Leftover submenus - 12K]

The cause is related to how Explorer cleans up its menus after extensions are invoked. The return value of QueryContextMenu() tells Explorer how many items we add, and Explorer cleans up by calculating the IDs of our items and deleting them. Explorer knows the ID of the first item (since it passes us the value as uidCmdFirst) and can calculate the IDs of the others since the IDs are assumed to be consecutive. However, the popup menu has no ID, so Explorer doesn't delete it.

The correct way

The secret is to insert the submenu using the InsertMenuItem() API. What's different about using InsertMenuItem() is that you can give the submenu an ID, which isn't possible when you use InsertMenu(). Here's the corrected QueryContextMenu() code.

HRESULT COpenWithCtxMenuExt::QueryContextMenu ( 
  HMENU hmenu, UINT uMenuIndex, UINT uidFirstCmd, UINT uidLastCmd, UINT uFlags )
{
    // If the flags include CMF_DEFAULTONLY then we shouldn't do anything.
    if ( uFlags & CMF_DEFAULTONLY )
        return MAKE_HRESULT ( SEVERITY_SUCCESS, FACILITY_NULL, 0 );

    // First, create and populate a submenu.
    HMENU hSubmenu = CreatePopupMenu();
    UINT uID = uidFirstCmd;

    InsertMenu ( hSubmenu, 0, MF_BYPOSITION, uID++, _T("&Notepad") );
    InsertMenu ( hSubmenu, 1, MF_BYPOSITION, uID++, _T("&Internet Explorer") );

    // Insert the submenu into the ctx menu provided by Explorer.
<FONT color=red>    MENUITEMINFO mii = { sizeof(MENUITEMINFO) };

    mii.fMask = MIIM_SUBMENU | MIIM_STRING | MIIM_ID;
    mii.wID = uID++;
    mii.hSubMenu = hSubmenu;
    mii.dwTypeData = _T("C&P Open With");</FONT>

    <FONT color=red>InsertMenuItem ( hmenu, uMenuIndex, TRUE, &mii );</FONT>

    return MAKE_HRESULT ( SEVERITY_SUCCESS, FACILITY_NULL, uID - uidFirstCmd );
}

The return value this time is 3, which tells Explorer that we inserted 3 items (the two Open With items, and the submenu itself). Since all 3 items have IDs, Explorer can delete them all and completely remove our items from its menu.

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

 
GeneralAdding command to the right click context menu in Windows XP Pin
Mr_Wilson_Wilson1-Dec-05 14:09
Mr_Wilson_Wilson1-Dec-05 14:09 
GeneralRe: Adding command to the right click context menu in Windows XP Pin
Michael Dunn16-Dec-05 10:06
sitebuilderMichael Dunn16-Dec-05 10:06 
GeneralVS 7.0 Pin
HansBys11-Jan-05 22:30
HansBys11-Jan-05 22:30 
GeneralRe: VS 7.0 Pin
Michael Dunn12-Jan-05 3:55
sitebuilderMichael Dunn12-Jan-05 3:55 
GeneralRe: VS 7.0 Pin
HansBys13-Jan-05 11:13
HansBys13-Jan-05 11:13 
GeneralThanks!!!!!!!!!! Pin
slowweb1-Jan-05 20:26
slowweb1-Jan-05 20:26 
Questionwhat about controls in IE Pin
windows_linuxOVL18-Oct-04 1:23
windows_linuxOVL18-Oct-04 1:23 
GeneralThank you! Thank you! Thank you! Pin
ivavit14-Oct-04 4:47
ivavit14-Oct-04 4:47 
GeneralPopup with icon Pin
CMaucho12-Jul-04 12:36
CMaucho12-Jul-04 12:36 
Generalcould this solve 'Copy to' / 'Move to' issue Pin
nothingnew28-Jun-04 20:42
nothingnew28-Jun-04 20:42 
GeneralRe: could this solve 'Copy to' / 'Move to' issue Pin
Michael Dunn29-Jun-04 6:15
sitebuilderMichael Dunn29-Jun-04 6:15 
GeneralRe: could this solve 'Copy to' / 'Move to' issue Pin
nothingnew29-Jun-04 7:49
nothingnew29-Jun-04 7:49 
QuestionDesktop menu? Pin
dragomir9-Apr-04 0:03
dragomir9-Apr-04 0:03 
AnswerRe: Desktop menu? Pin
Michael Dunn1-May-04 7:04
sitebuilderMichael Dunn1-May-04 7:04 
Generalthe rigth interface... Pin
gsegura27-May-03 12:57
gsegura27-May-03 12:57 
GeneralRe: the rigth interface... Pin
Michael Dunn27-May-03 18:25
sitebuilderMichael Dunn27-May-03 18:25 
QuestionAll well and dandy, but what about dynamic submenus? Pin
grigri20-Feb-03 3:39
grigri20-Feb-03 3:39 
AnswerRe: All well and dandy, but what about dynamic submenus? Pin
Michael Dunn22-Feb-03 15:45
sitebuilderMichael Dunn22-Feb-03 15:45 
GeneralRe: All well and dandy, but what about dynamic submenus? Pin
grigri23-Feb-03 2:11
grigri23-Feb-03 2:11 
GeneralRe: All well and dandy, but what about dynamic submenus? Pin
Michael Dunn7-Mar-03 10:26
sitebuilderMichael Dunn7-Mar-03 10:26 
GeneralRe: All well and dandy, but what about dynamic submenus? Pin
Paolo Messina7-Sep-03 14:03
professionalPaolo Messina7-Sep-03 14:03 
GeneralNice, but... Pin
Jeff J17-Feb-03 10:27
Jeff J17-Feb-03 10:27 
GeneralRe: Nice, but... Pin
Michael Dunn17-Feb-03 10:35
sitebuilderMichael Dunn17-Feb-03 10:35 
GeneralRe: Nice, but... Pin
Jeff J17-Feb-03 16:01
Jeff J17-Feb-03 16:01 
GeneralRe: Nice, but... Pin
Roger Allen18-Feb-03 3:36
Roger Allen18-Feb-03 3:36 

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